The hallway outside Edward's room felt quieter than usual. Not in the way hospitals sometimes go silent—clinical, cold—but like something deeper had settled in the walls. The kind of quiet that comes after a long conversation. Or before a difficult one.
I was a few steps away from the door when I noticed them.
Mark stood just outside, speaking in low tones with one of Edward's doctors. I recognised her, Dr. Patel, one of the oncology leads. Her arms were folded loosely across her chest, her posture composed but not impersonal. Mark had that look he sometimes wore when he was trying too hard not to feel anything. Still, I saw it in the set of his jaw, the tension just beneath the surface.
I stopped without thinking, hovering by the corner near the nurse's station. Not to eavesdrop, but because something about the moment didn't feel like mine to enter. Not yet.
I waited, keeping a polite distance, eyes fixed on a crack in the linoleum floor.
