53
The air outside was sharper than Amanda expected. The gray clouds overhead swirled like slow smoke, the city rumbling faintly beneath her feet, indifferent to everything happening inside the glass doors she'd just walked through.
Amanda leaned against the cool stone of the building and closed her eyes.
She tried to catch her breath, but it came in short bursts—tight, shallow. The image of Ericka sitting in that chair, so small, so tired, had hit her harder than she was ready for.
She was used to Ericka being strong. Untouchable. The kind of woman who walked into a room and made gravity tilt in her favor. But seeing her like that...
Alone.
Scared.
Amanda pressed her palms to her face and exhaled through her fingers.
She could leave. She should, maybe. Give Ericka the privacy she obviously wanted. Pretend she never saw any of it. Wait until Ericka was ready to tell her—if she ever was.
But that wasn't love. That wasn't them.
And deep down, Amanda already knew—Ericka might never ask for help. Might never open the door herself.
So Amanda would walk through it.
She pushed off the wall and turned back toward the building.
Her legs moved before her brain caught up.
The lobby seemed quieter now, like even the walls were holding their breath. She retraced her steps through the corridor, heart pounding like a drum in her chest. At the corner, she paused—just for a second.
Then she stepped into the waiting room.
Ericka didn't look up at first. She was still staring at the clipboard in her lap, jaw clenched, shoulders squared like she was bracing for a storm.
Amanda crossed the room without a word and sat down gently in the empty chair beside her.
It was only then that Ericka realized she wasn't alone.
Her head snapped up.
Amanda met her gaze.
Ericka's eyes widened. "What—" she started, but Amanda reached out slowly, carefully, and placed a hand over hers.
"I followed you," Amanda said quietly. "I had to."
Shock flickered across Ericka's face. Then panic. Then something heavier—grief, maybe. Guilt. Her lips parted, but nothing came out. She looked like she was about to stand.
"Don't," Amanda whispered. "Please don't run."
Ericka didn't move. She just sat frozen, her fingers gripping the edge of the clipboard like it was the only thing keeping her grounded.
Amanda glanced down at the form in her lap—half filled out, the pen paused mid-word.
"May I?" Amanda asked gently.
Ericka blinked. "What?"
Amanda gestured to the clipboard. "Let me help."
"I don't need—"
"I know you don't," Amanda said softly. "But maybe... you don't have to do it alone."
A long pause passed.
Then Ericka let go.
Her hands dropped to her lap, limp with exhaustion.
Amanda picked up the clipboard, smoothing the slightly wrinkled page. She found the spot where Ericka had stopped—"Primary Emergency Contact"—and filled in her own name, her own number.
She didn't ask permission.
She just wrote it.
Because she was the person Ericka should call.
The next line asked about known allergies. Amanda looked up. "Any?"
Ericka swallowed, eyes glassy. "Penicillin."
Amanda nodded and kept going. Her handwriting was neat, precise—unshaken even as her heart thundered in her chest.
She reached the section on prior diagnoses. She glanced at Ericka again, quietly asking with her eyes.
Ericka's voice was barely above a whisper. "They found it early. Stage one."
Amanda didn't flinch. She wrote that down too. Like it was just another fact on a form.
Even though it wasn't.
It was everything.
When she finished, she handed the clipboard to the nurse's window, then returned and sat beside Ericka again.
Neither of them spoke.
Ericka stared ahead, her eyes fixed on a framed print of a foggy forest across the room. Her hands trembled in her lap.
Amanda reached over and took one of them in both of hers.
"You don't have to tell me everything right now," she said quietly. "But I'm here. And I'm not going anywhere."
Ericka turned slowly to look at her. The mask had cracked now—completely. Her lips trembled, and when she finally spoke, it was with the raw, broken honesty Amanda had been waiting to hear.
"I didn't want you to see me like this."
Amanda gave her hand a gentle squeeze. "Like what? Human?"
"Like I'm scared," Ericka said, voice cracking.
Amanda's eyes stung. "Then let me be the person you're scared with."
Ericka's breath hitched.
She blinked rapidly, looking down at their joined hands, then back at Amanda.
"I didn't want to break you with this," she whispered.
Amanda leaned closer, forehead brushing against Ericka's temple. "You won't."
They sat like that until a nurse came and called Ericka's name.
Amanda stood with her.
Ericka hesitated.
Amanda reached for her hand again. "Let me come with you."
Ericka didn't say yes.
But she didn't say no.
And when she let Amanda walk beside her—shoulder to shoulder, step for step—something in her posture changed.
Not fully.
But enough.
There was still a long road ahead. Appointments. Treatments. Fears and uncertainty.
But Amanda wasn't afraid of the hard parts.
She just wanted to be there.
To sit beside her in every waiting room.
To hold her hand when the silence got too loud.
To remind her she wasn't in this alone anymore.
Not now.
Not ever.