10. Bianca
BIANCA
Just breathe, Bianca.
I haven’t been inside a hospital in years, not since I was the one trapped in a bed, but the smells are the same. Different building, same vibe that makes everything look sickly, same beeping machines that sound like countdown timers. It’s hard to get a full breath, but I keep walking.
In slow. Out steady.
The ride from the airport had proven that life carried on without me. The town still looks like I remember, even though it feels like another planet—a place I haven’t let myself dwell on for too long in years.
Home sweet hell.
The elevator ride feels endless, and I catch my reflection in the steel door. Not the girl who left, that’s for sure. Black clothes, hardened eyes that don’t give anything away. The girl I used to be is buried deep, and I have no desire to dig her back up.
The ICU waiting area sprawls in front of me with its uncomfortable chairs and buzzing lights, the smell of bad coffee and fear hanging in the air. And there, clustered near the windows, is my family.
Mom sees me first, and her coffee cup slips from her fingers, hitting the floor and splashing brown liquid across the tiles. Her face does this thing I remember from childhood—crumples and lights up at the same time, like she can’t decide if she’s devastated or relieved.
“Bianca.” Just my name, but it comes out like a prayer she’s been whispering for years.
I swallow down a sudden ache.
The grief she wears on her face is not from my brother alone.
I carry blame for that too.
She’s across the room before I can prepare myself, arms wrapping around me like I might disappear again if she doesn’t hold tight enough. She feels smaller than I remember, more fragile than ever, like five years of worrying about her daughter who won’t come home has worn her down to nothing.
“You came,” she says against my shoulder, and I can hear years of uncertainty in those two words. “I wasn’t sure... I hoped, but...”
My gut twists. I’ve only seen them once since I left—three years ago when they came to Hunter’s Creek for a weekend, and I tried so hard to act normal, to prove I was okay.
I can remember it clear as day. We were at Metty’s Diner, the four of us crammed into a corner booth.
Dad was telling a ridiculous story about one of his patients, using dramatic gestures that made Mom laugh until she snorted.
Winston was stealing fries off my plate, the same thing he did when we were kids.
“Remember when Bianca collected cat hair from the neighbor's house and put it in my bed?” Winston says, nudging my shoulder. “I kept wondering why I was suddenly allergic to my own room.”
“You deserved it,” I say, stealing a fry back. “You kept scaring me with those very real-looking fake spiders.”
“Fair point.”
Winston’s phone buzzes on the table. He glances at it, and I see the name flash across the screen.
Freddie.
The diner tilts sideways. The life I’ve carefully created—the one where they don’t exist, where I’m safe, where I can sit with my family and pretend to be normal—crumbles in a single heartbeat. I mumble a few words about feeling sick and bolt from the restaurant.
Ezra found me later, hyperventilating behind the post office like some kind of feral animal.
He didn’t ask questions, just sat with me until I could breathe again.
And later that night, when the panic turned into something desperate and raw, he was there for that too.
Gentle and kind and patient in a way that made me understand why people write songs about first times.
It wasn’t who I’d imagined, wasn’t the moment I’d dreamed of as a girl.
But if it couldn’t be them, I was grateful it was him.
Someone who knew all my tattered pieces and cared for me anyway.
It seems stupid now, how that one name destroyed me. My family was understanding when I told them it was too much, but I avoided all plans after that to see them. I regret that now.
I hug her back, trying to find words that don’t sound hollow.
“I’m here,” I say, settling for simple truth. Not ‘of course I came’ or ‘I wouldn’t miss this,’ just the reality that I’m here now, even though I haven’t been here for anything else.
Dad’s next, pulling me into one of his bear hugs, though it’s gentler than it used to be, like he’s not sure how much contact I can handle anymore.
“How is he?” I ask, stepping back and putting space between us before the guilt can crawl up my throat and choke me.
“Stable,” Dad says. “But the doctors say the next day or two will tell us everything we need to know.”
“Bianca,” Mom says carefully, “this is Ben and Matt. They’re part of Winston and Clara’s pack now.”
Clara steps forward, and for a second we just stare at each other. She looks exhausted, dark hair escaping from a messy ponytail, but when she sees me, her face crumples with relief.
“Bianca.” She doesn’t hesitate, just pulls me into a hug that feels like much more. “Oh my god, you came. You’re here.”
I hug her back, remembering how she used to braid my hair and teach me about makeup when I was fifteen and awkward and desperate for an older sister figure. How she’d listen to me complain about high school drama like it mattered.
Ben and Matt hover nearby—both tall, both broad-shouldered, both radiating that alpha tension that comes from wanting to fix what they can’t control.
