Chapter 22 Evie
Evie
Hospitals always smell like someone tried to bleach fear out of the air and failed.
It’s antiseptic and plastic and old coffee, layered over something human you can’t scrub away. The fluorescent lights are too bright. The hallway floors shine like they’re proud of themselves.
I hate it here.
I hate that I’m here because my grandma wanted to see ‘the Rhee girl sing.’
I hate that I didn’t drag her out sooner.
I hate that my promise didn’t matter in the end.
Because when it was all over, I found her. Grandma hadn't just fallen. She was hurt. The kind of hurt that makes your brain go blank because it can’t hold it.
In the ER, a doctor with tired eyes told me what happens when a crowd tramples an elderly body. Crush injuries. Broken ribs. A bruised lung. Internal bleeding they couldn’t fully stop. Her blood pressure dropping every time they tried to stabilize it. Her heart working far too hard.
He said they could keep trying to force her body to stay, but it would be violence dressed up as help.
He said, very gently, like he was offering me a gift I didn’t want, “We’re going to keep her comfortable.”
Comfortable is a word people use when they’ve run out of options.
A nurse finally opens the curtain and glances at me with that careful look people get when they’ve already decided what kind of grief you’re allowed to have.
“You can go in,” she says softly.
My legs feel like they belong to someone else. I nod once, because if I try to speak I’ll make a sound that will embarrass me.
I push through the curtain.
The room is small, dimmer than the hall. A monitor beeps in a steady, indifferent rhythm. There’s a thin blanket over her body, tucked too neatly.
Grandma looks even smaller in a hospital bed.
That isn’t fair. She always took up space. She could fill a room with one raised eyebrow and a single sharp inhale. Now she’s pale, hair brushed back, lips still faintly tinted like someone respected her stubborn vanity.
Her chest rises. Barely.
I step closer until I’m at her bedside, and my hands hover, unsure where I’m allowed to touch.
Then I take her hand. Her skin is cool. Not cold yet.
“Hey,” I whisper. My voice comes out scratchy. “You scared me.”
Her eyelids flutter, slow like she’s fighting through water.
“Evie,” she breathes my name, barely there.
“I’m here,” I say quickly. “I’m right here.”
Her fingers squeeze mine weakly. It breaks something in my chest. I lean in closer, pressing my forehead against the edge of the mattress as if I’m trying to anchor myself to her.
“You’re not allowed to—” My voice cracks. I swallow hard. “You’re not allowed to leave me.”
Grandma’s mouth twitches like she’s trying to smile.
“You're… always… bossy,” she whispers.
A laugh and a sob collide in my throat. I make a noise that is not dignified.
“Don’t,” I whisper, because the urge to beg is a tidal wave. “Don’t do that. Don’t make jokes right now.”
Her eyes open a little more, unfocused but searching until they find my face. The clarity in her gaze flickers—there, then gone, then there again.
“You look,” she murmurs, voice thin, “just like yourself… when you’re fighting for something.”
Tears blur my vision. I blink hard, but it doesn’t help.
“I’m not fighting,” I choke out. “I’m—I’m scared.”
“That’s… fighting,” she whispers, like she’s correcting my math.
Her hand trembles in mine. I squeeze back, too tight.
“I’m sorry,” I say fast. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I’m sorry I—”
Grandma’s brows knit faintly, like she’s trying to scold me through the fog.
“Stop,” she rasps.
I freeze. Grandma’s eyes hold mine for one lucid heartbeat.
“Don’t let this place,” she says, voice trembling, “hold you back.”
My breath catches.
“Go,” she whispers. “Go where… your heart is.”
My stomach drops like the floor just fell away.
“Gran—” My voice breaks completely. “My heart is—my heart is with you.”
Her gaze softens, and for a second she looks like herself again, fierce and tender and absolutely unmovable. She hasn’t looked more like herself in years.
“No,” she whispers. “Your heart is… bigger.”
Her fingers squeeze mine once more. I press her knuckles to my mouth, choking back the sound I want to make.
“I love you,” I whisper, desperate. “I love you. I love you. Please—”
Grandma’s eyes flutter. Her hand loosens.
The monitor’s beeping changes—not dramatic, not cinematic, just… different. Slower. Then it pauses too long between beats.
A nurse steps in quietly, but I don’t look. I can’t look. I feel it, the moment her hand goes slack in mine, the exact second the warmth leaves her grip.
I sit there holding her hand like if I hold on hard enough, I can keep her.
But the world doesn’t care how hard you hold on.
A soft voice says my name from somewhere behind me. The nurse, maybe. Or a doctor.
I don’t answer.
I just bow my head over Grandma’s hand and shake.
I don’t cry pretty.
I cry like something is being torn out of my ribs.
