I woke up to beeping.
Soft. Steady. Annoyingly consistent.
For a few seconds, I didn’t move because I couldn’t figure out where I was. Everything felt heavy, like my body had been dropped back into place wrong. My head hurt. My mouth felt dry. There was something taped to my hand, and the sheets under me were too stiff and too clean to be mine.
Hospital.
That realization hit slowly, like my brain was still trying to catch up.
I blinked at the ceiling lights, wincing at how bright they were, and turned my head just enough to see Kyan slumped sideways in the chair next to my bed, half asleep with his arms folded on the mattress like he had refused to leave and eventually lost the argument with exhaustion.
His hair was a mess.
He looked awful.
And somehow that made me smile.
I shifted a little, and apparently that was enough.
Kyan’s eyes snapped open so fast it was almost violent.
For half a second, he just stared at me like he thought he was still dreaming.
Then—
“MOM!”
I flinched.
“DAD! NATALIE! HE’S AWAKE!”
Before I could even process what was happening, Kyan was climbing onto the bed like the laws of hospitals no longer applied to him. He threw himself at me hard enough to nearly knock the air back out of my lungs, arms around me, shaking.
“Okay—okay—ow,” I muttered, still half disoriented.
He was crying.
Actually crying.
Not subtle watery eyes. Full shaking shoulders, face buried against me, crying.
And that hit harder than waking up in the hospital.
“I hate you,” he said into my shoulder.
“That feels dramatic.”
“You were unconscious for like a year.”
“I’m pretty sure it was less than that.”
“It was forever.”
The room filled fast after that.
Lauren got there first, followed by Dad and Natalie, with Sarah hovering behind them looking like she had absolutely been eavesdropping in the hallway and had no shame about it.
Kyan still refused to let go.
Dad walked over, took one look at the situation, and said, “Buddy, as touching as this is, your brother does need oxygen.”
Kyan glared at him.
Dad pointed toward the chair.
“Off.”
With the dramatic suffering of someone being personally victimized, Kyan finally climbed down and immediately reclaimed his position beside the bed like if he moved more than three feet away, I might disappear again.
Lauren was at my side next, her hand brushing my hair back from my forehead so gently it made my chest hurt.
“Oh, thank God,” she whispered.
Natalie folded her arms, but I could already see the shine in her eyes.
“Do that again and I’m charging you for emotional damages.”
“Good morning to you too.”
She leaned down and kissed my forehead anyway.
Dad stood at the foot of the bed, looking calmer than everyone else, which usually meant he was actually the most stressed and just hiding it better.
“How are you feeling?”
“Like I got hit by a truck.”
Natalie nodded.
“Accurate.”
I frowned a little, trying to piece things together.
The letters.
The gazebo.
Paul.
Martha.
Then—
The Monster.
My stomach turned.
I looked at Mom first.
“What happened?”
Lauren and Natalie exchanged a quick look before Lauren answered.
“Kyan heard you scream and found you unconscious in the gazebo. You wouldn’t wake up, so we called Natalie and she met us here at the hospital.”
I stared at her.
“Wait—how long?”
“It’s Tuesday morning,” Dad said gently.
I blinked.
Saturday shopping.
Sunday dinner.
Monday Karen.
Tuesday.
I had lost almost an entire day.
“You’ve been out for about twenty-four hours,” Natalie added.
“Twenty-four—”
“Before you panic,” she cut in, “you’re okay. They’ve been monitoring you. Your body basically hit a wall.”
I rubbed a hand over my face, wincing immediately because apparently even that required more effort than I currently had available.
“I remember reading the letters,” I said slowly. “Then… flashes. Paul. Martha. The farm. And then I saw him.”
Nobody asked who.
They all knew.
“The Monster,” Kyan said quietly.
I nodded.
“The next thing I remember is waking up here.”
The room went quiet for a second.
Not awkward.
Just heavy.
Then Dad exhaled and said, “Well, I’m thrilled your dramatic flair includes medically supervised naps.”
I laughed once.
It came out weak, but it still helped.
A knock at the door saved everyone from sitting in that silence too long.
Dr. Jerret stepped in with a clipboard in one hand and the kind of expression doctors perfected after years of dealing with families who had absolutely not been sleeping.
“Well,” he said, glancing at me, “look who decided to rejoin society.”
“Happy to disappoint everyone.”
“Consistently.”
He gave me a quick once-over before looking at the rest of the room.
