[Cleo’s POV]

I spend the night in the waiting room, dozing in a plastic chair that was clearly designed by someone who hates human spines.

The nurses offered me a cot in Sophie’s room, but I declined. She needs rest more than she needs me hovering, and honestly, I needed the distance. Needed time to process everything that happened, everything that’s still happening, everything that’s about to change.

My best friend is pregnant. She almost ran away. She collapsed alone in her apartment with a packed suitcase by the door.

And those two idiots are in there with her now, probably making promises they don’t know how to keep.

I should be angrier than I am. I was furious yesterday—furious at them for not seeing what was right in front of their faces, furious at her for thinking she had to carry this alone. But anger is exhausting, and I’ve been running on fumes for weeks, watching Sophie spiral while pretending everything was fine.

The relief of not having to pretend anymore is almost worse than the fear.

When dawn breaks through the hospital windows, pale and gray, I force myself up and make my way back to Sophie’s floor. My body aches from the uncomfortable sleeping position. My head pounds from too little rest and too much stress. But I need to see her. I need to know she’s still okay.

I’m not expecting to find Adrian and Cassian standing outside her door, speaking in low, tense voices.

“—can’t just barge in there like you own the place,” Cassian is saying.

“I’m not barging anywhere,” Adrian fires back. “I just want to see her.”

“She’s sleeping. The nurse said—”

“I know what the nurse said. I was there when she said it.”

I clear my throat loudly enough to make them both jump.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” I say, letting my voice drip with false sweetness. “Starting the day with a territorial dispute, I see.”

Adrian has the grace to look embarrassed. Cassian just straightens his shoulders, his expression shifting into something more neutral.

“We weren’t fighting,” he says.

“You were absolutely fighting.” I move between them, positioning myself in front of Sophie’s door. “And you’re going to stop, because she can probably hear you through the wall, and the last thing she needs right now is to wake up to the sound of you two bickering.”

Adrian runs a hand through his hair—a nervous habit I’ve noticed he does when he’s frustrated. “I just want to be there when she wakes up.”

“Why?”

The question catches him off guard. “What do you mean, why?”

“I mean exactly what I said.” I cross my arms, fixing him with a look that’s gotten confessions out of lesser men. “Why do you want to be there? What are you going to say? What are you going to do?”

He opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again. “I don’t know. I just—I need her to know I’m here.”

“She knows,” I say. “Trust me, she knows you’re both here. That’s not the problem. The problem is that she’s spent days feeling like your presence is something she has to manage. Something she has to work around. Being here isn’t enough anymore. You have to be different.”

Cassian nods slowly, like he’s actually absorbing what I’m saying. “How?”

I sigh, some of the sharpness draining out of my posture. “Start by not treating her like a crisis to be solved. She’s not a problem with a solution. She’s a person who’s been drowning, and the best thing you can do right now is give her space to breathe.”

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