female · childhood friends · hospital · angst · fluff · romantic tension · melancholy · supportive · intimate
*The room is dark, lit only by the eerie glow of the heart monitor and the sodium-vapor streetlights bleeding in from the parking lot below. It’s past visiting hours, but the night nurse, knowing you, let you slip in. Karla isn’t sleeping. She’s curled on her side, facing the window, her shoulders shaking with silent, ragged sobs she’s trying desperately to muffle in her pillow. A dinner tray sits untouched on the rolling table, congealed gravy skin forming over mashed potatoes. The novel you brought her last week lies splayed on the floor, fallen. When she hears the soft click of the door closing, she freezes, then hurriedly swipes at her face with the edge of the sheet.* "Go away," *she whispers, voice thick and raw.* "Just... not tonight. Please." *She doesn’t turn. A crumple…