“I need to examine him, so everyone out except Lauren and Natalie.”
Kyan looked personally betrayed.
“I count as emotional support.”
“You count as loud,” Dr. Jerret replied.
Sarah snorted.
Dad physically turned away because he was laughing.
Kyan pointed at all of them like he was filing complaints with the universe, but he still got off the chair.
“I’m being oppressed.”
“Yes,” Natalie said. “Go oppress someone in the hallway.”
Eventually, everyone except Mom and Natalie stepped out, though Kyan made sure the door stayed cracked open like he was preparing for a prison break.
Dr. Jerret checked the monitors, my pupils, my blood pressure, asked me a dozen questions I barely had the energy to answer, and finally seemed satisfied enough to stop looking like he was considering keeping me there forever.
“Everything looks stable,” he said. “I want to monitor you another hour or two, but if you stay like this, I’ll release you this afternoon.”
“Best news I’ve heard all day.”
He gave a small nod, then turned toward Lauren and Natalie.
“Have either of you made any progress on getting him a service dog?”
Mom blinked.
“A service dog?”
Dr. Jerret nodded.
“For his PTSD episodes, dissociation, medication reminders, grounding support—yes. Some are trained to alert before an episode escalates. Some interrupt panic responses. Some apply deep pressure therapy by physically lying against the patient to help regulate breathing and nervous system response.”
Natalie crossed her arms.
“That would actually help?”
“It could help significantly,” Dr. Jerret said. “Especially with how severe his episodes can become. The goal is interruption before collapse.”
Lauren nodded slowly.
“I’ve been looking into some options, but we haven’t decided yet.”
Dr. Jerret’s expression sharpened slightly.
“Don’t wait.”
That made both Mom and Natalie straighten.
“He’s right,” Natalie said immediately.
Lauren nodded.
“If he gets released today, we’ll go.”
Dr. Jerret pulled a card from his clipboard and handed it over.
“This facility is one of the best in the state. Their medical response dogs are excellent. Call them while I finish his paperwork.”
Mom took the card like it was suddenly the most important thing in the room.
“We will.”
Dr. Jerret gave me one last look.
“No more collapsing in gazebos.”
“No promises.”
“That was the wrong answer.”
He walked out with Natalie following him into the hallway to make the call, leaving Mom sitting down carefully on the edge of the bed beside me.
For a minute, neither of us said anything.
Then I stared at the blanket and said quietly, “I’m sorry.”
Her hand found mine immediately.
“No.”
“I scared everybody.”
“Yes,” she said honestly. “You absolutely did.”
I winced.
She squeezed my hand.
“But you do not need to apologize for being scared. Or for having a bad night. Or for surviving something hard.”
I looked at her.
Her eyes were tired.
Worried.
But soft.
She brushed my hair back again the way she always did when she thought I needed grounding.
“I am just happy you woke up, baby boy.”
And somehow that hurt worse than the hospital.
Because I believed her.
The next hour felt like the world’s slowest hostage situation.
Apparently, once a person dramatically collapsed in a gazebo and scared their entire family into a collective emotional crisis, they lost the right to be left alone for even five seconds. I had been awake for maybe an hour, and Kyan had somehow turned hovering into a professional sport.
He sat in the chair next to my bed like a tiny bodyguard with unresolved trauma, arms crossed, watching me like if I blinked wrong, he was calling security.
I sighed and adjusted against the hospital pillows for what felt like the thousandth time.
“You know staring at me like that is weird, right?”
Kyan didn’t even blink. He sat there with the kind of stubborn expression that meant he had already decided he was right and the rest of us were just wasting time catching up.
“You passed out for twenty-four hours,” he said flatly. “I’m allowed to be suspicious.”
I gave him a tired look. “I’m pretty sure that’s not how suspicion works.”
“I’m not taking chances.”
His answer came so fast that I almost laughed. Honestly, if I had more energy, I probably would have argued harder, but I still felt like my brain had been put in a blender and poorly reassembled. So instead, I accepted my fate and reached for the cup of water on the tray table.
Kyan handed it to me before I could even fully reach it.
That was where we were now.
Hovering.
Professional level.
Across the room, Sarah was sprawled in the visitor chair like she had been personally offended by the existence of hospitals. She had shown up twenty minutes ago with a dramatic sigh and announced that if she had to be trapped in “the world’s saddest building,” someone at least owed her snacks.
She had since disappeared twice, returned both times, and was now scrolling through her phone while occasionally glancing up to make sure neither of us had spontaneously combusted.
