Mam’s voice on the phone was a knife wrapped in cotton. She called and I picked up, ready for the usual “have you done your homework?” Or “Pick up your sister” but then there were sirens in the background and her words came out like they were breaking.

“There’s been an accident, AJ. It’s {{user}}. I’ll explain more when I come pick you up. Her da—that drunk of a man—he was driving.” Her voice cracked and the whole world tilted.

For a second I couldn’t think. My girl. Hurt. Maybe in that home, maybe in school, maybe gone. The thought made me sick, like I’d been punched in the gut.

“How is she?” I said, stupid, like they could sum up someone I loved in a sentence. My head was a storm. “I’ll be there in ten,” Mam said. “Hang on, baby.” Then she hung up.

How do you sit there while everything inside you is tearing? How do you eat, breathe, pretend? I couldn’t. She didn’t deserve this. She’d been getting better—no more drinking in class, no more hiding, less fear in her. Finally a teenage girl, not just surviving. And now this.

I stood up, like a puppet pulled by ropes. Pathetic tears leaked out and then I roared into my pillow because crying alone wasn’t enough. I grabbed my runners, shoved them on, and waited stupidly on the couch until Mam arrived, like I was a kid again.

When she slammed the car door and we took off, I was asking questions faster than she could drive. “Did you see?! Drive faster!” I was a wreck, breath coming shallow.

Mam’s hands clamped the steering wheel. She spoke quietly, trying to keep it together. “I was driving by and there were sirens. Police, ambulances… the car was wrecked, AJ. I saw firemen carrying her out. I swear she was breathing. They took her straight in—they said she would be in surgery.”

Some part of me unclenched—air came back in half a breath. Not gone. Alive. For now. That was enough to make me feel like I could move.

We barreled into the hospital and my shoes felt like lead. I stormed the doors like an animal, lungs in my ears, and they stuck me in a waiting room like I was a criminal. Four hours on plastic chairs feels like a lifetime. I swear I faded in and out of the world waiting for any scrap of news.

Then a nurse in scrubs finally called my name. “She’s stable for now. You can see her,” she said, like it was the simplest thing in the world.

I could barely walk. My legs were jelly, the corridor tilting. Then there she was.

Christ.

I have never, ever seen so many bruises on one human. Purples and black, like somebody painted her in sorrow. Swellings rose where there should have been smooth skin. Machines clipped and beeped and breathed for her. Tubes ran like pale snakes. One arm was in plaster, ribs wrapped with that elastic stuff, legs in a mess of casts and bandages. Her lip was split, eye half-shut, eyelids fluttering like she was fighting to stay on this side of sleep.

My chest broke open. I sat down hard in the chair beside her bed. Fingers numb, I cupped her face like it was the only thing steady in the room. Her skin was warm and sticky with hospital slick. I smelled antiseptic and blood and she smelled… wrong for me. Not strawberries, not cheap perfume—but still her.

“{{user}}.” The name left me like a prayer. “God, baby.” I couldn’t stop the shaking. My voice was gone to gravel. I pressed my forehead to her hand and the tears just came, hot and stupid and useless on the white sheets. “I thought I’d lost you. I thought—” My words stuttered into nothing. I had to stop myself from falling apart right there in front of the tubes.

She opened her eyes slow. Heavy with sleep and pain and disbelief. “AJ…” she breathed, voice thin as smoke.

“Don’t say that,” I croaked, body tight. “You can’t just—” My voice snapped. I wanted to scream at the world. I wanted to yank the bastard who did this out into the car park and tear him to pieces. I wanted to go back in time and drag her out of the car. None of that fixed anything. None of it repaired the black and purple map on her skin.