Zarina sat motionless in the stiff hospital chair beside Cady's bed, her hand gently clasping her wife's limp fingers. The room was quiet except for the steady beep of the monitor tracking Cady's heart rate, slow, mechanical, unchanging. Tubes snaked across Cady's body, the ventilator forcing rhythmic breaths into lungs that no longer knew how to work on their own. Her face was pale, peaceful in a way that made Zarina's chest ache even more.

The doctor's words from earlier replayed in her mind like a cruel loop.

"I'm very sorry," the neurosurgeon had said, his voice low and measured, eyes filled with the kind of practiced compassion that came...