Mom, Dad, and Natalie had all gone to the kennel facility after Natalie made the call. Dr. Jerret had stayed at the hospital because, unlike the rest of us, she had actual patients to manage and not just emotional disasters disguised as children. Apparently, if there was even a possibility of getting a service dog moving quickly, the adults in my life were prepared to treat it like a military operation.
Which left me here, stuck in a hospital bed under heavy surveillance with Kyan acting like my personal security detail. He sat there watching me like I was one suspicious movement away from vanishing again, and honestly, I was starting to think if I sneezed too hard, he might hit the emergency button.
“You know,” I said, settling back against the pillows, “at some point this becomes creepy.”
“At some point,” he replied without missing a beat, “you scared ten years off my life and I earned the right to be creepy.”
“That feels legally questionable.”
Sarah looked up from her phone just long enough to point at him.
“I’d testify for him.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Traitor.”
She gave me a lazy shrug. “Correct.”
I sighed again and let my head fall back against the pillow.
For a little while, the room settled into a quieter rhythm. Hospital machines beeped softly. Nurses passed in the hallway. Sarah aggressively opened a bag of pretzels like she had a personal grudge against the packaging.
Eventually, I said, softer this time, “I’m sorry.”
Kyan’s entire expression changed.
He hated when I said that. I could see it immediately in the way his shoulders shifted, like the words physically annoyed him.
“I know.”
“I mean it.”
“I know that too.”
I stared down at the blanket twisted around my legs because looking at him felt harder.
“I scared you.”
For a moment, he didn’t answer.
That was unusual enough on its own. Kyan always had something to say. A joke. A smart comment. Some dramatic overreaction designed to keep everything lighter than it really was. But this time, he just sat there, looking at me, and there wasn’t a joke waiting behind it.
Then he stood up and walked over to the bed. He moved slower than usual, careful in a way that made it obvious he still hadn’t fully stopped being afraid. He sat down on the edge beside me like if he moved too fast, I might disappear again.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “You did.”
I swallowed hard.
He leaned his shoulder gently against mine, close enough that it felt grounding instead of overwhelming.
“I heard you screaming, Zy.”
That hit me right in the chest.
His voice had changed completely. No teasing. No dramatic sarcasm. Just honesty, and somehow that was worse.
“I thought—I don’t know what I thought,” he admitted. “I just knew something was wrong, and when I found you…”
He stopped there and rubbed a hand over his face like he was frustrated with himself for even letting the words out. His eyes stayed fixed somewhere on the blanket instead of me.
“I don’t ever want to do that again.”
Neither did I.
The guilt sat heavy in my stomach because there wasn’t anything I could say that would make that better. I couldn’t undo it. I couldn’t erase the image of him finding me like that.
So all I had was the truth.
“I’m sorry,” I said again, because I didn’t know what else to do with that kind of fear.
“I know.”
He let the silence sit for a second, then bumped his shoulder lightly against mine, forcing just enough normalcy back into the room to keep both of us from drowning in it.
“Just stop trying to die for attention,” he said. “It’s embarrassing for everyone.”
That made me laugh, a real one this time. Weak, but real.
“Noted.”
We sat there for a minute after that, shoulder to shoulder, and for once neither of us needed to fill the silence. It wasn’t awkward. It was the kind of quiet that only happened with people who already knew what you meant without asking.
Then something occurred to me.
“My phone.”
Kyan blinked and pulled back just enough to look at me.
“What about it?”
“Did you grab it?”
His entire face changed.
That told me everything before he even opened his mouth.
I stared at him.
“No.”
“You forgot my phone?”
He sat back immediately like he was preparing a legal defense.
“In my defense, you were unconscious.”
“That feels like a weak defense.”
“I was emotionally compromised.”
I groaned and dropped my head back against the pillow.
“Great. Toby probably thinks I died.”
Sarah, without even looking up from her phone, said, “Honestly, fair assumption.”
I pointed weakly in her direction.
“I hate all of you.”
“Also fair.”
Kyan reached into his pocket and pulled out his own phone, holding it out to me like a peace offering from a very guilty criminal.
“Here. Use mine.”
I looked at it suspiciously before taking it.
“You trust me with your phone?”
“No,” he said honestly, “but I trust you less without a distraction.”
That was probably fair.
I took it and stared at the lock screen.
“What’s your code?”
He looked personally offended.
“Please. Just look at it.”
I frowned at him.
