MARA's PERSPECTIVE
Her phone buzzed once in her pocket.
Hope flared before she could stop it.
She checked.
Nothing new.
Just the same two messages. The same one tick.
Her jaw tightened. She slid the phone away, annoyed at herself for caring this much this quickly. She had promised herself she would be smarter this time. More grounded. Less willing to read meaning into proximity.
You're a nurse, she told herself. You should know better than anyone that silence doesn't always mean intent.
Still, it hurt. A dull ache constantly reminding her of the response she was expecting.
Mid-morning, a call went out for assistance near outpatient consults. Mara didn't respond to that one. She stayed where she was, restocking medications, her mind half a step behind her hands.
She thought of the bookstore. Of dust and light and the way Elias had looked at her like she was something he'd almost lost.
She thought of his joke about nurses and patients and how she'd laughed even though it was objectively terrible. A medical pun on day one. Bold. Risky. Almost grounds for discharge.
She smiled despite herself.
Then the smile faded.
One tick, her mind whispered.
She heard about the new admission indirectly.
Two doctors passed by, voices low but not hushed enough.
"Sudden paralysis," one said. "During consult."
"That fast?"
"Neuro's not happy."
Mara paused, then continued walking. Sudden paralysis was alarming, but it wasn't her case. She couldn't afford to take on every story that brushed past her. That way led to burnout, or worse, apathy disguised as strength.
Later, as she delivered medications, she passed the ICU doors. The glass reflected her own face back at her, slightly distorted.
Inside, machines murmured. Someone new had arrived. She could feel it in the way the space held itself, tense and attentive.
"Room twelve needs antibiotics," Mara said to no one in particular. "And can someone check on the new ICU admission once he's settled?"
A nurse nodded.
Mara moved on.
She didn't know the man inside was awake. That he was aware. That he recognized her voice without knowing how. That it threaded through the fog and anchored him to something human.
She didn't know that while she adjusted drips and soothed fears, he was losing the ability to speak, to move, to claim his place in the world she was walking through so easily.
She only knew that the day felt off. Like a sentence missing its last word.
On her break, she finally let herself look at the phone again.
Still nothing.
Her thumb hovered over the screen. She considered calling. Considered typing something sharp, something casual, something that would protect her pride.
Instead, she typed:
Hey. I might be reading into things, but are you okay?
Sent.
One tick.
That one hurt more than the others.
She stared at it until Lina sat down beside her.
"You look like you're about to fight your phone," Lina said.
Mara laughed weakly. "I might lose."
"Rough?"
"Just… bad timing," Mara said. "Or bad judgment. Hard to tell."
Lina leaned back. "Those two are cousins."
"Figures."
They sat in silence for a moment.
Somewhere down the hall, a monitor alarmed briefly, then settled.
Mara didn't know that in that same moment, a man was being wheeled through corridors, eyes open, mind intact, body unresponsive. That he was trying to say her name into a silence that refused to carry it.
She didn't know that the reason her messages weren't delivering wasn't disinterest or cruelty or choice.
It was biology. The science she studied.
It was a body betraying its owner.
It was timing, once again proving it had a cruel sense of humor.
By the end of her shift, Mara felt wrung out. She checked her phone one last time before heading home.
No new messages.
She locked the screen and slipped it into her bag.
"Guess that's that," she murmured to herself, not realizing how close the truth actually was.
Down the hall, behind glass and white light, Elias lay sedated, his phone powered off somewhere far away, unread messages waiting like unanswered prayers.
Two people in the same building.
Two hearts finally aligned.
A silence thick enough to keep them strangers.
A veil that seemed thin, but is the thickest barrier between them.