2026-06-03 09:17:55The wedding dress was a problem.
Lena had worn it for eleven hours. It had been fitted twice. Altered once and cost more than she had planned to spend. She was not careless with money. When she put it on in the store and saw herself in the mirror, she felt sure it was the one.
She did not feel that way now as she ran through the hospital halls in it.
The lace on the dress kept getting caught under her heel. The top part of the dress made it hard to breathe when she ran. People in the hall stared at her because she was wearing a wedding dress in a place where you would not expect to see one.
They looked at her like she was something that was out of place.
She took the stairs because the elevator was too slow.
Marcus had told her to go to ward seven. He sounded really bad on the phone. His voice did not sound like him all. He usually sounded confident. This time he sounded scared. She had known Marcus for two years. He was the kind of person who would say he was fine even if he was hurt. So when she heard the fear in his voice it really scared her.
She did not stop to think she just went.
That is what she does; she goes when people need her.
The nurse at the desk told her to go down the hall to room twelve. She was out of breath, by the time she got to the door. She knocked twice. Then went in.
Marcus was sitting up in bed with an oximeter attached to his finger. He was wearing a hospital gown. He still managed to look dignified. He was pale and had dark circles under his eyes. When he saw her, his face. She could tell he was very relieved to see her.
"Lena." His voice was hoarse. "You came."
"Of course I came." She pulled a chair to his bedside and sat. "What happened? What did the doctors say?"
“Internal bleeding. They think it was yesterday but I didn't pay any attention to it. Stupid.” He exhaled slowly. "I'm sorry. I didn't have anyone else to call. I know it's your wedding night. I know what I'm asking."
"Don't be ridiculous." She squeezed his hand tightly. He squeezed back and for a moment they didn't say anything, except the quiet hum of the monitor and the hospital sound outside their door.
"How is he?" Marcus asked. "Ethan."
“He’s okay, he understood.”
"Of course he did." She could sense something gliding across Marcus' face, but what it was, she couldn't tell. "He always understands. That's rather the thing about him, isn't it?"
She was not sure how to respond, so she didn't, and she was told she was sometimes too good at not saying anything.
They chatted for over an hour. He spoke quietly, but it was about his childhood, his father who had felt love in the measure of his performance, who had withdrawn his love when Marcus did not live up to his expectations, about things he had never told her before and she listened, as she always did, wholeheartedly, leaning forward. He was still hilarious, even when he was scared, and she laughed twice and cried, guilty of laughing, and laughed again.
It was just before midnight when a nurse arrived and told her that technically, it was time to end visiting hours at ten. Marcus was adamant she leave. She told him that she would be back the next day.
In the corridor outside his room, she took her phone out of her clutch and saw that she had no messages from Ethan. No missed calls. The screen was clean.
It felt a bit off to her, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. He always texted. Not too much or too little, not too leashed that he felt like he was walking on a leash to get to his cell phone; he had a habit of little check-ins, just like you take for granted when you're in a crowd and someone has their hand on the small of your back.
She was going to type when his nurse stopped her.
"Miss Sterling?" The nurse was a young lady with a tablet in her hand, and she looked a bit apologetic. "Mr. Vane asked me to let you know he's posted a photo. He says you should see it before the morning, given the, ah. The coverage."
"The coverage," Lena repeated.
“Yes, it does appear his followers are quite...” She looked at her tablet. "Quite invested."
Lena opened her own telephone. Found the photo in under ten seconds because her name was in forty-seven comments.
A picture of the two of them by Marcus's bedside. Her hand in his. Her wedding dress. His hospital gown. His face was as white as a lily and as grateful as a rose. Her face was open and she was listening, in the way that she listened when she was listening to somebody correctly.
The caption read: She came. That's all I'll say. There are some people who appear at the right time.
It had been shared eleven thousand times in the 40 minutes since he posted it.
Lena waited in the corridor for a while. Next she put down her cell phone. Then she raised it again and looked at the photo again, because she wanted to be sure she was seeing it correctly.
She was seeing it correctly.
She entered Ethan's name in her cell phone. Looked up his contact photo, the one she took without his knowledge in a coffee shop, while he was reading something, more relaxed than he ever was when she knew he was reading. She stared at his face.
She pressed call.
It rang five times and went to voicemail.
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Epilogue: Five Years Later
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