Pretty.
Soft in a way that looked natural, not weak.
Her eyes were red, her cardigan buttoned wrong, like she had dressed in a panic and not noticed. A woman stood beside her, older, one hand on her back. Mother, probably. There were club men nearby, but their attention orbited her in a way that made my steps slow.
She looked up when I walked in.
For one strange second, I thought I had seen her before.
Then I realized I had.
In my imagination.
In every faceless version of the woman Dylan might choose because she was clean and bright and did not come with a graveyard behind her.
Georgia.
I knew before anyone said it.
But then she stepped toward me, hope and terror trembling across her face.
“You were in surgery?” she asked.
My throat tightened.
“Yes.”
Her eyes filled immediately. “Dylan. How is he?”
The sound of his name in her mouth landed wrong.
Not wrong because she didn’t have the right.
Wrong because she did.
“He’s alive,” I said.
Her knees nearly buckled.
The older woman caught her.
Georgia made a broken sound and covered her mouth.
Alive.
I understood what that word did to a person.
I had been surviving on it for ten minutes.
“He’s critical,” I continued because kindness without truth was just another lie. “The next twenty-four to forty-eight hours matter. He lost a lot of blood. He arrested once in surgery, but they got him back.”
She squeezed her eyes shut.
Tears spilled anyway.
“Can I see him?” she asked.
“As soon as ICU clears immediate family visits.”
