The hours stretched long after his footsteps faded down the corridor.
The nurses came and went in soft-soled shoes, checking her vitals, adjusting the IV, noting her blood pressure in clipped tones. Their presence was efficient, impersonal — care without comfort. Once, one of them smiled at her, tucking the blanket higher across her chest, but even that fleeting kindness carried the weight of duty, not affection.
And then there was nothing.
The hospital at night was its own creature. The lights dimmed but never went out, the hallways humming faintly with machines that never slept. Distant carts rattled. An intercom crackled occasionally with coded announcements she didn't understand. Somewhere, someone groaned in pain, then fell silent.
But in her room, there was only the steady beep of the monitor, the whisper of air conditioning, and her own heartbeat — loud, insistent, unaccompanied.
No family. No parents. No brother or sister to hold her hand.
The thought cut deeper than she expected. She had lived most of her life alone, had long ago accepted that "family" was something other people had. But in moments like this, the absence roared. She felt the emptiness of the chair by her bed, the hollowness of a room where no mother's voice urged her to rest, where no father's hand pressed reassurance into her own.
It was only him. Always him. She had let herself believe he was enough. More than enough — the anchor she had never had.
Now he was gone too, by choice.
She pressed her plastered arm tighter against her ribs, as if to shield herself from the thought. The loneliness wasn't passive anymore. It was alive. It crept through her mind, whispering, distorting, magnifying every insecurity she had ever buried.
You were never enough for him.
He stayed out of pity, not love.
You were a placeholder until someone better came along.
Even now, lying broken, you are alone.
The voices in her head grew louder, more insistent. She bit her lip until it bled, but the whispers didn't stop. They swirled like smoke, poisoning everything they touched.
She turned her face toward the window. The blinds slanted narrow bands of city light across the floor. Cars moved in the distance, their headlights blinking like indifferent stars. Somewhere out there, life continued — laughter in bars, music in apartments, families gathered around tables. And here she lay, sterile and broken, discarded.
The bitterness that had taken root earlier that day spread deeper. Loneliness was no longer an ache; it was a furnace, burning away what little softness remained.
When the door clicked open again, she snapped her eyes shut, feigning sleep.
Footsteps approached, heavier than the nurses. She knew them instantly. She would have known them anywhere.
Her fiancé's voice, low: "She's still resting."
Another voice joined his, lighter, touched with concern. Female. The boss's daughter.
Her stomach clenched.
"I wanted to see her," the woman said. "You said she woke already. Is she… is she really, okay?"
"She'll be fine." His tone was practiced, calm. "The doctors are confident."
A pause, then the faint squeak of the visitor's chair as someone sat down. The boss's daughter exhaled softly, as if relieved. "I'm glad. I wouldn't want her to suffer. It must be hard… waking up like this, alone."
Alone. The word pierced her like glass.
"I'm here," he said, and there was a smile in his voice — a softness she hadn't heard when he spoke to her.
Her fists curled beneath the blanket.
They spoke in hushed tones, careful not to wake her. She caught fragments: his promotion at work, her father's pride, plans for the weekend once she was "settled." Each word was another knife. He spoke easily, confidently, as though his past with her had been erased without trace.
Her pulse hammered in her ears. The loneliness swelled again, but now it did not cripple her. It sharpened her.
She realized then that she could never show them the devastation gnawing her insides. If she wept, if she begged, if she let them see her cracked open, they would pity her at best and dismiss her at worst.
No — she would give them nothing.
She inhaled slowly, let her lashes flutter, and opened her eyes.
Both of them turned toward her instantly. The boss's daughter smiled — tentative, sweet, oblivious. He only adjusted his tie again, the gesture so familiar it sickened her.
"You're awake," he said for the third time that day, as though it were the only line he knew how to recite.
She summoned a weak smile, one that felt like splinters against her lips. "Yes. I… must have dozed off."
The boss's daughter leaned forward; eyes bright. "We just wanted to check on you. I hope it's not too much. You've been through so much."
Her smile widened, brittle as glass. "That's kind of you."
Inside, her heart screamed.
The conversation went on, shallow, polite. She played her role perfectly: the grateful patient, the fragile woman who remembered nothing. But beneath the surface, her loneliness no longer felt like emptiness. It was purpose, hardening into steel.
They thought she was powerless. They thought she had no one, nothing. They thought they could overwrite her story, twist it to their liking.
Let them believe it.
Because one day soon, she would show them how dangerous an orphan with nothing left to lose could be.