Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
Melissa
It happens gradually.
If I hadn’t been paying attention or I hadn’t already learned what it looked like when someone started pulling inward, I might not have noticed at all.
Colton doesn’t lash out. He doesn’t snap at me or crumple. He tightens up.
His voice stays even, but quieter. His movements are now more controlled. He doesn’t linger in doorways or let conversations stretch beyond what’s necessary. He doesn’t look at me the way he used to, not completely, but enough that I feel the difference in my chest before I can name it.
And Frank’s numbers keep falling.
Every morning, I check the chart before I go into the room, even though I already know what I’ll find. The downward trend is unmistakable now. It’s not subtle, not arguable. This isn’t a bad day or a setback.
This is the body letting go.
Frank’s room has become a revolving door. Family members I’ve never met before come and go in quiet clusters, their voices hushed, even when they try to sound normal. Old friends show up with soft smiles and red-rimmed eyes, sitting at his bedside like they’re trying to memorize the shape of him.
Frank, of course, notices everything.
“Well, look at this,” he says one afternoon as a cousin I didn’t know existed squeezes into the room with flowers. “Standing room only. Should’ve charged admission.”
She laughs loudly, then presses her lips together like she’s afraid they’ll start trembling if she doesn’t.
Frank catches my eye and winks.
“See?” he says. “Still got it.”
I smile back, even as something twists behind my ribs.
Colton comes in not long after, white coat crisp, expression composed in a way that feels almost painful to watch. He does what he needs to do. He checks vitals, reviews labs, asks questions, but he doesn’t stay.
It’s not like he used to.
Where he once pulled up a chair, now he stands. Where he once lingered to trade barbs with Frank, now he keeps things strictly clinical. His eyes flick to the clock more than once.
Frank notices.
“So,” Frank says casually, “this is the part where you pretend I’m just another patient, huh?”
Colton’s jaw tightens. “You are a patient.”
“Sure,” Frank replies. “But you liked me better when I wasn’t dying.”
The room goes still.
I glance at Colton, waiting for him to push back or to deflect with humor, to snap, to do something.
Instead, he nods once. “I’ll check back later.”
And then he’s gone.
The door clicks shut behind him with a finality that makes my chest ache.
Frank exhales. “There it is.”
I step closer to the bed. “He cares about you.”
“I know,” Frank says gently. “That’s the problem.”
Over the next few days, it becomes impossible to ignore.
Colton limits his time in Frank’s room to what is medically required. He doesn’t sit. He doesn’t joke. He keeps his hands folded behind his back, like he’s bracing himself against something unseen.
I start catching the way he pauses outside the door before going in, like he’s preparing for impact.
It’s subtle. Anyone else might miss it, but I don’t because I’ve seen it before.
It’s easy to love Frank. He makes it easy.
He disarms people. Pulls them in. Makes them feel like they matter. And Colton, for all his control and sharp edges, has never been immune to that.
Frank didn’t just become a patient to him. He became a mirror.
I watch Colton retreat further into himself as the days pass, his presence on the floor more fleeting, his smile almost nonexistent now. He speaks less. Doesn’t laugh at all.
And something in me starts to worry because this version of him … this is new.
Or maybe it isn’t.
Maybe this is who he’s always been when the mask slips.
One afternoon, after a particularly long visit filled with goodbyes Frank pretends not to notice, I linger behind while the others filter out.
Frank studies me for a moment. “He’s hurting,” he says quietly.
“I know,” I reply.
“He doesn’t do loss well.”
I swallow. “Neither do I.”
He nods. “Difference is, you learned how to let it change you without hardening.”
I don’t know how to respond to that.
Frank smiles faintly. “He hasn’t.”
As I leave the room, Aubrey’s voice drifts into my thoughts. “He’s been through a lot.”
I didn’t press her for details. Didn’t want to cross a line. But now, watching Colton disappear piece by piece behind that carefully constructed control, I find myself wondering …
What happened to him?
