Days blurred into one long, quiet vigil. Cassie rarely left Asher’s side, only stepping away when the nurses insisted she stretch her legs or eat something more filling than vending-machine granola bars. The hospital room became her world; the steady beep of the heart monitor, the soft hiss of oxygen through the mask, the pale light filtering through half-closed blinds. She held his hand for hours, thumb tracing the familiar scar on his knuckle, the one he got punching a wall because some guy in senior school tried groping her.She read to him from the stack of books Reggie had brought her from his house. He had brought the old paperbacks he loved, thrillers with dog-eared pages, a worn copy of The Count of Monte Cristo, a collection of short stories their mother used to read aloud when they were small. Her voice stayed low and steady, even when tears slipped down her cheeks and dotted the pages. “You always said Dantès got his revenge the hard way,” she whispered one afternoon, turni
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