I remember the plane, the gate delay. My bag slung over my shoulder, and the feeling of Logan’s hand gripping mine, hard and brief, before I boarded. I remember texting Carina.
Me:On my way.
Me:Tell me he’s okay.
Me:Tell me he’s still here.
Now my legs move as though they remember more than I do. Past the front desk, past the security guard who recognizes me but says nothing. I take the elevator up three floors, turn down a hallway I shouldn’t know, and walk straight toward the door the nurse directed me to.
It’s open just enough for the light to spill out in a narrow, golden arc. I reach for it—and hesitate. My hand hovers on the frame, and I take a breath.
When I open it, the room is quiet.
The monitors are on, but not screaming. Just blinking, a continuous pulse of artificial rhythm and low sound. It feels like the kind of quiet that’s only loud when you’re praying to hear something more.
Harry’s lying in the bed, still and impossibly small beneath the thin hospital blanket. His hands are folded on top of his chest, rough and familiar with a tiny bit of garden dirt under his nails. I know every scar on them, every freckle.
I know how they used to throw a ball with me in the backyard. How they gripped my shoulder when I was first drafted. How they built a treehouse with me that he swore would still be there long after both of us were gone.
Now they’re not moving, not even a twitch.
Carina is seated beside him, her clothing wrinkled and hair pulled back like she scraped it quickly off her face hours ago, and hasn’t thought about it since. Her hand rests gently on his arm, and her head turns when she hears me.
Her face is pale and raw, but there’s no panic there—just a quiet grief. Calm through the storm.
She stands, and my eyes fall to her bump, which is tight against her top.
“Hey,” she whispers, stepping toward me. Her voice breaks on the word, but she doesn’t flinch. “You made it.”
I nod, but I can’t speak. My throat’s thick with salt and glass.
She steps closer, and her hands come to my chest, grounding me. She doesn’t pull me in or force anything, but I step forward anyway, burying my face into the crook of her neck, my arms wrapping around her waist like I’ll fall apart if I don’t.
And she holds me.
When I finally speak, it’s a cracked whisper against her skin.
“What happened?”
She exhales slowly. “A stroke. The nurse said he was in the garden when it hit. Collapsed on the path outside the tool shed. His neighbor found him maybe half an hour later and called the ambulance immediately, but…”
My stomach caves in. “But what?”
“There’s no brain activity.” Her voice is gentle. Careful, like she’s speaking to a frightened animal.
I pull back slightly, just enough to see her eyes. “You’re sure?”
She nods once. “They’ve run the tests. Reflexes, pupillary response, EEG. Everything’s… quiet.”
I flinch at the word.
Quiet.
Harry was never quiet.
Even when he lost his voice for a while last year with a chest infection, he’d bang his cane on the floor and make his point anyway. He was always moving, always whistling, always yelling at the birds who stole from the feeder.
I stare at him now, and the stillness is unbearable.
