Chapter three– Ibtisam
The hospital air was heavy with the sterilized scent of something trying far too hard to pretend it wasn't broken.
It clung to the inside of my nose like bleach-drenched cotton. Like the world was trying to erase everything—blood, pain, memories, grief—scrubbing it all clean with alcohol wipes and fluorescent silence. The walls were so white they hurt to look at. Not soft white. Not ivory or cream or eggshell. The kind of white that feels sharp. The kind that seems to hum under your skin. The kind of white that's more absence than color.
I hated it.
I hated the harsh, humming light overhead that flickered just enough to make me dizzy. I hated the rhythmic squeak of nurses' soles against linoleum, each footstep somehow both sluggish and urgent. I hated the dull metallic clatter of IV poles being wheeled down narrow corridors. I hated the monotone voice on the intercom calling for codes I didn't understand. I hated the way the place reeked of control and chaos, of antiseptic and tragedy, of life being fought for and lost all at once.
But more than anything, I hated that I was here at all.
"Where is Saal?" I said, but it wasn't a question. It was a demand—sharp-edged and ice-coated. My hand hit the reception desk with a smack that startled the nurse on duty. I didn't care. My voice sounded strange, like it belonged to someone else, someone whose composure had shattered and whose heart was splintering beneath every syllable.
The nurse blinked, visibly taken aback. But she recovered quickly, her voice soft but distant, as though she were reading a line off a script she'd rehearsed too many times. "Private trauma ward, ma'am. ICU. Second floor. Room 207."
She was still speaking when I turned away.
I didn't walk.
I ran.
Not with elegance, not with control—but the kind of frantic sprint that makes your lungs shriek and your legs feel like they might collapse beneath you at any moment. I ran like the truth was waiting at the end of the corridor and I couldn't bear the idea of being late. Like my body was dragging me forward before my heart could resist.
The elevator felt too slow even before I pressed the button. The numbers changed like molasses sliding uphill, each ding more agonizing than the last. I couldn't breathe. Couldn't wait. Couldn't not know.
So I turned, stumbled toward the stairwell, and threw myself into it like the fire behind me was real. I took the steps two at a time, then three, hand grazing the banister, vision swimming. My heartbeat roared in my ears—thunderous, chaotic—as though my body was trying to warn me. Or punish me. Or prepare me.
I didn't know what I expected to see when I reached him.
Blood?
Tubes?
A mess of wires and monitors and a body half-covered in bruises?
But nothing—nothing—prepared me for the stillness.
He was there. And yet... not.
He was lying so peacefully it felt wrong. Like the room had been frozen in time and someone had placed him inside it as a cruel exhibit. His skin looked almost translucent beneath the overhead light, pale in a way that wasn't natural. A thick, snow-white bandage was wrapped around his head like a crown fashioned by tragedy. One arm was suspended in a sling across his chest, and I could see angry purplish scrapes crawling along his jaw, as if the world itself had tried to claw him down. His lower lip was split, bruised at the edges.
He looked like someone who had survived something he shouldn't have.
And I couldn't move.
For one unbearable moment, I just stood there, unable to bridge the gap between the doorway and his bedside. My name died in my throat, choked by disbelief.
But then I said it—whispered it, breathed it, bled it.
"Saal."
Just one syllable. But it fractured something inside me.
It didn't echo in the room. It didn't stir him. It didn't fix anything.
He didn't answer.
He didn't stir.
He didn't reach for me.
He just lay there, lost in a sleep I didn't trust.
And I stood there, sweat clinging to my back, hands trembling at my sides. There were flowers on the nightstand. Soft yellow lilies in a glass vase, delicate and fresh. Not mine. I hadn't brought anything. Just guilt. Just fear. Just too many words and too few answers.
I walked—finally—toward him, each step harder than the last. I sank into the chair at his bedside with the reverence of someone entering a shrine. My hands landed flat on my thighs, as if trying to anchor myself. I didn't touch him. I didn't dare.
"You stupid," I said, my voice thin, my throat raw, "stubbornly condescending idiot."
He didn't reply.
Because of course he didn't.
Because this wasn't a moment for comebacks.
Because I wasn't ready to hear his voice again if it didn't sound the same.
Something deep in my chest cracked. Not a clean break. Not something simple or clear. It was the kind of emotional rupture that feels like it's been coming for years. For lifetimes. For every time he challenged me, teased me, stood beside me, looked at me like I mattered.
I wanted to scream. To slap him awake. To demand he explain why he'd made me care.
Why he let me get close.
Why he had to be the one lying here instead of someone else—anyone else.
But I didn't scream.
I didn't move.
I sat, clenched and trembling, jaw tight enough to ache, heart flailing behind my ribs.
Because I was afraid.
Not just of the machines. Not just of the injuries. But of the feeling.
The terrifying, suffocating realization that I cared more than I ever meant to.
I was afraid of what it meant.
Afraid of what I might say if he woke up.
Afraid of how easily people disappear—how suddenly the world turns quiet after they're gone.
It had happened before.
First my mother.
Then my siblings.
Then, slowly, almost imperceptibly, myself.
And now—him?
The thought carved itself into me.
I didn't know how long I sat there. Maybe ten minutes. Maybe an hour. Maybe a lifetime. Time bent itself strangely in that room, as if the walls were holding their breath with me.
Then I heard it.
A sound.
Small. Weak. But real.
A breath. A shift.
And then, "Ibti?"
His voice was hoarse. Cracked. Like it had been pulled from the bottom of a well.
"Is this…" He paused, blinking groggily. "The part where you admit you like me?"
It should've made me laugh.
But all I could do was breathe—shaky and relieved and furious all at once.
"Don't flatter yourself," I muttered, swallowing a tide of emotion. "I'm only here to make sure I don't lose the chance to end you myself."
His lips curled, barely. But it was enough. Enough to make me believe
"You're terrible at lying," he whispered.
And he was right.
I was.
Because as I looked at him—really looked at him—I felt something rise in my chest that was too real, too raw, too impossible to name.
He was alive.
And that should have been enough.
I could have told him then. I could have unraveled all of it, spilled every unsaid thing between us, let the words rush out like a dam finally broken.
But I didn't.
"Go to sleep, Saal," I said.
Because if I said anything else, I might never stop.
And I wasn't ready to be that brave.
Not yet.