The world snaps into focus all at once.
My eyes open.
Light burns. I blink hard, disoriented, the ceiling above me too white, too close, unfamiliar in a way that immediately sets my nerves on edge. Tubes. Wires. The smell of antiseptic.A hospital?I register all of that in seconds, training kicking in automatically—where am I, what’s wrong, what’s the exit?—
Hazel’s face fills my vision before I can finish the thought.
She’s sitting beside the bed, leaning forward like she’s been holding herself in place by sheer will alone, eyes red-rimmed, and fierce, and impossibly relieved all at once. The moment she realizes my eyes are open, her breath catches hard enough that it feels like it echoes in the room.
“Oh,” she breathes. “Oh my God.”
Her hand tightens around mine, and that’s when I realize she’s been holding it this whole time.
“Hey,” I manage, my voice rough and unfamiliar in my own ears. “Why are you crying?”
The room explodes into movement.
Someone laughs—a broken, disbelieving sound. Someone swears quietly. I catch flashes of faces I recognize only in pieces: Lincoln’s sharp profile near the wall, relief cutting through exhaustion; Cameron straightening from the window; Leyla with her hands over her mouth like she’s afraid to breathe wrong. And Sam—my baby brother—standing so fast his chair scrapes loudly against the floor.
“Zack,” he says, his voice tight. “You idiot.”
I frown, confused. “What happened?”
The words land like a dropped glass.
Hazel freezes.
Not pulls away, but stills completely, her eyes searching my face with a careful intensity that sends a chill down my spine. Her eyes are searching and concerned, and I can’t quite put into words what I’m feeling right now. “What do you mean?” she asks gently.
“I mean,” I say slowly, testing each word like it might break, “why am I here?”
Silence stretches around me, and I don’t know how to feel about any of this.
I look around again, really look this time, and something in my chest tightens—not fear, exactly, but the absence of something I can’t name. I know these people; I know that much. The recognition is there, solid and unquestionable. But when I reach for thewhy—the thread that should connect me to this moment—there’s nothing. Just blank space where memory should be.
Hazel swallows, but her grip on my hand doesn’t loosen. “You don’t remember…anything?”
I shake my head, the motion small because everything still feels fragile. “Last thing I remember is driving I think. And then—” I trail off, frustration flaring sharp and sudden. “Nothing. It’s like someone cut the tape.”
Sam lets out a shaky breath and rubs his face. Lincoln mutters something under his breath that sounds like a prayer and a curse at the same time.
Hazel leans closer, her forehead almost touching mine, her eyes glossy but steady. “Okay,” she says, her voice low and controlled in a way that tells me she’s holding herself together for me. “That’s okay. We’ll figure it out.”
I study her face, trying to place the weight I feel when I look at her, the certainty that she matters in a way that makes my chest ache. “You’re really sure about that?” I ask quietly. My words breaking through a new layer of fear that I normally hide away, a layer of self that I have worked so hard to keep hidden away from others, but with her it’s different.
She smiles through tears. “I’m sure about you.”
Something shifts then. Not memory, but resolve. Whatever I lost, whatever the cost was, I’m here. Breathing. Surrounded by people who look like they fought hell to get me back. And Hazel is here, holding my hand like she never once considered letting go.
“Guess I’ve got some catching up to do,” I say.
Her laugh breaks free, wet and relieved, and she presses her forehead briefly to my shoulder like she needs the contact to be real. “You have no idea.”
I don’t remember how I got here.
I don’t remember what I lost.
But I know this: I woke up.
