Chapter 37 Almost losing everything

Chapter 37 Almost losing everything
Daphne didn’t plan on turning back. She told herself she was done, that she didn’t care, that she would get on the next bus and never look behind her again. But the lie tasted bitter and as she stepped off the street and stood under the faded bus stop sign, she realized she wasn’t going anywhere.

Her legs moved before her mind did. She turned around. And she walked back to the hospital Michael had run into. Back to the place she had never been invited into.

The closer she got, the heavier her breaths became, like each step was dragging the truth out of her.

When she pushed through the hospital doors again, she saw Michael immediately. He stood frozen in his father’s room, fingers trembling around the doorframe. He looked like someone bracing for impact, or someone too afraid to walk into a storm he already knew would swallow him.

Daphne walked up behind him and stopped, her heartbeat loud enough that she was sure he could hear it. The hallway smelled of disinfectant and cold air.

Then Michael finally glanced over his shoulder, confusion flickering across his face, then relief. Big, unguarded relief that punched straight through her.

He didn’t say anything. He didn’t move.

So she reached out and placed her hand lightly between his shoulder blades and pushed him forward.

“Go,” she whispered. “I’m right here.”

Michael didn’t argue this time. He stepped inside.

His father lay in bed, pale, unmoving. The machines are repeating beeps. And for a moment, the sound wavered; it was fast and frightening. Michael froze again, breath caught somewhere in his chest.

Daphne’s pulse climbed.

The nurse rushed in from the other side, checking numbers, calling for someone, adjusting wires. The monitor dipped. Michael’s hand flew to the bedrail.

Daphne held her breath.

Then, slowly, painfully… the monitor began to climb. A line steadied. A rhythm returned. The beeping found its pattern again.

Michael’s body sagged like someone had cut the strings holding him up.

He didn’t make a sound. No cry, no gasp, nothing loud. He just lowered himself into the chair beside the bed and pressed both hands over his face. His shoulders shook once and then he went terribly still.

Daphne didn’t know where to stand. She hovered near him, close enough to feel the ache rolling off him, but not close enough to touch. Her hand hovered over his back, almost landing, she was trying to comfort him, but at the last moment, she decided not to.

Across the room stood Aria, the childhood friend. She had been the girl Daphne saw hugging Michael earlier. The one who smiled up at him. The one who touched his arm belonged there.

Now she watched him, quiet and still, and something in her expression shifted. She immediately understood everything. Her eyes flicked to Daphne with a knowing gaze.

Aria had always been treated like she was meant to be Michael’s future. Daphne didn’t know that. Aria stepped closer to the bed, voice low and warm.

“He scared us,” she murmured to Michael. “You should sit. Breathe.”

But Michael didn’t move. His elbows were on his knees, his head bowed, his chest rising in tight, uneven breaths.

Aria looked at Daphne again. This time, the understanding deepened.

She saw it now, the way Daphne stood beside him like she couldn’t leave even if she wanted to. The way she watched him with a kind of quiet devastation she was trying to hide. The way Michael, even while breaking apart, angled himself slightly toward Daphne’s presence, like his body was following a pull he didn’t register.

Aria wasn’t jealous. She was sad. And relieved. And maybe a little heartbroken, the kind that came from childhood hopes dissolving softly into reality.

People had always teased her about Michael growing up to marry her. She’d laughed it off, but part of her must have held onto it, because this moment, this realization, hurt her in a place she’d been too young to name.

But she also saw something else.

Michael wasn’t alone.

And that mattered more.

She stepped back quietly so she wouldn’t intrude, folding her arms around herself, as if giving space was the only support she could offer now.

Daphne finally edged closer to Michael. The machines beeped softly around them, filling the silence they couldn’t break. The fear he’d been carrying since the moment he got the phone call was still thick around him, but now it was mixed with exhaustion, deep and soul-level.

“Michael,” Daphne whispered, barely loud enough to hear. “He’s okay. He’s still here. You’re not losing him.”

Michael lowered his hands slowly. His face was drawn, and there was something hollow in his eyes, something that wasn't there when she met him.

“Daph…” he breathed out, like he didn’t know what he wanted to say next. Like the name itself was the only thing he trusted his voice with.

He looked at her like she was the only steady thing in the room. And she wasn’t used to being anyone’s steady.

She reached out again. Her fingertips brushed his sleeve, and he inhaled sharply at the contact. He didn’t pull away and he didn’t grab her hand either.

Aria turned away, giving them privacy she didn’t need to give but chose to anyway. Her expression softened with something gentle. Acceptance. Letting go. Realizing that whatever she had once imagined for herself and Michael… this wasn’t it anymore.

But Daphne? Daphne was someone he let break his walls. Someone he let see him like this, raw and stripped down.

Aria stepped out of the room to call her mother, giving updates. But her eyes drifted toward the door once more before she disappeared around the corner.

She was happy he had someone.

She was just sad it wasn’t her.

Inside the room, Michael leaned back in the chair and stared at his father, eyes shining with an exhaustion that went bone-deep. Daphne didn’t move away.

“Michael,” she said softly, “you’re not alone.”

His jaw clenched.

He didn’t say thank you.

He didn’t tell her to stay.

He didn’t have to.

She stayed anyway.

And while the machines kept their steady rhythm and the night pressed against the windows, Daphne realized something she hadn’t admitted to herself.

She wasn’t here out of obligation.

She wasn’t here because she followed him.

She was here because she couldn’t be anywhere else.

Because somewhere along the way, she had almost lost him.

And losing him, truly losing him was something she didn’t know how to survive.