Chapter 32
Kaze
The hospital room smells like antiseptic and sorrow. I’m enveloped in that sharp, sterile cold so typical of places like this, that seeps into your clothes and clings to your skin, like even the walls are holding their breath.
Khalee hasn’t moved yet.
She’s been lying in that hospital bed for two days now, eyes wide, glassy, unmoving. She’s breathing, yes, but just barely. Her body’s still here, but everything else… it slipped away the moment we stepped into that room. And it hasn’t returned.
I can’t blame her.
If I’m being honest, I understand her because I’ve been beside her this time, and even I don’t know where I’ve found the strength to keep existing in the only way I still can.
Even so, I can’t stop watching over her, watching her. I can’t walk away. Not now. Not again.
I haven’t left her side, not even for a moment, not since they brought her in.
Maybe the one small mercy in this whole tragic story is that I’m a ghost.
No physical limits. No visiting hours. No one to tell me I can’t be here.
But being like this, it’s a prison too.
It always was.
Now more than ever, because I don’t know if she sees me.
I hope she does. I hope she knows I haven’t left her.
Not by choice, at least. I hope she’s able to feel me.
To know that I didn’t just disappear, even if reliving my past, realizing what my death did to her, almost broke me too.
Her mother is crying on the sofa next to the bed.
Like me, she’s barely left this room, and honestly, even without a heart, I feel mine shattering for her.
Her father, on the other hand, is the one who managed to keep his head the coolest. He’s been splitting himself between everything; after all, they don’t have just one daughter in the psychiatric wing of this hospital. They have two.
Every time I look at him, I see him wither a little more, and I wish I could help.
I wish I could tell him that everything will be okay.
But even if I had a physical body, even if he could see and hear me, I don’t think I’d have the courage.
Part of me only wants one part of this family to be okay.
The part my heart still beats for. The one who suffered most through all of this. The love of my life.
My best friend.
Maybe I should feel more compassion, especially knowing I made my own share of wrong turns when the darkness in my head got too loud.
I’m not innocent in this story.
I hurt her too.
And that’s when it hits me, Mada isn’t the only villain here.
I am too.
But more than that, it’s our illness.
Mine and hers.
Because at the end of the day, our brokenness is what crushed Khalee.
She’s here in this bed because she loved a boy who couldn’t save himself.
And because she refused to accept the truth about the one person she loved more than anyone: her sister, the one who was not a victim after all.
After Mada attacked Khalee, they sedated her and brought her here too, different wing, different kind of care.
The doctors say she’s psychotic. Not just unstable. Not just dangerous.
She’s ill.
For now, they’re calling it psychosis, as if that one word could somehow contain all this chaos and make it easier to swallow.
But it’s not just “going crazy” the way people outside think.
Mada lost her grip on reality. Her thoughts, emotions, and perceptions twisted until nothing made sense. Patients like her usually see things that aren’t there.
Their memories turn into lies, and the lies start to feel like truth.
In Mada’s case, it was likely a mix of everything.
A disease. Too many drugs. Too much alcohol. No real rest. No help.
Maybe trauma. Probably trauma.
And somewhere in the middle of all that, the jealousy of her sister grew wild and sharp.
The doctors say she lost her grip on reality a long time ago.
And now, according to the police who’ve already visited Khalee’s parents more than once, the boys involved are saying it was all Mada’s idea—every step of it.
Of course they are. Because they didn’t collaborate at all and never thought her plan was insane.
Hopefully, nobody is buying it.
Hopefully, there will be justice.
Because they’re not innocent, not a single one of them.
They hurt Khalee.
They abused her—all of them.
And she never saw it coming.
She only began to understand the moment her sister jumped from that bed.
Because just like before, she had never truly been unconscious.
Fuck.
I can’t feel sorry for Mada.
And that’s the truth.
How do you even begin to make peace with something like that?
How is Khalee supposed to?
How do you accept that the person who used to braid your hair and hold your hand became the one who hurt you the most?
My fingers find hers, and she tries to squeeze them.
She can feel me.
Thank God.
She looks so small here.
Smaller than I’ve ever seen her.
Her mother’s still sitting across from the bed, unaware of the movement.
She’s too focused on the wooden rosary clutched so tightly in her hands that her knuckles have gone white. Soft prayers spill from her lips, too quiet to break the silence, but loud enough to make it sacred. Her shoulders tremble with every whispered plea.
But even with that movement, my girl doesn’t blink. Doesn’t speak.
Her eyes stay locked on that same corner of the ceiling, like she’s waiting for something to come down.
Or maybe… waiting to rise.
I haven’t had the time, or the strength, to face my own guilt. My wreckage.
Because all I want, all I need, is to talk to her.
To explain.
To tell her everything, even though I know I’m light-years away from forgiveness.
Not after what I think she’s been through.
But I need her awake for that.
I need to know she hears me.
I need her.
I don’t know how much time passes before her mother finally stands and leaves for dinner.
She’s always quick, always tells Khalee she’ll be right back.
And sometimes, God, sometimes, I swear she looks right at me as she walks out, right into my eyes.
Like she sees me.
I know that’s impossible.
But God, I wish it wasn’t.
The room settles into stillness.
And I lie down beside my girl, careful, gentle, and start running my ghost-like fingers through her hair as I hum her song.
It’s not the first time I’ve done this since we got here.
But this time, this time, she blinks.
Slow. Barely more than a flicker.
But it’s real.
Then, like it costs her the world, she turns her head. Rolls to the side, and her brown eyes, once full of life, now glassy, find mine.
I stop breathing. Or maybe I try to breathe slower, quieter.
I can’t scare her.
And I can’t let myself hope too hard.
Not yet.
So, we just stare at each other.
Breathing the same space.
Existing.
And later, I speak. Because I have to. Because I can’t not.
My chest tightens.My throat dries.
But my voice breaks through, because the silence between us is too full of everything we’ve left unsaid.
“Hi, love, ” I whisper.
My voice cracks on the second word.
My heart lurches like it’s trying to catch up to her.
She blinks again.
Her lips part, dry and cracked.
“Hi, ” she murmurs, so soft the whole room seems to lean in just to hear it.
Her voice is rough, shredded from days of silence and screams that tore through her throat two nights ago.
But it’s her.
“How do you feel?” I ask, gently, watching every shift in her face like it’s something holy.
She doesn’t answer right away.
Her eyes drift back up to the ceiling for a second.
Then she swallows slowly. “Is it over?” she asks.
And her voice splits something open in me.
“It is, love, ” I tell her.
And then she cries.
Not the violent, breathless sobs from before.
But real tears. Slow. Shaking. Silent.
She’s still hurting. Still lost.
But she’s coming back to me.
Because she’s mine.
And I’m hers.
And there is nothing in this life strong enough to separate us.
Not even death.
“Don’t leave me, ” she whispers. “Don’t leave me again, Kaze, please.”
I press my forehead to hers, fingers tangling in her hair, anchoring her and anchoring me.
“Never again,” I promise, and though I say it with every broken yet still-beating piece of who I am, I’m not sure it’s a promise I’ll be able to keep.
Because now, more than ever, I can feel time running out.
Now, more than ever, I feel something pulling me away from her, and a part of me knows I can’t stay forever.
No matter the depth of our love.
No matter how rare and precious this miracle is.