I’ve never been good at this part. I’ve always walked away when someone cried because it pulls me straight back to that day. Nine years old. My mom dropping me off at my aunt’s house. The door closing behind her. Me crying and begging to go with her. That helpless, breaking feeling in my chest while my damn aunt stood there reminding me I wasn’t wanted. That was the day I learned to shut shit off. To go cold. To survive by not feeling anything at all.
But this is different.
This is Bells. And every instinct in me tells me not to let her face it alone.
The engine hums as I turn onto the main road, tires softly thudding over the cracks in the asphalt. Everything outside the car feels too normal—people walking and cars passing by.
Lola’s phone buzzes on the center console.
She doesn’t move.
I glance down without meaning to. Aubrey’s name appears on the screen.
Aubrey:Hey, didn’t see you today?
She has no idea the world has just shifted for Bells. No idea there’s a hospital waiting at the end of this drive.
We pull into the hospital parking lot, and I kill the engine. I’m by her side before she reaches for the handle.
“Come on,” I say.
She slides out slowly, movements stiff and cautious, as if her body suddenly feels twice as heavy.
I take her hand.
She wraps her fingers around mine and grips tight. That’s when it really hits me. She needs me.
I guide her toward the entrance, past the automatic doors that whoosh open a little too cheerfully for a place like this. Everything inside smells sterile and sharp. Too clean. Too quiet. Her grip tightens on my hand as we approach the front desk.
“Hi,” she says, voice trembling but still steady. “My name’s Lola Bellamy. My dad… Pete Bellamy. He was brought in.”
The desk clerk types quickly, her eyes scanning the screen. Her expression softens the moment she spots the name.
“He’s in the ICU,” she says gently. “Take the elevators to the fourth floor, then turn left. Room two-seventeen.”
Lola nods, and for a moment I think she might actually crumple right there in the middle of the hospital lobby.
I guide her to the elevators and press the button, angling my body close enough to block out the rest of the world. People brush past. Voices echo. None of it touches her.
We enter the elevator, and the doors close behind us.
That’s when she finally speaks.
“I hate hospitals.”
I look over at her.
She’s gone pale, freckles standing out against skin that’s drained of color. Her eyes are glassy, fixed on nothing. She swallows hard, as if the words are fighting their way up.
“My mom died in one when I was little,” she says softly. “I hardly remember her. Just fragments. But I remember this. The white. The beeping. The smell.”
She looks up at me with wet eyes, and whatever she sees there must be enough, because she allows me to wrap my arms around her and hold her against my chest.
Her forehead presses into my collarbone. My chin rests on the top of her head. Her breath shakes, before it evens out, little by little. I hold her tighter, because I don’t know how to be gentle but I know how to be unmovable.
This is new for me. Holding someone when they hurt. Staying when everything in my past tells me to shut it the fuck down and walk away.
The elevator dings, and the doors slide open, dropping us back into noise, fluorescent light, and reality. I don’t let go immediately. I wait until she shifts first, until she’s ready to stand on her own again.
