“Mama?” he whispered.
I stood so fast that the chair scraped loudly against the floor. “She’s sleeping,” I said gently, crouching so I was eye level with him. “The doctors are helping her get better.”
He studied me with that unnerving seriousness kids sometimes had, like they could see through all the words adults used to soften truth. “She’s strong,” he said quietly. “She always gets better.”
The confidence in his voice undid me more than fear ever could.
“I know,” I said, my throat thickening. “She’s the strongest person I know.”
He nodded once, then climbed carefully onto the chair beside her bed. He reached out and placed Eeyore next to her arm, deliberate and reverent, like an offering. “So she won’t be alone,” he explained.
Something inside my chest fractured. I turned my face away before he could see it.
Lucas leaned forward and rested his forehead gently against the mattress. “You can wake up now,” he told her softly. “It’s okay. I’ll behave better. I promise.”
I pressed my knuckles against my mouth.
I had asked myself what I would tell Lucas if something went wrong. Now I knew the real terror wasn’t losing her. It was explaining to this child that even the strongest people could be pushed too far. That love didn’t always protect the way it should.
After Elle led him away, I sat back down and took Nyah’s hand again, holding it tighter this time. I watched her breathe, memorizing the rise and fall of her chest.
At some point, exhaustion dragged me under.
33
NYAH
Iwoke up with a dull heaviness in my chest and the faint rhythm of a heartbeat that didn’t quite feel like mine yet. Caleb’s head was resting on my hand, his fingers curled around my wrist. The sight made my throat tighten before I could even speak.
Dr. Sloan walked into the room. “Hey, sleepyhead. How are you feeling?”
Caleb startled awake immediately, lifting his head and blinking as if he had been pulled out of a nightmare.
Through the oxygen mask, my mouth felt dry and useless, but I managed to mutter, “Parched,” my voice barely more than a rasp.
Dr. Sloan adjusted my bed upright while Caleb rushed to get me water. I drank the entire glass in one go, the coolness soothing my throat.
“You’re a real fighter, you know that?” Dr. Sloan said as he checked my pulse.
I smiled weakly.
“I’ll come back and check up on you later,” he added lightly. “Don’t you go anywhere.”
When he left, Caleb sat down beside me again. His eyes moved over my face. “You sure have a lot of fans.”
I followed his gaze around the room—flowers everywhere, get-well balloons, cards stacked on every surface. My chest warmed at the thought of all those people.
“I wish the employees loved me as much as they love you. They haven’t stopped coming by to check up on you,” Caleb said with a smile. “Dr. Sloan has checked up on you a lot, before and after his shift.”
I smiled as he gently put the oxygen mask back on my face. Then his expression changed. His smile faded, and he looked down at the floor.
“Nyah,” he said, his voice wavering as he shut his eyes, “I thought I had almost lost you.”
The pain in his voice cut straight through me. I wanted to lift my arms, to hold him, to tell him that I had heard him even when I couldn’t respond, that he was the one who had brought me back.
I closed my eyes and remembered leaving my body while the doctors worked to revive me, watching from above as machines kept me alive and the defibrillator jolted my chest. I felt detached, weightless, until a warm light drew me forward into a vast meadow where I felt free for the first time in years.
A voice had called me by my old name—Jiya—and told me it wasn’t my time, that there was still more life waiting for me.
