“I talk to Sterling about you a lot,” she says with a breathless giggle. “We’d really like to see you again.”
I can’t tell if the tightness in my throat is guilt or gratitude.
We fall into quiet that’s comforting. When we were kids, we would sit for long stretches without needing to fill the air. Knowing she was there was more than enough.
“My memories have been coming back. Have yours?” she asks.
I wanna speak, but words get stuck behind my tongue. I don’t want to remember much. Just her.
“You told me, last October, you couldn’t recall our names. But I remember yours,” she says. “Do you want me to use it?”
The name feels like lead in my head. “No,” I say a second later. “Not yet.”
“Okay.”
She doesn’t question it. Instead, her voice carries warmth like the sun’s peeking out, even though it’s gray outside the window.
“I’m proud of you,” she whispers, sniffling. “For surviving this. For surviving everything.”
What she said punches deep, in the part of me that still thinks Idon’t deserve to hear it. “Thanks,” I say, doing my damnedest not to cry.
“When you’re ready,” she says, and her voice sounds thick with tears. I hope they’re from happiness. I hope it’s not because of me. “You’re always welcome to stay with us.”
My vision blurs. I blink it clear. “I don’t want to mess anything up for you,” I confess. The idea of stepping into her new life with all my baggage feels selfish.
“You won’t,” she says. “You’re my baby brother. My door’s always open to you.”
I press my eyes shut and try to breathe around this feeling hammering in my ribs.
“Yeah…? I’ll think about it,” I whisper. “I want to see you. I just…want you to be happy first.”
“I am happy,” she says. “But I’ll be happier when I can hug you.”
That rips a broken laugh out of me. My throat burns, but I have to say it. “I love you,” I say before I can talk myself out of it.
“I love you too,” she says back, voice cracking on every word.
The line goes quiet again. I don’t know who hangs up. Maybe neither of us does and the call times out on its own.
But the room feels different now. Less like a box and more like a place I’m allowed to exist in. The sea outside the window is still restless, but I look at it without feeling pulled toward it.
The cliff didn’t win. Clo didn’t win.
I may not know exactly who I am yet, but I know I’m still her brother. That has to count for something.
Eventually, they fit me into new clothes and sit me down to talk about “next steps” and “options” like any of this—waking up from a four-month coma with barely any scars—is normal. The world kept going without me. Now I’m the one who has to catch up.
Later that night, my phone rings. For a heartbeat, I think it’s heragain. I answer faster than I should.
But it isn’t her. It’s a man named Idris who tells me about second chances. Then a woman named Em who goes over a few things with me. Her voice is so calm, almost soothing, and sounding so precise and sure, like she deals in facts more than feelings. She sounds like someone who decided I’m useful without a second’s hesitation.
They tell me about a ship. Their experiment. A chance to do something with the thing that tore my family apart.
I don’t act like I understand all of it. But I know I don’t want to spend another night lying flat on my back, waiting for guilt to crush me. So I say, “Yeah, okay. Sign me up.”
Maybe it doesn’t matter why I said yes. What matters is I’m moving.
***