***
The next day, I’m sitting outside my house on the porch.
The night air is cold, damp, salt-heavy. I sit on the wooden steps with my arms wrapped around myself, staring at nothing.
I don’t know how long I’ve been there.
Long enough that my eyes feel raw.
Long enough that my phone battery is almost dead from texts I didn’t answer and notifications I didn’t read.
Long enough that the adrenaline wears off, leaving only the hollow.
Footsteps approach. I don’t look up. I already know who it is by the way my chest reacts, an old reflex, sharp as a wound.
Kaia sits beside me without asking. She doesn’t touch me. She doesn’t say “I’m sorry for your loss” like a greeting card. She just sits. Her hoodie is pulled up. No makeup now. No stage lights. No perfect posture. Just Kaia, breathing beside me like she’s afraid if she stops, she’ll break too.
For a long time we sit in silence. The quiet between us isn’t awkward, but it is heavy.
I finally rasp, “Aren’t you supposed to be somewhere… getting debriefed?”
Kaia’s voice is low. “I left.”
I snort weakly. “That tracks.”
Kaia’s breath hitches, like she almost laughs, but it dies before it becomes one.
The hospital yesterday was a blur. I didn’t sleep much last night. And all day I’ve been ignoring Kaia and Gus's texts like silence could keep me from drowning.
Kaia shifts beside me, not closer, not farther. Just… there. Like she’s trying to be a presence without demanding anything from it.
“I’m sorry,” she says quietly.
Kaia doesn’t rush to fill the space. She just watches my face like she’s listening to everything I’m not saying. Then she adds, softer, more specific…
“I’m sorry I didn’t see sooner how dangerous it was,” she murmurs. “How… hungry. I helped bring this world into your world…”
My throat tightens. My jaw locks. Because if I speak, it’ll come out wrong. It’ll come out as blame. Or grief. Or both. And I don’t know which one will kill me faster.
Kaia keeps going anyway, carefully, like she’s walking on glass. “If I’d known—if I’d seen what the Chorus was doing sooner, if I hadn’t—” She swallows hard. “If I hadn’t been so good at doing what I’m told… maybe—”
“Stop,” I rasp, and it comes out raw. “You can’t ‘maybe’ her back.”
Kaia goes silent immediately.
Good.
I hate that it’s good.
I press the heels of my hands into my eyes like I can shove the tears back inside where they belong.
When I speak again, my voice is hollow. “She wanted pancakes,” I say, and it sounds stupid and enormous at the same time. “She was… happy yesterday morning. She called you the singing girl like she was—like she was ten years younger…”
Kaia’s breath shakes. I don’t look at her. I can’t. If I see her face right now, I’ll either yell at her or cling to her, and I don’t trust myself to choose the right one.
“She didn’t even know,” I whisper. “Half the time she didn’t know where she was or who she was. But she knew she wanted you to eat.”
Kaia’s voice breaks, barely audible. “I did.”
I nod once, staring at the asphalt like it might answer me. “Yeah. You did.”
Another stretch of silence. It’s the kind that usually would’ve made me snap. The kind I’d fill with sarcasm just to prove I’m still in control. But control feels stupid right now.
Finally Kaia says, quieter, “I kept texting because I didn’t know what else to do.”
I swallow. “I saw.”
“You didn’t answer.”
“I couldn’t,” I say, honest and ugly.
Kaia inhales like she’s trying not to make a sound.
I wipe at my cheek with the sleeve of my hoodie, furious that my face is still doing this.
I glance at her finally, one quick look, like checking a wound. Her eyes are red-rimmed. She’s not crying the way I am. She looks like she already cried and then packed it away because that’s what she’s trained to do.
And something in me softens in the worst possible way.
“Why are you here?” I whisper, the question hitting harder now that I’ve let it exist.
Kaia’s gaze holds mine. “Because you shouldn’t have to sit out here alone.”
I laugh once, weak and sharp. “That’s not your job.”
Kaia’s voice drops. “It is if I want it to be.”
I look away again because I can’t hold her gaze and my grief at the same time.
My hands curl into fists in my lap.
I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now. I don’t know who I am without the routine of meds and schedules and pretending everything is fine.
All I know is Kaia is sitting beside me, and the quiet between us is heavy, and for the first time in a long time, she isn’t asking me to make it lighter.
“I stayed,” I say, voice flat. “I stayed here for her. Because someone had to. Because if I left, who was going to—”
My throat tightens. I force the words out anyway.
“Now she’s gone,” I whisper.
Kaia’s hands flex on her knees like she wants to reach for me and is afraid.
“I’m sorry,” she says again, but not like a platitude. Like she’s bleeding the words out.
I laugh once, ugly. “You already said that.”
“I mean it,” Kaia whispers.