93_Leak

Mike

It had been one week and four days.

One week and four days of soft hospital light and the beep of machines that had become too familiar. One week and four days of watching Eloise lie there with bruises that hadn’t fully faded, her body still healing, her laugh returning slowly like a ghost testing the waters of the living.

I stood by the window of her hospital room, sipping bitter coffee from a paper cup. Outside, the world carried on like none of this had happened. A nurse ...