Chapter 17: Silence
The morning light in the hospital was harsh, colorless — a strange contrast to the softness of her face when I kissed her goodbye.
"You need to rest," a nurse had told me gently.
"She'll be okay until you come back."
And so I went home because they told me to.
And I showered because it felt like something to do.
And I moved around my apartment like a stranger who'd lost the way.
All day long, time felt wrong.
Too slow, too loud — every tick of the clock an ache.
Every sip of tea went cold before I could taste it.
Every thought circled back to her.
---
When night fell, I hurried back to the hospital.
The halls were too bright.
And the silence felt off.
A nurse stopped me outside her room.
Her eyes were careful, kind in that way people look at someone already breaking.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered.
My knees went slack before I understood.
And then she spoke the words my body had already felt in my bones:
"She passed away this afternoon. Very peacefully. I wish you'd been here."
---
And then there was nothing.
Nothing but the cold wall against my back as I slid down it.
Nothing but the distant beep of machines and the sharp sting of antiseptic.
Nothing but my own shallow breathing and my heart, loud and empty.
---
Time broke.
A clock ticked overhead like someone clicking their tongue in a cathedral.
A gurney rolled past, wheels squeaking — empty.
And my hands trembled uselessly in my lap.
---
Her room was open.
Her bed was stripped bare.
Fresh sheets pulled tight across the mattress as if she'd never been there.
A laundry cart with crumpled white fabric paused in my peripheral vision.
And I thought: even her scent is being cleaned away.
Already becoming a ghost.
---
Someone stepped around me — I didn't look up.
A nurse. Maybe a doctor.
No one touched me.
No one spoke.
They moved past like I was part of the hospital floor, like my grief had soaked into the tiles and I was part of the architecture now.
---
I don't know how long I stayed there —
minutes, hours.
Day and night felt like one long breath held too tight.
And in the empty white light of that hallway, I sat perfectly still.
As if moving would shatter what was left of me.
---
When I finally left, my legs felt like they belonged to someone else.
Night had swallowed the world outside.
And as I walked into the dark — hands in my pockets, heart aching in my chest — I knew forever could end in one quiet afternoon.
And I had not been there.