likely calling ahead to the hospital, making sure everything was ready for our arrival. He was always three steps ahead, even in the chaos. The paramedics were efficient, their questions quick and precise. Marcus answered while I focused on breathing, each inhale a tether to the world that felt like it was slipping away.
As they lifted me onto the stretcher, Marcus never let go of my hand. His grip was my anchor, keeping me steady amid the whirlwind. Around us, muted conversations hummed, as if the party-goers had settled into a spectator sport they were unequipped to understand.
I caught a glimpse of my mother, her face a mask of conflicting emotions—pride, fear, denial—each struggling for dominance. She stepped forward as if to speak, but Marcus’s gaze cut through the air with the precision of a scalpel. “Enough,” was all he said, and the weight of that single word pressed silence into the spaces where reproach and excuses might have bloomed.
