The beeping of the monitor was steady—steady in the way heartbreak sometimes is. Predictable, clinical, disinterested. A rhythmic echo of everything that was wrong and nothing that could fix it.
Aditi sat beside her, curled awkwardly on the hard plastic chair. It wasn't meant for long waits, but she had no intention of moving. Her elbows rested on her knees, hands loosely clasped together, her chin balanced against them like it was the only thing anchoring her thoughts from spiraling.
She hadn't moved for a while now.
Her eyes didn't wander around the room. She didn't glance at the doctors passing by or the nurse who occasionally entered with chart and pen in hand. She just stared—stared at her best friend lying on the narrow bed, tubes running from her arm, wires stuck to her skin, eyes shut against the too-bright hospital ceiling.
Her face looked different like this. Too still. Too quiet. Pale, flushed with fever, strands of hair sticking to her forehead where sweat had dried and crusted. Her lips were parted slightly, and she breathed in tiny gasps, her chest rising and falling as if it hurt to do even that much.
And Aditi hated it.
Not the fever. Not even the exhaustion.
She hated how normal this had become. How her best friend walking around with hollow eyes and aching limbs had somehow stopped feeling like an emergency until it was one.
She had known—God, she had known. She had seen the signs stacking up like an unfinished Jenga tower. The shaking hands. The untouched food. The clipped responses and the empty silences. She had practically begged her to rest, to skip a day, to just pause.
But that girl never paused.
She moved like a machine fueled by self-denial and caffeine. She didn't rest because she didn't believe she had earned it. Because somewhere in the twisted wiring of her mind, rest equaled weakness. Stillness equaled failure. And now here they were.
Aditi leaned forward, reaching out with one hand, brushing a damp lock of hair from her friend's temple. Her fingers lingered for a second, ghosting down to her cheekbone where the fever made her skin pulse hot under her touch.
"You're so stupid," she whispered. It wasn't meant to be cruel. It was soft, almost affectionate. A choked laugh behind the tremble. "You don't get to do this. Not with me around. Not like this."
There was no response. Just the soft, barely-there sound of her breathing, and the faint crinkle of the IV bag as it shifted with every tiny movement she made.
She looked smaller like this.
Smaller, not just in size but in presence. Like the fire that made her walk like she had a purpose had dimmed, leaving behind only the shell of someone who used to fight everything with her chin up and fists metaphorical but clenched.
Aditi swallowed hard. Her throat felt like it was lined with grit and guilt.
"You don't get to run yourself to the ground just because your brain tells you you're not allowed to stop," she murmured, voice low, words more for herself than anyone else. "You are allowed. You're allowed to rest. You're allowed to break down. You don't have to earn care. You don't have to pretend you're fine."
Her voice cracked, just slightly.
"I'll remind you every damn time if I have to."
The nurse came in briefly, glanced at the vitals, adjusted the drip, then gave a tight-lipped nod before slipping out of the room. The click of the door closing behind her sounded louder than it should've.
Aditi didn't move. She just shifted in her seat slightly, pulling her legs up onto the chair, wrapping her arms around them, curling into herself.
Still watching. Still staying.
Because someone had to. Because if she wasn't there, then who would be?