It wasn't supposed to be like this.
The hospital room was quiet except for the faint beep of the machines, steady as my breath. Rain pattered against the window, the drops running down in uneven paths, but I barely noticed. I wasn't supposed to be here. I was supposed to be gone.
I looked down at my hands, limp on the thin blanket covering my legs, and wondered how much longer this body would betray me. PE had kept me alive, kept me here. I had planned the trip to Switzerland down to the letter—I waited six long months to finally have my freedom again. But now, all I had was time I never asked for.
Time. A cruel joke, really.
Nathan told me that Lou would be coming back. She had left after... after everything at the airport. I hadn't expected her to come. I wasn't sure I wanted her to see me like this. Even though I had asked her to be with me in my last moments, part of me was glad that her last image of me wouldn't be in a hospital bed. I prepared myself to go through with it without her, just as I had planned six months ago, but not having Lou there felt wrong somehow. She'd become such a big part of my life. I found that I needed her with me. I needed to carry her face with me to wherever I went next.
I stared at the gray sky; I knew she was out there, just beyond the door, waiting.
I wasn't ready to see her. I wasn't ready to face the reality that she was still here and that I was still alive.
The door creaked open, breaking through my thoughts. I didn't turn my head, didn't need to. I knew it was her. The faint scent of something floral followed her, cutting through the sterile air.
"Hi," Lou's voice was soft and cautious as if she wasn't sure what she'd find when she came in.
I didn't answer right away. What could I say? She shouldn't be here. She should have been far away by now, free of this... mess. Free of me.
Paris. You should be preparing for Paris, Clark.
The tension in the room was thick, and for a long moment, neither of us spoke. The beeping of the machines seemed louder than before, each sound a reminder that I was still breathing.
She moved closer, her steps quiet against the linoleum floor. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her sit down in the chair next to me, the one Nathan always used. She held a paper cup, steam rising faintly from the surface.
"You missed your appointment," she said, not looking at me.
I clenched my jaw. "I didn't miss anything. My body decided for me."
There it was—the bitterness, the anger that sat heavy in my chest. I should have been gone by now. The choice should have been mine. But instead, I was here, stuck, with nothing but time and a future I didn't want—in a body I didn't want.
Lou didn't flinch at my words. She never did. Instead, she set the cup down on the small table beside me. The faint click of the styrofoam against the wood echoed in the silence.
"I brought you tea," she said, her voice careful.
I didn't look at the cup. "I don't want tea."
"I figured."
She was quiet again, and I could feel her eyes on me. I hated it—hated the way she looked at me like I was something fragile, something that could be fixed. I wasn't. There was nothing left to fix.
"You shouldn't have come back," I muttered, keeping my gaze fixed on the rain outside. The words were sharper than I intended, but I didn't care. I wanted her to leave. Needed her to leave.
But she didn't. Lou never did what I expected.
"I'm not going anywhere," she said, and there was something in her voice—something soft but firm. Something that told me she wasn't giving up.
I closed my eyes, feeling the weight of her words settle over me. She didn't understand. She couldn't. This wasn't about her. It never was.
I didn't know what to say. The rain outside blurred the world, everything slipping further away, and yet Lou was here, as solid as ever. I should have been relieved that she hadn't left the room after my words. I should have been grateful. But all I could feel was the slow burn of resentment-resentment that she stayed, that she thought there was something left worth saving.
She shifted in her chair, but I didn't look at her. I couldn't. The tea sat untouched on the tray, the faint scent of camomile filling the space between us. She had tried. She always did. But this time, there was nothing left to fix.
"I know you're angry," Lou said quietly, her voice careful, like she was approaching a wounded animal. She wasn't wrong.
"You think?" My words came out harsher than I intended, but I couldn't take them back. The bitterness lingered, twisting everything inside me.
Lou didn't flinch. She never did. Instead, she just sat there, her hands resting lightly in her lap as if waiting for me to say something else. Waiting for the part of me that still had some semblance of humanity to break through.
But that part of me was long gone.
"I'm not angry, Clark," I muttered, shifting my gaze back to the window. "I'm done."
"Done with what?" Her voice was steady, but I could hear the undercurrent of emotion, the question she was really asking. Done with her? Done with this life? Or both?
"Everything." The word slipped out before I could stop it, and it felt final, like something I had been holding onto for too long. "I don't want to do this anymore."
Lou was silent for a long moment. I could feel the tension in the room, the way the air thickened with unspoken words.
"You didn't want to live when I met you," she said softly. "But you're still here."
I let out a low, humorless laugh. "I didn't have a choice."
"You do now."
Her words hit me harder than I expected, cutting through the numbness that had settled over me for months. I turned my head to look at her, then really looked at her. She was still the same Lou—her ridiculous shoes and crazy dresses, her quiet strength, the way she seemed to hold the weight of the world on her small shoulders.
But there was something different now, something in her eyes that told me she wouldn't back down. She wasn't asking for permission to stay. She was telling me that she was here, and she wasn't leaving. Not this time.
I wanted to push her away, to tell her to go and live her life, to find someone who wasn't broken beyond repair. But the words wouldn't come. Instead, I just stared at her, the silence between us heavy, the air thick with things I couldn't say.