Ben has kind eyes, the sort of face that would make scared kids feel safe.
Matt looks like the uber-smart type, pushing his glasses up his nose with the nervous energy of someone who reads medical journals for fun.
“We’ve heard so much about you,” Ben offers, his kind eyes studying my face. “Winston and Clara talk about you all the time.”
They do? After my lack of communication, I figured I’d become a distant memory, someone they used to know.
“It’s good to meet you,” Matt adds, adjusting his glasses. “I’m glad you came. Your brother has missed you.”
The memory hits me—one of our sparse phone calls from a few years ago.
Winston telling me about meeting Ben and Matt at some karaoke bar near school, how Clara had dragged them all out for “team bonding” and they’d ended up singing terrible duets until closing time.
When he’d invited me home for their bonding celebration, I’d frozen.
There was no way I could handle coming back.
I’d told him how happy I was for him, how much I loved him, how much I wished I could be there.
He’d been so understanding about it all, never making me feel guilty for not coming.
“He said you had a total tomb raider aesthetic going on,” Matt continues with a slight grin. “Now I get it,” he adds, adjusting his glasses with a nervous energy.
I roll my eyes and let out a short laugh. “Of course he did. Can I see him?”
Clara nods quickly. “Room 314. But he’s...” She can’t finish.
“He looks pretty bad,” Ben says. “All the equipment, the machines. Just so you know.”
Room 314 is all beeping machines and white walls that smell like bleach. The kind of place that makes you whisper even when there’s no one to wake. Winston’s in the middle of it all, and fuck—he doesn’t look like my brother at all.
His face is purple and swollen, bruises covering everything I remember. But his chest moves up and down, and the heart monitor keeps beeping steadily, so he’s still here. Still fighting.
I pull the chair closer to his bed, trying not to look at all the ways his body is damaged, and settle in for what might be a long wait.
“Hey, Winnie,” I reach out, taking his limp hand in mine, my words softer than I intended. “It’s Bianca.”
Nothing but the mechanical sounds of machines keeping him alive, so I fill the silence with stories about the refuge, carefully editing out the dangerous parts.
I tell him about learning to hunt and track, about the people who’ve become my family, about morning coffee with Megan and her terrible pottery experiments, about Ezra teaching me to suture wounds and set bones.
“Guess we both became doctors,” I say with a weak laugh. “Although I’m not sure if you would approve of my methods.”
An hour passes. Nurses come and go, checking vitals, adjusting medications. Clara comes to check on me a few times, sitting with us for a few moments before quietly giving me space with him.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m so fucking sorry, Winston.”
His breathing stays steady. No change.
“I should have been here. Should have celebrated when you all bonded. Should have been at your graduation. Should have called more. Should have...” I stop. The list is too long.
“I was so afraid of falling apart again that I forgot about everyone else. I forgot that you needed me.”
I reach out, careful of the IV line, and take his hand. It’s warm. Alive.
The machines keep beeping. Winston keeps breathing.
“I borrowed your baseball mitt when we were kids,” I say. “The good one Dad got you for your fourteenth birthday. Left it outside during that storm and ruined the leather. I let you believe Tommy stole it from your locker. You were so mad at him you didn’t talk to him for a month.”
I squeeze his fingers, silently begging him to respond.
“Oh, and I totally read your journal when you were dating Clara. Your poetry was really bad, Winnie. Like, embarrassingly awful. But you were so sweet when you wrote about her that I couldn’t even make fun of you for it.”
His fingers are warm in mine. I hold on to that warmth like it’s everything.
“I’ve got about a million more confessions if you want to wake up and hear them. Most of them involve me breaking your stuff or eating your Halloween candy. You were way too trusting for your own good.”
Time moves strangely in hospital rooms. Could be minutes or hours since I started talking. The light outside has changed, gone softer. Evening, maybe.
I don’t need a sign to tell me I’m not supposed to be doing this, but still, I squeeze into the tight space beside him on the bed, careful not to touch anything that matters.
“You need to wake up,” I demand. “I’m not ready to lose you, Win. I need more time to fix us... need to know everything I missed.”
I close my eyes, listening to his heartbeat through all the machines.
That’s when I smell it.
The scent that drifts through the room when the door opens behind me.
Teakwood. Black musk. Bergamot. With a note of underlying rose... I feel the urge to throw up.
My whole body goes rigid, every muscle locking into place. All this time, all this effort, and one breath threatens to crack me open again.
But I don’t move.
“Get the fuck out,” I say, in a low and dangerously calm tone.
The footsteps stop. The door doesn’t close.
I don’t turn around. I don’t breathe.
Then I hear the door shut.