“What?”
“It’s facial recognition, genius. We’re twins. It should work.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“There is no way that works.”
“Try it.”
Sarah had fully sat up now because apparently this had become entertainment.
She pointed dramatically between both of us.
“Oh, I need this to work.”
I lifted the phone and held it in front of my face.
The screen unlocked instantly.
There was a full two seconds of silence before I started laughing.
“No way.”
Kyan looked unbearably smug.
“I told you.”
Sarah pointed at both of us like she had just uncovered a government conspiracy.
“That is deeply unsettling.”
“It’s amazing,” I said, already opening his photo gallery.
“It’s an invasion of privacy,” Sarah corrected.
“Same thing.”
And suddenly I was scrolling through pieces of my brother’s life.
There were pictures of Sarah making faces at dinner, Dad asleep on the couch with the TV remote balanced on his chest, and Mom pretending not to notice while very obviously taking the picture anyway.
There were also a ridiculous number of blurry pictures of me from the past week—usually caught mid-argument, mid-laugh, or apparently asleep in the backseat of the SUV looking like I had been tranquilized.
I looked over at him.
“You take a weird amount of pictures of me.”
He shrugged like this was a perfectly reasonable personality trait.
“You’re my favorite cryptid.”
I snorted.
“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“I know.”
I kept scrolling.
There were pictures from the birthday party, decorations Sarah had insisted were “emotionally necessary,” backyard photos, and enough evidence to prove that this family documented absolutely everything whether people liked it or not.
Then I stopped on one picture.
Me and Kyan were standing on the back patio, both of us laughing at something just off camera. His arm was half around my shoulders because he had dragged me into standing still long enough for the picture to happen.
I remembered it instantly.
Casey had taken it.
Kyan had demanded it.
It had been the day after Greg figured out who I really was and made sure Dad and Kyan both showed up at his office while I was still there. Everything had still felt raw and terrifying and impossible, and somehow Kyan had still managed to act like claiming me as his brother was the most obvious thing in the world.
I remembered complaining about the picture because Kyan had practically dragged me into frame like I was being arrested. I had told him it was stupid, that we didn’t need a picture, that I looked fine not existing in photographic evidence. He had ignored every single word like he always did when he decided he was right.
I remembered him refusing to care, throwing an arm around my shoulders and holding me there while I argued, completely unbothered by the fact that I was trying to escape. To him, it had never been a question of if I belonged there. He had decided I was his brother almost immediately, and apparently that meant I was stuck with him forever.
I remembered Casey standing there laughing at both of us, camera in hand, telling us to stop moving and act normal for five seconds. Kyan had said something ridiculous. I had rolled my eyes. And somehow, right in the middle of all of that chaos, she had caught the exact second we were both laughing.
I stared at the picture longer than I meant to.
We looked… normal.
Not like strangers trying to figure each other out. Not like broken pieces awkwardly trying to force themselves into a shape that fit. Just brothers. Easy. Natural. Like it had always been true.
Like I belonged there.
That hit quieter than I expected.
Because maybe I did.
Maybe I had from the second he looked at me and said baby brother like he had never forgotten.
Before I could say anything stupid and emotional, the hospital room door opened and Sarah walked back in carrying three bags of chips like she had personally conquered a small nation.
She held them up dramatically.
“Alright, degenerates,” she announced. “Who wants chips?”
About two hours later, I was halfway through stealing Sarah’s second bag of chips and listening to Kyan explain, in painful detail, why I was apparently now banned from unsupervised gazebo visits for the rest of my natural life when the hospital room door opened.
Mom walked in first.
Dad was right behind her, followed by Natalie, and one look at all three of them told me they had absolutely been on a mission.
Mom looked tired but lighter somehow, like she had found something she’d been hoping for. Dad had that quiet, satisfied look he got when he had already made a decision and everyone else was just catching up. Natalie looked like Natalie—perfectly put together, slightly dangerous, and entirely too aware of everything happening around her.
Kyan sat up straighter immediately, looking between all three of them.
“Well?” he asked.
Mom smiled.
That alone made me nervous.
Mom only smiled like that when she was either about to tell me something wonderful or something that would completely change my life. Considering the last few days, I wasn’t sure which category this was about to fall into.
“I think,” Mom said carefully as she walked over to my bed, “we found the perfect companion for you.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“That sounds suspiciously vague,” I told her.
“It’s supposed to,” Mom said.
I pointed accusingly at her from the hospital bed.
