The Room Where She Waited**

Kara keeps vigil, a shadow appears in the doorway, and the universe asks for another bargain.

Today’s post:
A chapter from the hospital/alternate-reality thread — Kara’s point of view — the moment everything changes.

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He looked at her like he already knew her.

Chapter 2: The Room Where It Happens

Kara

The hospital chair dug into my back, all vinyl and angles, like it had been designed to punish anyone who stayed too long. The air smelled of sanitizer and stale coffee. A clock ticked somewhere, steady and merciless.

I stared at my sister — still, pale, wired to machines that were doing her breathing for her. For a moment I tried to match my inhale to the pendulum beep of the monitor, like if I could keep time, I could keep her here.

And then the tears came — hot, furious, unstoppable.
How could this happen? Hadn’t we lost enough already?

They had taken my mother.
They had taken my baby brother.
I’d nearly lost my son to seizures, and I’d already lost my breasts to cancer.
Loss after loss, heartbreak stacked on heartbreak.

Surely this was enough for one lifetime.

Kate lay there, motionless. Every so often I’d see a twitch — a hand, an eyelid, the corner of her mouth — and I couldn’t help wondering: where was she? Dreaming? Floating? Waiting?

I held her hand and talked like she could hear, because I had to believe she could. “You’re not allowed to leave me,” I whispered. I painted her nails that soft nude-pink she loved, the one that made her feel a little more put together when nothing else did. I played her audiobook — the one about alternate timelines and second chances. Of course it was that one.

Patrick had gone home to take care of Zee — to feed her and maybe just breathe for the first time in hours. He needed the break. He hadn’t been eating. He hadn’t been sleeping. None of us were right without her. It had been two days. Two long, terrible days.

The irony wasn’t lost on me: she was here because she’d run into the street after Zee, her soul dog, her “baby.” Just like our mother had done for her. Saved her. Died for it. And now here we were again — full circle — like the universe was telling the same cruel story all over again.

The door opened and John and Gino slipped in with coffee, food, distractions I didn’t want but forced myself to take. A halfhearted bite. A sip I barely tasted. Then Wanda and her old-man husband arrived with flowers, said the right things, and disappeared.

June and Dad hadn’t shown up. They were in Hawaii. “Non-refundable tickets,” they’d said. Too early to fly back. I tried to picture them on a beach, but all I saw was sand and silence. And the truth was — Ba wouldn’t have wanted them here anyway.

I whispered that to her, leaning close so no one else could hear: “You don’t have to wake up for them. But I need you to wake up for me. Okay?”

The monitors answered in broken time.

And then — for just a second — I saw someone in the doorway.

A young man. Hoodie. Hands in his pockets. Familiar in a way I couldn’t place. He looked at Ba like he’d always known her.

I blinked, and he was gone.

I stood, checked the hallway. Nothing. No footsteps. No badge at the desk. Just antiseptic air and the hum of machines.

Back in the chair, I picked up her hand again.
She twitched.
Once. Then again.

Somewhere in the space between prayer and panic — I felt her fingers curl tight around mine.

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Interlude: The Bargain

My mother stepped in front of a car and saved me.
That was the bargain.

Everyone wanted her to survive.
Everyone loved her.
Everyone misses her.
She was the best thing.

And the truth is brutal:
the world lost her,
and it kept me.

I never asked for that trade.
She was the one who chose it.
Not because I was better or worth more.
Because I was hers.
That was enough for her.
Some days, it’s not enough for me.

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“Think about who you want to be and be that person.
There is no spoon.”
—Kevin

Next week:

Waking up wasn’t the hard part.
Understanding where I’d been was.