NOAH

The dream felt so real that for a second, my lungs didn’t know how to work without the heat of him.

In the dream, Cassian was holding me. His arms were solid, and his chest was a steady drum against my ear. It was warm. It was safe.

It was the only place in the world that made sense. Then the light from the window hit my face, and the heat vanished.

The reality of the morning came back, heavy and cold. He was still in that bed. He was still lost in a sleep that didn’t have an end date.

I forced myself to get up. My body felt like it was made of lead, but I pushed through the haze. On the walk to the station, I saw other couples.

They were holding hands or sharing coffee, their lives moving in straight, simple lines. I looked away.

I went to the office first. The building was the same as always, a tall glass box full of people pretending to be important.

I sat at my desk and looked at the emails that had piled up. I started working through them. I did it with a strange kind of speed.

It was the skill of someone who has learned how to do their job without actually being there. My hands moved, my brain processed the words, and I sent the replies, but I was miles away.

My colleagues gave me those looks. You know the ones. Cautious. Polite. They stood at a distance, like they were afraid my bad luck might be catching.

They knew something had gone wrong, but they didn’t have the words to ask about it. I made it easy for them.

I didn’t say a thing. I kept my head down and did my job.

The query letter was still sitting on my desk. I saw it there, a piece of paper that used to matter a lot.

I signed the form to say I had received it. I put it in the right folder. I moved on to the next task.

The weight of it felt small now. It was buried somewhere deep under the weight of everything else that was actually happening.

I didn’t stay long. I couldn’t.

The building was too full of people who wanted things from me. They wanted my time, my focus, and my presence.

I didn’t have any of those things to give. I wasn’t really there. Not today.

As soon as I could, I left. My body only knew one direction to move in once I stopped pretending to work. I headed for the hospital.

The guards at the entrance recognize me now. One of them gave me a short nod as I walked toward the elevator. It’s a nod that said he now recognized me, which is a thought that shouldn’t feel normal.

It should feel wrong to be a regular at a place like this, but I didn’t have the energy to fight it. It just was what it was.

I walked through the ward and opened the door. The room was quiet. It was always quiet, except for the soft sounds of the machines keeping him with us.

Cassian looked the same. The white bandaging was clean, the edges perfectly straight. I could see that the gauze had been changed recently.

The nurses were being good to him. His body had that stiffness that comes from resting for too long. It was the look of a man being kept still against his very nature.

Cassian was never still.

Even when he was sleeping back at the house, there was a sense of motion about him, a coiled energy. Now, that energy was gone.

The word that came to my mind was fragile.

It was the wrong word for him. Cassian was a force of nature, a mountain, a storm. But looking at him wrapped in white, held together by tubes and tape, it was the only word that fit.

He was being carefully maintained like a piece of glass.

And yet, the room still felt like it belonged to him. It’s a thing I’ve noticed about Cassian.

The world adjusts itself to fit him, even when he isn’t awake to see it.

He has a pull, a gravity that doesn’t change just because his body is broken. He was still the center of the room. He was still pulling me toward him.

I felt it the moment I stepped inside. I let out a breath I didn’t even know I was holding. It was the breath I had been carrying since I walked out the door yesterday.

I pulled the chair over and sat down. I opened my laptop as usual, but I didn’t really intend to use it.

I tried to work. I really did. I opened an email from before and read the first sentence. Then I read it again.

The words were just marks on a screen. They didn’t mean anything.

On the third try, I gave up. I closed the laptop and just sat there.

I reached out and adjusted the blanket over his chest. It didn’t need to be moved. It was perfectly fine where it was, but I needed to touch something.

I needed to do something that felt like I was helping. I smoothed the fabric down and tucked it in at his side.

Then I looked at the monitor. The lines were steady. The numbers were the same as they had been ten minutes ago. I checked them anyway.

I watched his chest rise and fall. It was a slow, rhythmic movement. I stared at it until I was sure he was still breathing. It was my own little ritual.

I needed the proof of his life before I could let my own heart slow down. I would get a few minutes of peace, and then the worry would creep back in, and I would have to look again.

I started talking. It was quiet at first, just a low murmur in the empty room. I didn’t even decide to do it; the words just started coming out.