The hospital smelled like bleach and loneliness. Same as always. The kind of sterile silence that made your skin itch if you stayed too long. I walked the hallway like I had a hundred times before—third door on the left. No knock. She didn’t like when people acted like they needed permission to see her.

She was curled up in the hospital bed, headphones in, hoodie pulled over her head like a shield. Her legs were tucked up, knees to chest, IV in her arm, skin pale and thin and paper-like. But her eyes—the second they landed on me—were still fire.

“Feely,” she said, voice hoarse. “Thought you’d stopped caring.”

I dropped my bag to the floor and sat beside her, didn’t say anything at first. Just looked at her. Really looked.

“You always say shit like that,” I muttered finally. “Like I’m going somewhere.”

She shrugged, like this was normal. Like being gone for weeks, like barely being able to breathe, was something she could brush off. Like she wasn’t scared.

“You missed school,” I said. “Again.”

“Tragic.”

“Gibsie said you faked it to get out of Irish class.”

She smiled a little at that. Just a twitch of her mouth. It still knocked the breath out of me.

“Did you miss me?” she asked, quiet.

I looked at her—bones too sharp, eyes too tired, still trying to act like she didn’t need anyone.

“More than I should,” I said. Then softer: “Don’t do that again.”

“What?”

“Disappear.”

She blinked at me, like that wasn’t a promise she could make. “I didn’t mean to,” she whispered. “It just got bad again.”

I reached for her hand. She let me take it. Her fingers were cold. Always were.

“You’re not alone,” I said. “You start to fall, I’ll be there. Every time.”

She didn’t answer right away. But her fingers tightened just enough around mine.

And that was all I needed.