"We... can't hold on."
The phone slipped from my fingers.
I knelt on the ground, facing the direction that car had disappeared, and screamed.
"Adrian—!!"
Only the bone-deep cold answered. My shadow stretched twisted and wrong beneath the streetlight.
Five a.m.
The sky hung a deathly gray-blue.
I don't know how I got back to the hospital.
I remember running red lights. Horns blaring, strangers cursing—noise from another world.
At the elevator, I watched the numbers climb.
Each one dragged my heart deeper.
I gripped my phone—last hope, last shred of dignity.
I dialed Adrian again.
This time, someone answered.
But it wasn't him.
"Hello?"
Lily's voice, sweet and syrupy, lazy with satisfaction.
"Oh my, it's Wendy, Senior Sister."
"It's so late—why are you still calling?"
I took a deep breath, forcing down the bloody sweetness in my throat. My voice came out so hoarse it didn't sound like mine.
"Put Adrian on the phone."
"Senior Brother…"
Lily giggled. Behind her, cheerful arcade music played, mixed with the crisp clink of coins dropping.
"Senior Brother is winning claw-machine dolls for me."
"He said tonight he's staying up all night to celebrate with me, making up for all the birthdays I never got to have."
"Senior Sister, can you stop using work as an excuse to bother us? Men hate clingy women the most."
Every word was a poisoned thorn, stabbing precisely into my festering chest.
I was waiting to die outside the ICU. They were at an arcade grabbing plushies.
"Give him the phone!"
I practically roared it.
"Lily! I got it!"
Adrian's excited shout came through the line, with a childish glee I'd never heard before.
"Come look! It's your favorite bunny!"
"Wow! Senior Brother, you're amazing!"
Lily cheered, her tone dripping with smugness.
"Senior Sister, did you hear that? Senior Brother's busy making me happy."
"Oh—he's calling me. Gotta go, okay?"
Beep—
The call cut off. Mercilessly.
At the same time, the elevator doors opened.
Ding.
Crisp. Piercing.
I lifted my head and ran straight into several nurses pushing a gurney out of the ICU.
A white sheet covered it.
Beneath the sheet—a human-shaped outline.
Everything went silent.
I stood frozen, watching that gurney roll slowly toward me.
An aged hand drooped from the edge of the sheet, swaying lightly with each movement.
My father's hand.
Covered in needle marks and bruises.
And in that stiff palm, still clutched tight—a photo.