I couldn't sleep. The room was dark, the machines humming their quiet rhythm, Iris's chest rising and falling in the bed beside me. She was pale against the white sheets, her face slack, her lips slightly parted. She looked alive, but just barely. I should have been relieved — I was relieved. But beneath the relief was something else. I was restless, and that restlessness crawled under my skin, and wouldn't let me close my eyes for more than a few minutes at a time. Every time I started to drift, I saw her on the ground, covered in blood, so much blood. I remembered the way she'd looked so helpless when she'd been transferred to a stretcher at the doors of the hospital, and wheeled into the operating room. I could still hear her stuttering heartbeat, and it haunted me. Many times, that weak heartbeat had paused for longer than was normal, and my own heart almost gave out each time at the thought that each breath would be her last. I sat up, scrubbing my hands over my face. The chai
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