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“Great,” Simone says. “Love a hospital errand.” He starts toward the curtain. Simone gives me a quick look. “I’m going with him.”

I open my mouth.

She cuts me off with one glance. “Don’t.”

Then she’s gone with the doctor, leaving the curtain half-drawn behind them.

The room goes quiet in a way it couldn’t with anyone else in it.

Not silent. Hospital rooms are never silent. There’s still the monitor. Still footsteps outside. Still the rattle of a cart somewhere in the hall. But the human noise drops out of it, and suddenly it’s just me and Dalton and all the things I still don’t know how to say to him.

He drags the chair closer and sits. For a moment neither of us speaks.

Then he asks, “Are you still hurting?”

“A little.”

“Where?”

I look at him.

He exhales softly. “Right. Stupid question.”

“It’s a very you question.”

“I’m trying not to be very me.”

“That seems difficult for you.”

“It is.”

That should make me laugh. Instead my throat tightens harder.

Because he came. Because Simone called him and he came. Because after everything, after the silence and the fight and the impossible things between us, he still looks at me like this matters to him more than anything else in the room.

His hand lifts from his knee and pauses halfway, giving me time to stop him.

I don’t.

He brushes his thumb once, lightly, under my eye. The touch is so gentle it almost undoes me.

“I’m okay,” I whisper.

He holds my gaze. “No, you’re not.”

I let out one broken little laugh. “That’s rude.”

“It’s also true.”

For a second, neither of us moves. Then I say the thing I’ve been refusing to say since last night.

“You can’t leave.”

His face changes. Not dramatically. Just enough that I know I’ve said something real.

“Maggie—”

“No.” I shake my head once, then regret it immediately. “Don’t tell me why it makes sense. Don’t tell me it’s cleaner or better or safer. I know all your reasons. I don’t care.”