Chapter Text
"Indigo! Stop!"
Have you ever been to a hospital? Dreadful, aren't they? Everything is too clean. The sterile smell clings to every surface, every breath. It's in the sheets, the stiff gowns, even the food. That smell makes me gag. The air feels thick and unreal, like it’s been drained of life. I want to crack a window, step outside, breathe. But right now, there's no escape. Just endless corridors and quiet, echoing hallways.
And that's exactly where I'm heading now.
My hurried footsteps echo as I weave through the hospital’s labyrinth, the shuffle of activity fading with every turn. This part of the building feels abandoned, tucked away behind tarps and stacks of construction materials. Renovations, I guess. The air here is colder, heavier, as though even it knows this is where hope comes to dim.
I pause by a line of floor-to-ceiling windows, partially covered by clear tarps that sway faintly in the stale air. The midday light filters through in scattered patches, creating a fractured otherworldly glow. My hand shakes as I reach out, brushing the plastic aside and stepping between it and the glass. The sunlight feels foreign against my skin, like I’ve been inside for weeks instead of hours. I slide down against the wall, letting the weight of the morning drag me to the cold, unfinished floor. I let my head roll to the side to take in the city in front of me.
From here, I can see the city stretched out in front of me. Seattle in September is breathtaking. To my left, Portage Bay glimmers under the hazy sun, its surface dancing with tiny ripples of light. Several boats and paddle boarders speckle the water. Beyond that, the towering buildings of downtown shimmer like a mirage. To my right, the University of Washington campus sprawls out, its gothic-style halls nestled among the trees just shifting from summer green to autumn gold and rusty red. I let my eyes wander toward the edge of campus, where I knew my family’s home would be. I can almost see it in my mind. The two-story house bursting with color, every inch of it painted in bright hues, as though my mom had poured her soul into its walls. The yard, overflowing with wildflowers and memories, feels like the antithesis of this cold, clinical hospital.
And there, just barely visible, is the English building. It’s become a monument in my mind, ground zero for the happy memories I’ve made this past year. A year ago, I didn’t know him. Now, it’s like I can’t remember who I was before him.
I was supposed to be in that building now, starting my senior year of college. I was supposed to be drowning in coursework, complaining about essays, and planning my future. My dad thought it best that I delay school, said I needed to focus on getting better. At the time, I believed him. But now, after the news we just got, it’s clear. I won’t be going back.
It’s astonishing, really, how much life can change in a single year. How the plans you thought were set in stone can crumble to dust in your hands. A year ago, I was worried about grades, my lack of friends, and what came after graduation. Now, I’m just trying to make sense of what’s left of my time.
Even my parents, constant in their chaos, aren’t the same. They’ve shifted in ways I never thought possible. My dad used to spend half his time in Seattle and the other half in Los Angeles, running a company that owns most of the nightclubs on the West Coast. He used to spend his nights out on the town managing his clubs but really having drunken fun more than anything. I've lost count of how many times I've had to persuade him to drink water and go to bed. Convincing him to act like an adult is exhausting, but it's just who he is. A man who never quite grew up.
Then there's my mom, a flower child who never got the memo that the 60s ended. She's free love, patchouli and organic everything, always carrying a crystal or two in her purse for "good luck." She's the type of person who gets so lost in her own world that she forgets the basics like doing dishes or making sure the bills get paid on time. It was never intentional or cruel; it’s just who she is. Or who she was.
As you might imagine, these two people do not get along. They're like oil and water, or fire and gasoline. Every conversation between them feels like walking into the middle of a battlefield. The arguments are endless. The topics don't even matter, whether it's politics, the weather, how they raised me, or whose fault it was that I broke my arm when I was eight, they'll find something to fight about.
They met by chance at one of my dad's clubs twenty-one years ago and it's been mutual hatred ever since. That mutual hatred soon led to angry bathroom sex and nine months later, out popped little Indigo. Every word, every interaction between them has been like a battle, a cold war fought with snarky comments, passive-aggressive jabs, and an underlying tension that never seems to go away.
So seeing them in there, crying and holding hands like they've found some sudden understanding? It’s almost unbearable. I don’t want this version of them. The truce born from the shadow of my illness. I want things to go back to how they used to be.
