“Did the Grants take all of Daniel’s belongings?” I ask.
She raises a brow. “Except the blazer you are wearing.”
“And anything from my parents?”
She shakes her head.
I move slowly to the small table beside the bed, pick up the notebook Dasha gave me, slip the yellow envelope between its pages, and draw it close to my chest.
“I’m ready to go.”
Even though I wasn’t.
She looks at me and raises her brow, like she can sense something is off. She doesn’t ask, and she doesn’t push. She just lifts her arm, fist tucked close to her chest, and tilts it slightly toward me.
I slide my arm through hers.
I guess this is it. The part where I leave everything here and figure out where to go, and what to do next.
My fingers curl tighter around her arm as we move toward the door. The papers are already signed. Everything that was mine three months ago now fits in my pocket. Everything I am rests against my chest.
We walk slowly down the corridor. Nurses glance up as we pass, offering short smiles before looking down again. To them, I’m just one patient less. One less room to check. One less chart to read.
To me, this is stepping into something I can’t see.
The hospital is on the ground level. There’s no elevator, and no stairs, just a straight path forward with one long corridor that leads out.
Dasha pushes the entrance door open, and the air changes instantly.
We’re outside.
The sunlight hits me too fast. My eyes squeeze shut, and I lift my hand to shield my face with my palm pressing against my forehead. When I finally force my eyes open, everything looks too bright, too sharp.
Nothing has changed in three months. And yet everything feels different.
Across the road, there’s a small diner. The sign above, in bold letters, readDaisy’s Diner.
Dasha nudges me gently, and we cross the street together. Everything around us moves. Cars pass; voices blend into a low, distant noise, yet it all feels far away.
She opens the door, and we step inside.
Warmth hits me immediately. Almost suffocating.
The bell above the door rings again as we step in, cutting through the low hum of voices and the scrape of forks against plates. It must have rung a dozen times already, each time folding into the noise of the diner, welcoming one more body inside.
A waitress moves between tables in a yellow uniform, with a white apron tied at her waist. She refills coffee cups the second someone lifts them. Most of the people here are nurses on their breaks. There are a few older men that sit alone with their eyes following the movement around the room, like they’re waiting to be noticed.
The booths are almost full, except for one.
Dasha doesn’t hesitate, and pulls me along. My steps quicken to match hers. As we reach the booth I slide onto the orange leather seat. It’s colder than I expected. The chill seeps through my clothes.
A song plays from the jukebox in the corner. One of the waitresses hums along as she walks past. She looks about my age, and every head seems to turn when she moves, smiles following her like she’s the reason they came here in the first place.
“What can I get ya’?” she asks, chewing gum, pen already hovering over her notepad.
“Coffee,” Dasha says. “Black.”
I glance at the waitress, then at Dasha. My stomach twists, empty but not asking for anything. I reach for the menu on the metal table and hold it up, pretending to read.
