Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Christine
“She’s a fighter.” I watch the machines breathe for her.
Soft mechanical breaths fill the room in slow intervals while Blue lies almost lifeless on the hospital bed that looks too big for her tiny body.
I breathe deeply and my ribs burn from the impact. My shoulder feels stitched together with wires. There’s a constant throbbing behind my eyes that never fully leaves.
The pain medication dulls parts of me, but not enough. Never enough because every inch of my body still aches seeing my baby like this.
I hate it.
I hate the wires.
I hate the monitors.
I hate the bruise fading yellow along her little arm.
I hate the way hospitals turn people into numbers and charts and cautious voices.
Most of all, I hate how quiet my baby is.
Aisha is beside me silently, one arm wrapped around herself, the other holding a paper cup of coffee she hasn’t touched in almost twenty minutes.
“She’s a fighter,” I whisper again.
I’ve been saying it for two days now, like repetition can force reality into obedience.
“She is,” Aisha agrees immediately, her voice rough from crying and lack of sleep.
My fingers brush lightly over Blue’s curls.
“They don’t even know.” I sniff, staring at her tiny face. “This girl argued with a tree in her dream.”
Aisha lets out a watery laugh beside me.
“The tree was apparently disrespectful.”
“Very disrespectful.” My throat constricts painfully around the words. “And the ants were helping her fight back.”
Aisha breaks into another laugh that immediately dissolves into a sob halfway through.
I feel one slip out of me too.
Everything hurts differently these days.
Even laughing.
“She’s going to wake up talking.” Aisha nods, wiping roughly at her face. “That child has never entered a room quietly in her life.”
I nod quickly because I need that to be true.
“She’ll probably complain first,” I whisper hoarsely.
“Yeah.” Aisha snorts wetly. “Or ask for pancakes.”
“Or cartoons.”
“Or goats.”
That one cracks something open in me and a broken laugh escapes, tears falling immediately after.
Goodness.
I miss her voice.
I miss her endless questions.
I miss her tiny footsteps running through the house.
“She’s coming back.” I nod again, firmer this time even as my chin trembles. “She has to.”
“She will.” Aisha reaches for my hand immediately, squeezing hard.
I stare at Blue’s chest rising and falling slowly under the blanket.
Please.
Please let that be true.
I don’t think I will survive this version of the world if it isn’t.
I keep staring at Blue’s chest.
Up.
Down.
Up.
Down.
I feel like if I stop watching, something terrible will happen.
“Easy on yourself.” Aisha exhales shakily before slipping an arm around my shoulders carefully, mindful of the bruising still stitched through me.
I lean into it, tired in a way sleep cannot fix.
“She’s stubborn,” Aisha murmurs against my hair. “Remember her grudge against me for eating the last strawberry yogurt.”
“It was her yogurt,” I mumble weakly.
“She was two.”
“She meant business.”
That almost earns another laugh out of us, but it's trapped back in when the door opens behind us.
Neither of us turns immediately.
Then Aisha’s body stiffens beside mine and I know before I look.
I know it's him.
He's been showing up non-stop.
My stomach drops as I turn to confirm what I already know.
Robert is just inside the doorway, flowers in one hand, exhaustion plastered on his face in ways I’ve never seen before.
And for one terrible second, all I can see is fire.
Smoke.
Messages.
Blood.
“No.” I fire at him, the word scraping out instantly as panic floods me so fast it steals the air from my lungs.
Robert freezes completely.
“Christine…”
“No.” I step back immediately, my pulse exploding beneath my skin. “No, no, no…”
Aisha moves at once, placing herself between us instinctively.
“Hey,” she starts carefully, one hand lifting toward me. “Hey, breathe.”
“He can’t be here.” My voice starts shaking harder. “He can’t…”
“Christine.” Robert’s voice breaks softly through it.
I hate that it still affects me.
I hate that even now my body recognizes it.
“He needs to leave,” I whisper desperately, tears burning again. “Please, Aisha…”
Robert sets the flowers down slowly near the door like even sudden movements might shatter something.
And maybe they will.
Because I feel seconds away from coming apart completely.
“I know you’re scared of me right now.” He holds up his hands.
“You should stay away from us.” I hold firm to my position. “This is all your fault.” I stab a finger at him.
The grief in his face melts instantly into something uglier. Something guilty. Like he’s been saying the same thing to himself since the accident happened.
“I know.” He exhales, deflating.
“No, you don’t!”
“I do.”
“You bring danger everywhere…” My voice rises uncontrollably now. “You said it yourself… You knew this could happen!”
Aisha glances back at me carefully.
Then at him.
Not sure which one of us is bleeding worse internally.
Robert takes one slow step forward and Aisha blocks him immediately with a hand against his chest.
“She’s panicking,” she warns.
“I know.” His eyes stay on me anyway. “But I need her to hear me.”
“Robert…”
“Please.” His word comes out rough enough to stop all of us for half a second. “I need to be here,” he continues, looking directly at me now. “For both of you.”
Tears sting harder behind my eyes at how wrecked he sounds. How wrecked he looks.
Because some horrible part of me still wants him near even while another part is screaming to run.
“You can’t protect us,” I whisper.
“Maybe not from everything,” he admits. “But I’ll spend the rest of my life trying if you let me.”
That assurance shuffles something inside me dangerously.
Aisha feels it too.
I know she does because her hand lowers slowly from his chest.