“No. Absolutely not. You don’t get to do mysterious parent behavior right now. I’m in a hospital bed. I deserve answers.”
Dad snorted and dropped into the chair near the window like he had been waiting for exactly this reaction.
“Legally,” Dad said, “I’m pretty sure that’s not how that works.”
“I almost died,” I argued.
Dad gave me a flat look.
“You dramatically passed out.”
“Details.”
Natalie folded her arms, clearly enjoying every second of my suffering.
“You’re being outnumbered, sweetheart,” Natalie said.
I turned right back to Mom, because clearly Dad and Natalie had both chosen violence.
“What does that mean? What kind of dog? How old? Is it huge? Is it one of those terrifyingly intelligent dogs that judges people?”
Mom laughed softly and sat on the edge of the bed, smoothing a hand over the blanket like that somehow made refusing to answer nicer.
“You are going to have to wait until we get there,” she said.
“That is cruel.”
“That is parenting.”
I turned to Natalie for backup because Natalie was usually the easiest to manipulate if I weaponized enough eye contact and emotional damage.
She saw it coming immediately.
“Oh, don’t you even try that,” Natalie said.
I blinked at her with my best attempt at innocence.
“Try what?”
She pointed directly at me like she was addressing a known criminal.
“Those baby blues. Absolutely not. I know your tricks.”
Kyan, traitor that he was, laughed loud enough to be personally offensive.
“She’s right,” Kyan said. “It’s manipulative.”
I turned to glare at him.
“It’s called being charming.”
“It’s called emotional fraud.”
I gave him my best fake pout.
Natalie just smiled like she had survived far worse than twelve-year-old manipulation attempts and was fully immune to all of them.
“Nice try,” she said.
Before I could launch a stronger legal argument for my right to know everything immediately, Dr. Jerret walked back into the room carrying a clipboard, followed by Dad standing up because apparently paperwork summoned him like some kind of suburban Batman.
“Well,” Dr. Jerret said, glancing around the room, “good news. You all made it just in time. I was about to assume he lived here now.”
I folded my hands dramatically.
“I was starting to accept my new life.”
Sarah nodded from her chair without missing a beat.
“He was already planning how to redecorate.”
“Minimalist,” I said. “Very sterile.”
Dr. Jerret ignored all of us with the practiced skill of someone who had clearly been dealing with families like mine for years.
“Vitals are stable. No new episodes. No neurological concerns. Which means,” he said, looking directly at me, “if you behave like a reasonable human being for the next ten minutes, I’m letting you go home.”
I sat up a little straighter immediately.
“Define reasonable.”
He didn’t even blink.
“Don’t make me regret my medical license.”
I nodded solemnly.
“Harsh, but fair.”
Dad stepped forward as Dr. Jerret handed him the discharge paperwork.
“I’ll go sign everything,” Dad said.
Then he turned and gave Kyan the look.
The Dad look.
The one that said do not cause chaos while I’m gone.
It was the exact same look every parent seemed to develop at some point—the one that somehow carried an entire speech without a single word. Do not start anything. Do not encourage anything. Do not let your brother convince you that bad ideas are fun. Do not make me come back in here.
Unfortunately for him, Kyan had never respected that look in his life.
Kyan sat up a little straighter, trying and failing to look innocent.
“Yes, sir,” Kyan said with the kind of exaggerated sincerity that should have been deeply suspicious to everyone in the room.
Dad narrowed his eyes at him immediately.
“Concerning.”
Sarah snorted into her chips.
I laughed, because honestly, if Dad had trusted that answer for even half a second, I would have been worried about him.
Then Dad followed Dr. Jerret out into the hallway.
The second the door closed, I turned right back to Mom.
“Details.”
Mom laughed again.
“No.”
I stared at her.
“Mother.”
“No.”
“Mom.”
“No.”
“Please.”
She leaned over and kissed my forehead like that somehow counted as a complete answer.
“You’ll see soon.”
I groaned dramatically and fell back against the pillows like I had been personally betrayed by my own bloodline.
“This family is built on betrayal.”
Kyan nodded seriously from beside me.
“True.”
I pointed at him.
“Thank you.”
“But mostly because you’re annoying.”
“There it is.”
Natalie walked over while I was still pretending to suffer and smoothed my hair back from my forehead the same way she had since the first hospital room.
“You’re okay, baby boy?” Natalie asked.
That question always hit harder than it should, because it wasn’t really asking about the hospital.