Our roles have reversed in the cruelest way. Instead of reminding my mom to take her medication, her soft, worried voice now follows me around with gentle reminders about mine. The sound of her tiptoeing through the house has replaced her usual confident stride, each careful step punctuated by the whir of another ‘healing’ smoothie filled with ingredients I can’t pronounce. Gone is her wild, carefree spirit - those magnificent late-night gatherings with her eccentric friends, their unrestrained laughter bouncing off the walls like music. Now there’s only this hushed version of her, moving through our home like a shadow of her former self.
Saturday mornings used to taste like possibility - sneakers double-knotted, breath fogging in the early air. I want to race Dad to our imaginary finish line at the park. But instead of our usual jog, we argue about whether I can manage a walk around the block. Now he hovers beside me on the stairs after each treatment, waiting to catch me if I stumble. What I wouldn’t give to just complain to him about my classes, or the book I’m reading, about nothing important, and know that everything’s fine.
It wasn’t perfect before. It was messy, loud, and often frustrating. But it was ours. It was real. And now, all those moments I took for granted, the ones I thought were just a part of my dysfunctional life, feel like something sacred. I didn’t know they could be taken away. I want to believe that last year wasn't the last time things would ever feel normal, that it isn't all slipping away now. But it is, and I don't know how to stop it.
Zzzzzt! Zzzzzt! Zzzzzt!
I pull the phone from my pocket with shaking hands, my stomach turning as I glance at the screen. It’s Harry. The name glows in front of me, the one person who doesn’t buy my deflections, who can hear the truth even when I bury it under layers of placating smiles and half-truths. My thumb hovers over the answer button, but I hesitate, staring at the phone like it’s a grenade with the pin already pulled.
For one last fleeting moment, I let the silence linger, desperate to savor the dreams I'll never get to realize. Who I could've been. What Harry and I could've been together. The weight of those dreams presses against my chest, and I know they'll crumble the second I let the words leave my lips. For a second, I wonder if it would be better to let the call go unanswered; to hold on to this moment, untouched by the truth I'm too afraid to face.
I press the answer button.
"Indie? You there?" His voice comes through the speaker, deep and rough, tinged with worry. I can almost picture him now—leaning forward, brows furrowed, trying to read between the silence. That voice, his voice, has been my anchor on so many nights when everything felt like it was falling apart.
I swallow hard, but it doesn’t clear the knot lodged there. “Hi, Harry,” I finally managed, my voice brittle.
"So... what did they say?" He’s trying to sound steady, but there’s a crack in his tone that tells me he already knows. Or maybe he's hoping he doesn't. Maybe he's clinging to some thin thread of hope, even as it frays between his hands.
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. The words stick, lodged deep in my throat, tangled with the ache of everything I'll lose. Everything we'll lose. How do you tell someone this? How do you say the thing that will shatter the fragile, whispered dreams of the future we were just beginning to dream? A future now slipping away before we ever had the chance to live it.
The silence stretches, thick and heavy, and I hear his breath hitch on the other end. "Indigo..." His voice wavers, soft and pleading, like he's begging me not to say it. Begging for time. More time to be whatever we were on the cusp of becoming.
But there isn’t any more time. There never really was.
I close my eyes, and for a moment, I let myself imagine something else. A different reality; a reality where my body isn’t failing me, where my laughter isn’t destined to echo in his memories like a ghost of what could've been. A place where we have years instead of months, where the weight of our love isn’t tangled in the inevitability of loss. I imagine us there, laughing about something stupid, dreaming about the future, building something that lasts. In that reality, I’m healthy and whole.
But it’s just a dream, fleeting and cruel in its perfection. The edges blur, and reality claws its way back. It steals the air from my lungs, and my throat tightens around the words I don't want to speak.
"I..." My voice cracks, and I press a trembling hand to my lips, as if I can hold the words back. "I wish I could tell you something else." My heart clenches painfully with each broken word. "I'm sorry-"
"Don't." His response is immediate, firm. "Don’t you dare apologize." The weight of his anguish clings to each word. I can hear it. His struggle to hold himself together, the fight to push past the hopelessness clawing at him. "This isn't... you can't..." His voice falters, cracking like dried leaves, and the rest of his sentence dies behind the gasping breath he takes.
I can almost picture his face on the other end of the call—his jaw tight, eyes glassy, hands running through his hair in frustration. The silence stretches again, and in it, I can feel the weight of what we're losing. What we never even got the chance to fully have. It’s not fair. None of this is fair.
But life rarely is.