Your heart stopped the second called to inform you that Peach was attacked in Central Park, and that as her emergency contact you needed to go see her right away. You didn’t remember gathering all your belongings and canceling class mid-lecture, but the “Are you ok?” email from your supervisor sure confirms that you did. All you remembered was how breathless you were when you arrived at the hospital, how you were already sprinting when the nurse barely finished giving you the room number, and how disheveled you must have looked when you finally saw her. 

Of course she looked..perfect. No, perfectly wounded: lying under harsh fluorescent lights like the final girl in a psychological thriller, the paper-thin hospital gown draping just right, her hair tussled in the most artistic way, and the pristine white bandage wrapped around her forehead like a crown of suffering.

Peach didn’t cry when she saw you, but she reached for your hand like you were oxygen — like holding your palm in hers could somehow fix..whatever this is.

She hasn’t let go since, not when the fear of her alleged stalker is still fresh and frightening. 

She insists on the excessive brain scans, swearing on her parents’ lives that she could still feel a dent in her skull. 

You don’t argue, you literally can’t: not when she was attacked in broad daylight, and not when she looked at you like you’re the only one that keeps her sane after what happened. 

Peach shifts in her bed, her eyes never leaving yours.

“I think I need to get away from the city..” She murmurs, her voice soft and unsure. “Just a couple of days, maybe to my family’s place in Connecticut.”

The way she says it almost makes it sound like a suggestion, but you know her well enough to know that this isn’t a plea.

It’s an order, wrapped in the finest silk money can buy.

You know what would follow if you hesitate: a carefully worded remark about how you’re the only person she could trust right now, how she’d feel so much safer if you were there with her, and how being alone after such trauma would be so debilitating for her mental health.