What kind of loss carves someone this deeply?
And how close is he to breaking under the weight of it all?
It’s the silence that gives him away.
Not the absence of words because Colton has always been measured with those, but the way he seems to exist, several steps removed from everything around him now. He moves through the floor like he’s behind glass, present but unreachable, his focus narrowed to the point of sharpness.
I see it in the way nurses glance at him and then quickly look away. In the way residents straighten when he enters a space but hesitate before speaking. He’s always commanded respect, but now he commands distance.
I don’t know if this is who he is during a difficult time in this department and others are used to it or if this is something new.
Frank’s room has become the one place Colton seems to dread.
I watch him pause outside the door one afternoon, tablet tucked against his chest, his shoulders lifting with a slow inhale before he steps inside. It’s the kind of breath you take before diving underwater.
Frank notices immediately.
“Well,” Frank says, looking him up and down, “you look like hell.”
Colton’s mouth tightens. “Good afternoon to you too.”
“Don’t get snippy,” Frank replies. “I’m just saying, you used to look at me like I was mildly entertaining. Now you look at me like I’m a problem you can’t solve.”
Colton checks the monitor, deliberately avoiding Frank’s eyes. “How are you feeling today?”
“Tired,” Frank says. “Still funny though.”
Diane smiles softly from the chair beside him. “He’s been practicing.”
“I don’t practice,” Frank says. “I perform.”
Colton nods, scrolling through the chart. “Your labs are back.”
Frank watches his face carefully. “And?”
“They’ve continued to trend down,” Colton says, voice level.
Frank exhales, long and slow. “There it is.”
The room feels smaller suddenly.
“I know that look,” Frank continues. “That’s the one you get when you’re mad at yourself.”
Colton finally looks at him. “This isn’t about me.”
“Everything is about you,” Frank says mildly. “That’s your problem.”
I hold my breath.
Diane clears her throat gently. “Frank.”
“No, let him hear it,” Frank says. “You don’t like being here anymore.”
Colton’s jaw clenches. “That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?” Frank asks. “You used to stay. Sit. Argue with me about baseball stats and bad movies. Now you’re in and out like I’m contagious.”
The words hang in the air, sharp and undeniable.
Colton straightens. “I’m maintaining professional boundaries.”
Frank laughs softly. “Bullshit.”
I feel my chest tighten, not in fear, but in recognition. I’ve seen this moment before, from the other side of the bed. The moment when someone stops being just a patient and becomes a reminder of something far too personal.
Colton’s hand curls into a fist at his side “I’ll check back later.”
Frank sighs. “There it is again. The disappearing act.”
Colton doesn’t respond. He turns and leaves, the door closing behind him with a final click that echoes louder than it should.
Diane watches him go, her expression sad but unsurprised. “He reminds you of someone, doesn’t he?”
Frank nods. “Yeah.”
“Who?” I ask quietly.
Frank looks at me, something softer entering his eyes. “Me.”
The answer settles heavy in my chest.
Later that evening, I see Colton in the hallway near the elevators, staring at his phone like it’s delivering bad news instead of just reflecting his own thoughts back at him.
“Hey,” I say softly.
He looks up, startled, like he forgot other people existed. “Hey.”
“You okay?” I ask.
He nods immediately. Too quickly. “Fine.”
I don’t push.
Instead, I watch the tension in his shoulders, the way his posture stays rigid, even when he’s standing still. This isn’t stress. This is containment.
He’s holding something back with both hands.
As I walk away, Aubrey’s words surface again, clearer now. “He’s been through a lot.”
Watching Colton fracture quietly under the weight of Frank’s decline, I realize the truth with unsettling clarity.
Frank isn’t the wound.
Frank is the echo.
Whatever shaped Colton into this man, it started long before this hospital room. Long before me.
And whatever it was … it hasn’t healed.
Later in the day Frank asks me to stay when the room finally empties.
