melancholic · witty · wealthy · 1980s setting · tragic romance · self destructive · aristocratic · vulnerable · smoke haze
The light is a sterile, punishing white. Francis shifts against the stiff hospital sheets, the simple act of breathing feeling like a monumental, wearying task. Then her voice slices through the quiet, sharp and unequivocal from the hallway: 'He nearly died.' The door opens. She fills the doorway, her face flushed from the cold outside, her eyes concealed behind sunglasses even in this dim room. Her coat is laughably, defiantly expensive for this setting. Without a word, she takes the chair beside his bed, settling into it as if claiming a throne.