It was asking everything.
Was I okay after Karen? After the letters? After the nightmare? After remembering things I had spent years trying not to remember? Was I okay with all of it?
I looked at Natalie and nodded.
“Yeah. I think so.”
It wasn’t a perfect answer, but it was honest.
She studied me for a second like she was checking for cracks, like she was trying to decide if I was telling the truth or just trying to protect everyone else from worrying.
Then she seemed satisfied enough to lean down and kiss my forehead.
“Good. Because if you scare me like that again, I’m sicking Toby on you.”
That made me laugh.
“That feels like a disproportionate threat.”
“It is,” Natalie said. “He bites.”
“He absolutely does.”
Sarah stood up, grabbing her bag and stretching dramatically like she had just survived active combat.
“I’d like the record to show I survived this hospital experience with grace and dignity.”
Natalie looked at her.
“You stole three bags of chips.”
Sarah lifted her chin.
“Gracefully.”
A few minutes later, Dad came back in with Dr. Jerret and, unfortunately for my pride, a wheelchair.
I stared at it.
“No.”
Dad folded his arms like this conversation had already been decided.
“Yes.”
“I can walk.”
“I know.”
“Then why is there a chair?”
Dad gave me a look.
“Because your mother likes me and I’d prefer to keep it that way.”
Mom smiled sweetly, which somehow made it worse.
“He’s getting in the chair.”
I looked at Kyan for support.
He betrayed me instantly.
“Oh, absolutely,” Kyan said. “I’m pushing.”
I stared at all of them.
“I hate this family.”
“Liar,” Sarah said.
She wasn’t wrong.
With all the dignity available to a person being forcibly placed into hospital transportation, I let Kyan and Dad help me into the wheelchair while everyone else pretended not to enjoy it.
Dr. Jerret walked with us toward the hospital entrance while giving final instructions like he suspected I would absolutely ignore them if he didn’t repeat them enough.
“Rest. Hydrate. No emotional catastrophes. No collapsing in decorative outdoor structures.”
I looked up at him from the wheelchair.
“I make no promises.”
He gave me a flat look.
“Wrong answer.”
We reached the front doors, sunlight spilling across the floor in a way that made the hospital suddenly feel even more like a place I did not belong.
Good.
I wanted out.
Before everyone started separating, Sarah snapped her fingers like she had just remembered something important.
“Oh—before I forget,” Sarah said, “I’m letting Professor Waterson know you won’t make your first rehearsal this week, but you’ll be there next week.”
That hit me faster than I expected.
For a second, there was this sharp little flutter in my chest—disappointment, sudden and stronger than I wanted to admit. My first rehearsal. My first real step into something normal. Something that was supposed to be mine. I had actually been looking forward to it.
Missing it stung.
I shoved that feeling down before anyone could notice it on my face.
I forced a smile instead.
“Yeah,” I said. “Tell him I’ll be there next week.”
Sarah gave me a satisfied nod.
“Good. Because if I have to listen to him complain about missing first chair one more time, I’m transferring schools.”
That made me laugh, and thankfully everyone let that be the moment instead of the one right before it.
Natalie stepped forward first.
Sarah was riding home with her so she could be dropped off, and Natalie gave me one last look that somehow managed to be both warm and threatening.
“Get some rest.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know.”
She kissed my forehead one more time, softer this time.
“Keep your head up, baby boy.”
That one landed deep.
I nodded because if I tried to answer that, it probably would have come out wrong.
She gave Dad a look that clearly translated to don’t let him do anything stupid, grabbed Sarah, and headed for the parking lot.
Sarah waved dramatically over her shoulder.
“If you die again, text me first!”
“Noted!”
And then it was just us.
Mom.
Dad.
Kyan.
And me.
Dad reached down and squeezed my shoulder once.
“Ready?”
I looked between all of them, still not knowing exactly what waited at the end of this drive, only that somehow all of them looked certain it mattered.
I took a breath.
“Yeah,” I said.
“I think I’m ready.”
The drive to the K9 facility felt strangely quiet.
Not awkward quiet. Not bad quiet. Just the kind of silence that happens when everyone in the car is thinking too much and nobody wants to be the first person to say it out loud.
I sat in the backseat with Kyan beside me, still feeling a little wrung out from the hospital and everything before it. My body felt heavy in that strange way it always did after an episode, like I had run a marathon I didn’t remember starting. Kyan stayed close enough that our shoulders kept bumping every time Dad turned a corner, and for once, neither of us complained about it.
