Just a simple no.
Something in me loosens.
Then her gaze drops to my cast. “Though I do think beating up a room was dramatic.”
I let out a rough sound that almost passes for a laugh. “It was that or the world.”
She hums like that’s reasonable.
For a moment, neither of us says anything. The silence doesn’t bite the way it used to. It just sits there, breathing with us.
Then my eyes drop to her stomach before I can stop them. Still not showing. But I know.
A strange irritation flickers through the numbness. “You didn’t tell me.”
Her brows pull together. “Tell you what?”
I look at her flatly.
She sighs, rolling her eyes. “I told everyone at Christmas.”
“I wasn’t at Christmas.”
“No,” she says, glancing at me from the corner of her eye. “You were not.”
“I was busy.”
That gets the tiniest smile out of her. Faint, but real.
“Yes,” she says softly. “Busy falling in love.”
I scoff, because what the fuck am I supposed to do with that? Sit here in a hospital waiting room with a broken wrist and sad eyes and talk about love like I’m an Amato?
But the word doesn’t slide off me the way it used to. I don’t tell her that.
She studies me for a second like she already knows anyway.
Then her voice turns gentler. “I thought I was angry for the right reasons.”
I say nothing.
She folds her hands in her lap and looks ahead at the blank wall across from us. “Maybe I was. Maybe I still have reasons. But this war has touched all of us, Mishka.” Her voice thins for a second, just enough for me to hear what sits under it. “And now it’s touched you like this.”
I swallow hard.
Her head comes to rest against my shoulder. The contact nearly breaks me.
“All I feel right now,” she whispers, “is love for you. And hope that she’ll be okay.”
I close my eyes.
For one second, I let it happen. Let the warmth of her lean into me. Let the old nickname sit between us. Let the fact that she came here mean whatever the fuck it means.
When I put my arm around her, I’m careful of the cast, careful of her, careful of everything I can still keep from breaking.
“Thank you, Kisa,” I say, my voice low and scraped raw.
My sister.
