I swung my legs over the edge of the examination table, the white paper beneath me crinkling loud enough to slice through the silence of the sterile room. The smell of antiseptic bit at the inside of my nose. I tugged at the sleeve of my hospital gown, the fabric thin enough to feel like a joke—like even modesty wasn't something I was allowed to keep.
I counted the tiles on the ceiling. Forty-eight. I knew them all by heart.
The door swung open with a sudden clatter, making me flinch. I didn't need to look up to know it was her. I could recognize my mother's heels anywhere—sharp, efficient clicks that matched the rhythm of her disapproval.
"Elena," she said, voice clipped. "It's been over twenty minutes. What's taking so long?"
I blinked at her, slow and blank. "Dr. Hayes said to wait here after the scan. I thought he'd come back."
"Well, he didn't. And you're still here. Do you have any idea what kind of schedule I'm managing today?" She strode to the counter, flipping through my chart like it had personally offended her.
I said nothing. I didn't trust my voice. There was a tightness behind my ribs that always came when she spoke to me like that. Like I was a misbehaving part of a machine that just wouldn't function properly.
"You're not the only patient," she snapped. "We have Cassandra's pre-transfusion appointment this afternoon, and if you make us late—"
"I didn't know," I muttered. "No one told me."
Her head whipped up. "Don't interrupt me."
I clenched my hands together in my lap, biting back the words that burned behind my teeth. I wanted to scream that I wasn't a patient. I was a daughter. But that would be a lie, wouldn't it? Daughters are loved. Daughters are wanted.
I was something else entirely.
She stalked toward me, her coat still buttoned, clipboard still in hand. "Every second you waste reflects on this family. Do you understand? On me. I've sacrificed too much for you to play the helpless act."
"I'm not playing," I whispered. "I just… I didn't mean to take long. I just sat here. I didn't even move."
That didn't help.
Mother's eyes sharpened. "You sat there. Doing nothing. Like always."
I inhaled a shaky breath. "I was just—thinking. That's all."
She gave a hollow laugh, short and biting. "Well, while you're busy thinking, your sister is fighting to live. Maybe that will motivate you to move a little faster next time."
I froze. The words struck deeper than I expected. Maybe it was the way she said it—so effortlessly cruel, like it had been waiting on her tongue. My stomach curled.
I stared at the floor.
She exhaled loudly, like she was the one who was tired. "Honestly, Elena, if you didn't have that blood, I don't know what you'd be good for."
I blinked once. Twice. My heart thudded in my ears.
That one hit like a freight train.
She moved past me to the door, already pulling out her phone. "Five minutes. I'll be in the car. If you're not there, we'll have a problem."
And just like that, she was gone.
The door clicked shut, and I was alone again—with the smell of bleach and the tight burn of tears I refused to let fall.
Five minutes.
I slid off the table and grabbed my sweater, pulling it over my shoulders. I glanced at the reflection in the dark monitor. Pale. Small. Hollow-eyed. A ghost of someone who used to believe there was more to life than being used.
___
The hospital was always cold. Not just the sterile chill of disinfectants or the faint whisper of air vents sighing against linoleum floors. It was the kind of cold that burrowed under your skin, that numbed the edges of thoughts you didn't dare let thaw. I sat by the window in the east wing, the one with the half-decent view of the garden. It was still early. The kind of early that didn't know if it wanted to be morning or memory.
My fingers were stained with charcoal dust, smudged around the tips like shadows refusing to let go. I curled into the wide chair, knees pulled up under me, sketchpad balanced against my thigh. I liked the quiet here. Not silent—but quiet. The beep of distant machines, the soft padding of nurses' shoes, the low hum of lives trying to mend.
No one usually came this far down the hall unless they had a reason.
I didn't know why I was drawing her. I didn't even know her name. Just a girl I'd glimpsed once—hunched over in the waiting room, her face crumpled like paper clutched too long in a shaking hand. I remembered her because she didn't cry like the others. She didn't speak. She just sat there, her pain pouring from the way she clutched her elbows, like she could squeeze herself back together if she held on tight enough.
That's what I'd been sketching—her pain. Or maybe my own, mirrored in someone else.
The pencil dragged along the paper, steady and rhythmic. Line by line, I pulled her shape from the void—her curls undone, her hands knotted, the tilt of her chin like she was bracing for impact. I didn't add the hospital bracelet or the stain on her sleeve. Just the soul of it, as raw as I could remember it.
Sometimes I forgot I was still inside this place. Drawing helped me escape. Not physically—I was still here, with the white coats and clipped voices, the family that wanted me obedient and quiet, the sister whose shadow loomed larger than life—but mentally. Art was the only part of me they hadn't claimed.
A flash of movement at the far end of the hall caught my eye, but I didn't turn. Probably just a nurse.