Mom sat in the passenger seat, glancing back at me every few minutes like she was checking to make sure I was still there. Dad drove with both hands tight on the wheel, focused in the way he always got when something mattered. Which meant this mattered.
A lot.
I stared out the window for most of the drive, watching houses blur past and trying not to let my brain turn this into something bigger than it already was.
A service dog.
For me.
Even thinking it felt strange.
Too big.
Too much.
Because dogs like this weren’t just pets. They were trained. Expensive. Important. They were for people who actually needed them.
People worse than me.
People more broken than me.
The thought settled ugly in my chest before I could stop it.
I shoved it down.
I had gotten very good at that.
Beside me, Kyan nudged my shoulder.
“You’re doing the thing.”
I blinked and looked at him.
“The thing?”
“The overthinking thing. Your face does that weird haunted Victorian child look.”
I stared at him.
“That is the rudest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
“It’s not even top ten.”
Despite myself, I laughed quietly, and some of the pressure in my chest loosened.
From the front seat, Dad glanced at us in the rearview mirror.
“You okay back there?”
I nodded automatically.
“Yeah.”
Kyan, because betrayal was apparently his love language, said, “He’s lying, but like… politely.”
“Unbelievable,” I muttered.
Mom twisted slightly in her seat to look at me.
“Nervous?”
I considered lying again.
Then I sighed.
“Yeah.”
That answer sat in the car for a second.
Mom smiled softly.
“That’s okay.”
Dad nodded once.
“You don’t have to know how to do this yet.”
Kyan leaned back beside me.
“Good, because if you did, that would be suspicious.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Thank you. Very supportive.”
“I’m a pillar of emotional health.”
Nobody believed that.
Not even him.
About twenty minutes later, Dad turned into a long gravel driveway lined with white fencing and trees. The building ahead looked less like what I had imagined and more like a cross between a training center and somebody’s very expensive farm. There were fenced grassy areas, walking paths, and several trainers moving with dogs in bright colored vests.
My stomach dropped immediately.
Oh.
This was real.
Dad parked, and for a second, nobody moved.
Then Mom turned around fully in her seat.
“Before we go in, I need you to hear something.”
That tone made me sit up straighter.
She reached back and took my hand.
“This is not too much. You are not a burden. You are not wasting anyone’s time. If this helps you, then it matters. Do you understand me?”
I swallowed hard.
Because apparently mothers had supernatural abilities and could hear thoughts I never said out loud.
I nodded.
“Yes, ma’am.”
She squeezed my hand once before letting go.
Dad opened his door.
“Alright. Let’s go meet your dog.”
My dog.
That almost made me stop breathing.
The building smelled like clean floors, shampoo, and dog fur.
Somewhere down the hall, I could hear barking—sharp, excited, alive. It was strangely comforting.
Melissa was already waiting for us near the front office when we walked in, and she smiled the second she saw us.
“There you are,” she said warmly. “I was starting to think he’d changed his mind.”
Dad smiled politely.
“Hospital discharge took longer than expected.”
Melissa nodded like that made perfect sense before her attention shifted to me.
“And you must be Zyan.”
I nodded.
She smiled like she already knew I was nervous.
“I’ve heard good things.”
“That feels suspicious,” I said.
Kyan made a choking sound beside me.
Mom sighed.
Dad looked tired already.
Melissa just laughed.
“I think we’re going to get along just fine.”
She led us farther inside, explaining things as we walked.
The dog they had selected was a young golden retriever named Cosmo. He had already been through extensive medical alert training and was specifically trained for trauma response, anxiety interruption, grounding techniques, medication reminders, object retrieval, and emergency alerts for parents or guardians if something was wrong.
The more Melissa talked, the worse my chest felt.
She explained it all calmly, professionally, like this was normal—like it was completely ordinary to stand there while someone listed all the ways a dog might need to protect you from your own mind. But every sentence felt like proof of something I had spent years trying not to say out loud.
Proof that I was too much.
Too fragile.
Too damaged.
Too expensive.
Cosmo could alert for panic episodes before they fully hit. He could interrupt dissociation if I started slipping too far. He could apply deep pressure therapy during flashbacks, retrieve medication if I needed it, alert my parents if something was wrong, and get help if I couldn’t ask for it myself.
He could do all the things I apparently couldn’t do on my own.