The last of the visitors leaves with tight hugs and promises they know won’t be kept. Diane steps out to make a phone call, brushing her fingers over Frank’s shoulder on the way out, like she’s committing the shape of him to memory.
The door clicks shut.
Frank exhales, the performance slipping.
“You don’t have to hover,” he says lightly. “I’m not going anywhere in the next ten minutes.”
I smile faintly and pull the chair closer anyway. “Humor me.”
He watches me for a moment, then nods. “You’re good at this.”
“At what?”
“Staying,” he says. “Most people get scared when it gets this quiet.”
I swallow. “I know what quiet like this means.”
He studies me, eyes sharp despite everything. “Yeah, you do.”
We sit for a moment without speaking. The machines hum softly around us, steady and indifferent.
“He didn’t used to run,” Frank says suddenly.
I look up. “Colton?”
Frank nods. “He used to stay longer than he needed to. Argue with me. Push back. Like if he worked hard enough, he could outthink reality.”
I smile despite myself. “That sounds like him.”
“Not anymore,” Frank says. “Now he bolts the second it gets too close.”
“He’s hurting,” I say quietly.
Frank sighs. “He’s terrified.”
“Of what?” I ask.
Frank doesn’t answer right away. He stares at the ceiling for a long moment, the humor gone now, replaced with something raw and thoughtful.
“Loss,” he finally says. “The kind you don’t get over. The kind you build your whole life around avoiding.”
A crushing sensation hits my chest.
“He thinks control keeps him safe,” Frank continues. “Rules. Boundaries. Distance. But all it really does is keep him lonely.”
I think of the way Colton’s voice has flattened these past few days. The way he won’t meet Frank’s eyes. The way he barely lets himself breathe in this room.
“He doesn’t know how to stay when he knows the ending,” Frank adds.
I nod slowly. “I do.”
Frank looks at me then, and something like relief crosses his face. “That’s why you scare him.”
He catches me off guard. “Me?”
“You,” he confirms. “You stay, even when it hurts. You don’t disappear just because you know how the story ends.”
I think of Bryce. Of sitting beside his bed. Of holding his hand long after I knew what was coming.
“I didn’t always,” I admit. “But I learned.”
Frank smiles faintly. “That’s the difference between you and him.”
I shift in my chair. “He’ll come around.”
Frank chuckles softly. “Maybe. Or maybe he’ll fight it like hell at first.”
“That sounds about right,” I murmur.
Frank’s gaze softens. “He needs someone who won’t try to fix him. Just someone who understands why he built the walls in the first place.”
I stand slowly, smoothing the blanket over his legs the way Diane did earlier. “I don’t need him to be fixed.”
Frank’s smile deepens, satisfaction there now. “Good.”
As I head for the door, his voice stops me.
“Melissa?”
I turn back.
“Whatever made him like this,” Frank says gently, “it wasn’t small.”
I nod. “I know.”
“And whatever you decide to do with that knowledge,” he adds, “don’t forget that loving someone like him takes patience. But it’s worth it.”
I meet his eyes. “I’m not afraid of patience.”
He grins. “I figured.”
Later, as I walk down the hallway, I catch sight of Colton standing near the nurses’ station, staring at nothing. His posture is rigid. His expression is blank.
A man holding himself together by sheer force of will.
For the first time, I don’t feel confused by his distance. I feel clarity.
There is a deeply wounded man behind the mask he shows the world. Someone who learned early that love and loss were inseparable and decided the safest way to survive was to never let himself fully need anyone again.
Frank didn’t create this fracture. He touched it.
And as I walk toward Colton, my steps steady, my heart strangely calm, I realize something important.
I don’t need to know everything yet. I don’t need answers.
What I need is to stay present. To love him the way Frank taught me how. Without rushing. Without fear. Without trying to outrun the ending.
Whatever it is.
Because some stories are worth staying for, even when you know they will hurt. And this one already matters to me far more than I’m ready to admit.