Robert moves closer carefully after that. His steps are slow enough for me to pull away if I want to.
And I should.
God, I should.
But when his arms finally wrap around me, something in me gives out instead.
The panic smashes first. Then everything underneath it spills open behind it.
“They tried to kill my baby.” I sob into his chest, clutching harder at the front of his shirt. “They tried to kill her,” I whisper again, my voice splintering this time. “She was screaming, Robert. She was in the backseat screaming and I couldn’t…” My breath catches. “I couldn’t get to her.”
“Christine.” He pulls back but his hands come up immediately, cradling my face carefully.
I hate how stable he feels.
How warm.
How solid against all this terror.
His thumbs brush beneath my eyes, catching tears faster than they can fall.
“It won't happen again.” He promises firmly.
“You can't be sure.” I shake my head instantly.
“I am.”
“Why?” My voice pitches again.
His eyes flash with something dark. Something that feels like certainty. The deadly kind.
“Because I won’t let it.” The conviction in his voice should scare me.
Instead, it eases somewhere deep in my ribs like something exhausted finally sitting down.
“Okay.” I nod weakly anyway because I don’t have enough strength left to argue with him anymore.
The room tilts suddenly from the nodding, my knees wobbling beneath me.
“Hey.” Robert catches me before I stumble, one arm locking around my waist quickly. “Easy.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re swaying.”
“I’m not…” I start to say but the dizziness surges again.
I shut my eyes briefly.
“Christine.” He studies my face carefully now. “Have you eaten?”
I don’t answer quickly enough and his expression changes instantly.
“Have you?”
I shake my head.
Food started feeling unnecessary after the accident. My body stopped belonging to normal routines.
Robert exhales through his nose like he’s trying very hard not to lose his patience.
“I brought food from the restaurant.”
“You’re unbelievable.”
“You’re concussed,” he replies flatly. “You don’t get opinions right now.”
“There he is.” Aisha snorts softly behind us.
I would roll my eyes if I had enough energy. Instead, I let Robert hold me properly when the room sways again.
“Come on,” he coos this time. “Let me get you back to your room.”
I glance once toward Blue.
Then I nod.
The walk back to my ward feels longer than it should.
Every step drags through my body like my bones are filled with wet cement. Robert keeps one arm around me the entire time, steadying me carefully whenever I falter, which is more often than I want to admit.
The pain medication is making everything feel distant, like I’m floating inside my own suffering instead of fully living in it.
When we reach the room, I’m exhausted again.
Robert helps me sit on the bed slowly before stepping away to reach for the takeout bag he left near the drawer, the same place he's been leaving me food for days.
The smell of warm bread and soul wafts around the room almost immediately.
My stomach twists weakly at the reminder that bodies still expect food even after devastation.
“I’m not hungry,” I protest.
“That’s unfortunate,” he replies, opening the container anyway. “Because you’re eating.”
He sits on the chair beside the bed, spoon in hand, waiting.
I stare at him for a second, at the sleeves rolled halfway up his forearms, and the exhaustion shadowing his face.
Then I open my mouth.
The first spoonful tastes like nothing.
The second tastes slightly better.
By the fifth, my body remembers hunger.
Neither of us speaks much while he feeds me. And when I finally can’t manage another bite, he sets the container aside without pushing.
“Better?” He asks softly.
“Yeah.” I nod faintly, my eyelids already feel tired.
“Good.” He smiles mildly.
“You should go home and rest,” I whisper.
“No.” He answers quickly.
“You’ve been at it for days.”
“I know.”
“You need sleep.” I push.
“I know.” He nods, smiling to soften the finality in his tone.
“Robert…”
“I’m not leaving.”
“Whatever,” I grunt
I drift off sometime after that with the sound of his breathing still in the room.
The nightmare comes haunting, with Blue screaming somewhere I can’t reach.
I jolt awake with a gasp, pain exploding through my ribs.
My eyes dart wildly through the darkness and find him still in the same chair watching me.
“Hey…” He’s beside the bed before the panic fully rises again, one hand finding mine instantly. “You’re okay,” he coos softly. “You’re okay.”
My breathing shakes uncontrollably for a second longer before calming again.
“You stayed,” I whisper hoarsely.
“Yes, Bon.” His thumb brushes across my knuckles once. “I said I would.”
Sleep drags me under again eventually.
Then another nightmare.
Another forceful wake-up.
Another moment of confusion and fear.
And every single time… He’s there.
Sometimes sitting beside the bed.
Sometimes leaning back with his eyes closed but never fully asleep.
Sometimes already watching me before I even wake completely.
No matter how many times I drift in and out of darkness, Robert is here.
And I want him here. I know a part of me wants him to stay even beyond these sterile hospital walls.
I want his stupidly expensive food taking over my fridge again.
I want him to listen to Blue talk about her nightmare with goats and rude trees.
But wanting him makes everything worse. Because this… This is terrifying.
Blue almost died.
My baby almost died.
And even now, with Robert sleeping beside my hospital bed and Blue breathing fighting to come back to us, fear still crawls through me like smoke trapped beneath a door, knowing whoever did this is still out there.
Still breathing.
Still watching.
Maybe already close enough to touch.
The thought stalks me constantly now and I feel it sometimes before I even wake completely.
That horrible certainty like eyes are already on me.
Waiting.
Watching to see if we survived only to pounce again.