I haven’t eaten since yesterday. I tried this morning. Half a piece of toast that turned to paste in my mouth. Coffee that made my hands shake worse. I’m dehydrated and over-caffeinated and running on pure adrenaline, and every so often my body remembers that I’m a person and not a machine, and it waves a big red flag that says: Stop.
I can’t.
Dad would hate this version of me. He’d tell me to sit up straight. He’d tell me to drink water. He’d tell me to stop gnawing on the inside of my cheek like I’m trying to chew through my own nerves. He’d crack a joke about how hospitals are basically just expensive waiting rooms with worse snacks.
I swipe my tongue over my teeth and realize I’m doing it again. Pressing. Grinding. Holding tension.
My hands smell faintly like hand sanitizer from the tenth time I’ve used it. My skin is dry, tight.
My thoughts won’t stay on him, and that makes me feel like a monster.
Because every time I force myself to picture Dad, another image slips in—Nico’s hand closing over mine at my desk. The quiet firmness of it. The way it stopped me mid-spiral without him even saying much. The way I snapped at him, anyway, like a cornered animal.
You didn’t pay for it this time.
I said it like I wanted it to hurt him.
I said it because it was hurting me. Because if he’s fine and I’m not, then the only thing I can do is make it ugly. Make it something I can hate instead of something I want. Make it something I can survive.
My stomach turns again, sharper.
I stare at the hospital doors as if I watch hard enough, someone will come out with answers. My throat is sore from swallowing back panic. My eyes sting, but I don’t cry. Not here. Not with strangers watching and their own tragedies stacked in their laps.
I check my phone. No new calls. No voicemails. No texts.
I don’t know who I’m waiting for.
The surgeon. A nurse. A doctor with a calm voice and a clipboard who will tell me “everything went well” like those three wordscan undo months of terror. Or the other sentence. The sentence I can’t let myself imagine.
My fingers hover over Nico’s contact in my phone.
I don’t touch it.
I can hear his voice in my head anyway, controlled and commanding, like he’s already decided how this should go. Come to me for anything.
My chest tightens so hard I have to breathe through it.
I don’t need him.
I also don’t know how to do this alone.
I look down at my hands, and they’re trembling. Not dramatic. Not shaking like in a movie. Just enough to make the edge of my phone tap lightly against my thumbnail, over and over.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
I squeeze my eyes shut for one second, then open them again because I can’t stand the darkness. I can’t stand not watching the hallway.
A nurse walks by. Not toward me. Past me.
My heart still jumps.
I drag in a breath that doesn’t feel like it goes all the way down.
Please.
