Something I can still read.
“Chase,” Annie says quietly, close now. Her hand finds my shoulder and squeezes gently. “Come on. Everyone is here to see you.”
She leans in a little, and I catch the faint trace of peppermint on her breath. No more smoke, no sharp spice of nicotine clinging to her skin. She gave it up months ago. Said she finally wanted to breathe easier again.
I rise with her, slow and steady.
We step into the corridor, and the sound deepens—low conversation, echoing heels, the shifting of bodies.
I don’t see faces.
But I feel their presence.
We wind through the hallway and out into the edge of the crowd where friends, family, and fans mingle.
Someone says “miracle.”
Someone else says “inspiring.”
Someone claps me on the back while another calls my name. It’s a blur of voices, warmth, and scent.
I feel Annie beside me, a breath away, guiding me without pushing, always a heartbeat ahead. “Your parents are over there,” she says near my ear. “Even Parvati and her father showed up.”
I pause, heart tightening as their names sink in. The crowd fades for a second, voices dulling, space stretching wide like the venue itself is holding its breath.
I didn’t expect them to come.
“Chase.” Parvati’s voice is steady, and there’s a softness in it tonight. Something less clinical, more earned.
Annie touches my elbow, angling me toward her.
I extend a hand. She takes it.
“I couldn’t miss this,” Parvati says. “Look at you. Back on your feet, looking like a genuine rock star.”
A half smile quirks as I recall Annie smothering my hair in gel and muttering something about “controlled chaos” while pinning back a rogue curl. She straightened my collar multiple times and dressed me up in three different leather jackets, debating which one offered equal parts comfort and aesthetic.
Not because she didn’t trust me to do it, but because touching me calmed her down.
Helping is her love language.
“I was going for half-feral prom king,” Annie chirps, linking her arm through mine. “I think I nailed it.”
“Certainly.” Parvati chuckles, squeezes my hand with both of hers. “I’m proud of you. You’re quite the success story.”
I nod through the ache in my throat. “Thank you. For everything.”
My mind reverses back in time, recalling those foggy days post-surgery.
They didn’t take it all. That was never on the table.
Parvati explained it slowly, almost afraid the words might break something in me if they landed too fast.
First came the targeted radiation, fractionated over weeks, to shrink the tumor and relieve the pressure before they ever dared go in. Then came the surgery. Endoscopic, trans nasal, through the skull base.
They mapped every inch with real-time neural monitoring, lighting up my brain like a constellation, because even a fraction off course meant more than losing what little vision I had left.
It meant losing everything.