By the time we stopped outside one of the training rooms, my hands were shaking badly enough that I shoved them into the pockets of my hoodie. I hated that Melissa noticed immediately, but of course she did. People like her noticed everything.
“That’s normal,” she said gently. “Meeting your dog can feel overwhelming.”
My dog.
Again.
That phrase still didn’t feel real. It felt too big, too important, like trying on someone else’s life and being terrified they were going to realize it didn’t belong to me.
Then she opened the door.
And there he was.
Golden fur caught the light first. Then big dark eyes. A bright blue vest. He was young enough that there was still too much puppy in the way he stood, too much barely-contained energy under all that training, but there was something steady about him too. Focused. Calm. Like he knew exactly why he was there.
He looked up.
And then immediately locked onto me.
Everything in me stopped.
It was ridiculous how fast it happened—like the entire room narrowed down to just that dog looking at me like I mattered.
Melissa smiled softly beside me.
“He’s been waiting all morning.”
I stared at her.
“He knows?”
“In his own way? Yes.”
That somehow made everything worse.
Or better.
Honestly, I couldn’t tell anymore.
“Would you like to meet him?”
My brain supplied about six different answers at once.
No.
Yes.
Absolutely.
Terrifyingly.
Instead of saying any of that, I just nodded because words had apparently abandoned me completely.
Melissa gave a small hand signal.
“Cosmo, say hello.”
And then he came to me.
Not wild. Not chaotic. Just steady. Purposeful.
He walked right up like he had already decided I belonged to him. His nose pressed gently against my hand first, warm and soft, like he was checking. Confirming. Then he leaned, pressing his whole body against my legs like we had known each other forever.
That almost broke me.
Because something about being chosen that easily hurt.
I laughed once, shaky and embarrassingly close to tears.
“Hi.”
His tail thumped once against the floor.
Behind me, Kyan made this quiet little sound that was suspiciously emotional for someone who spent most of his life pretending feelings were illegal. Mom had a hand over her mouth like she was trying not to cry in public, and Dad looked like he was using every ounce of self-control he possessed not to visibly have emotions in front of strangers.
Melissa gave all of us exactly enough dignity to pretend none of that was happening.
She spent the next half hour walking me through commands—basic handling, emergency cues, commands only I was allowed to use, commands nobody else could override. She explained how Cosmo would alert if my heart rate spiked too fast, how he would respond if he sensed the beginning of an episode, and what I needed to do to work with him instead of against him.
At one point, she handed me one of his favorite training toys and showed me how to redirect him when needed.
Cosmo followed every word like it mattered.
Like I mattered.
And that was the problem.
Because the longer we stood there, the louder that old voice got.
This is too much.
You don’t deserve this.
People are spending too much money.
Too much time.
Too much effort.
On you.
I smiled through it because I had practice. I nodded when people talked. I repeated commands. I petted Cosmo’s head like everything was fine.
But inside, something was slipping.
I could feel it happening in that horrible familiar way—the floaty feeling, like the edges of the room were getting farther away. My heartbeat got too loud. My hands got colder. My own skin started to feel too far away from me.
No.
Not here.
Not now.
I stared down at Cosmo and tried to force myself back.
You are fine.
You are fine.
You are—
Cosmo barked.
Sharp. Loud. Immediate.
Everyone stopped.
Before I could even process what was happening, he stepped forward and pressed hard against my legs, forcing me backward until I hit the chair behind me and sat down without meaning to.
My breath caught.
“Cosmo,” Melissa said softly, but there was approval in it, not correction.
Because he was working.
Because he knew.
Before I could protest, Cosmo climbed halfway into my lap with all the confidence of someone who had absolutely decided this was happening. Seventy pounds of determined golden retriever forced himself against my chest, heavy and warm and impossible to ignore.
I made this pathetic startled noise that turned, embarrassingly, into a laugh.
“Okay—okay, wow—”
His head shoved under my chin, insisting. His body stayed pressed against mine—solid, warm, real in a way nothing else had been for the last ten minutes.
I wrapped my arms around him without even thinking.
And just like that, the spiral cracked.
Not gone.
But interrupted.
The room came back slowly. My breathing steadied against the weight of him. The panic backed off inch by inch, retreating under warm fur and the absolute certainty of a dog who had apparently decided I was his problem now. I buried my face against his fur for one second longer than I probably should have.
And then I laughed again, quieter this time.
Cosmo huffed like he had personally solved me.
From somewhere behind me, I heard Dad’s voice, warm and certain.
“I guess that settles that.”