ARIA
He wasn't there when I woke up.
But his fingerprints were everywhere.
The blanket wrapped around me in the night. The tray of food I hadn't ordered. The second pillow placed just beside mine.
He was always gone by the time I noticed.
I heard it in whispers. A nurse mentioning he paid for a private room. A janitor saying "he stood by the door for hours before leaving."
He never asked for recognition. He never even left a note.
He just… disappeared again.
It should've hurt. It did hurt. But not as much as watching my mother's chest rise and fall slower with each passing day. The beeping machines were cruel in their consistency, like ticking clocks counting down to something I couldn't stop.
The days bled Into each other.
I didn't sleep. Not really.
I dozed with one hand wrapped around Mom's, counting the heartbeats in the monitor like they were grains of sand slipping through a cracked hourglass.
