“I’ve been waiting two hours,” a man grumbled from somewhere down the hall. “You’d think they’d be faster.”

“Do you think they’re back there painting their nails?” a woman said in response. “I swear, these nurses are lazy.”

“Lazy?” another voice barked. “Those nurses work their asses off while you sit there whining.”

I didn’t know who that last voice belonged to, but they were right. The nurse who had bandaged my hand hadn’t been lazy. She had been patient. Gentle. Nurses were saints.

But I was too drained to be angry, too exhausted to care about the bickering outside my room.

I sighed, my gaze drifting up to the ceiling. A single tile in the corner was stained a dull yellow, as if something had once seeped through. My mind latched onto that tiny imperfection, holding on like it was the only thing keeping me from coming undone.

Then the door creaked open.

I barely turned my head, expecting another nurse or maybe some doctor to remind me that I couldn’t just sit here all night.

Instead, Jamal stepped inside. His gaze flicked from me to my bandaged hands, and something flickered across his face—relief, maybe—before he moved further into the room.

He wasn’t alone.

Tiffany was right behind him. Her eyes were red and puffy, her face blotchy in a way that told me she’d been crying for a while. She hadn’t even tried to fix her mascara, and her hair was twisted into a messy bun, strands curling loose around her face.

The moment she saw me, her breath hitched, and she dropped into the chair beside my bed, shoulders shaking.

And then she cried.

I exhaled sharply, already feeling the exhaustion creep deeper into my bones. “Tiffany,” I mumbled. My throat felt dry and sore. “Don’t start.”

Her head snapped up so fast it startled me. “Don’t start?” she snapped, wiping at her face. “You scared the shit out of me, Beverly. This isn’t me overreacting. This is me sitting here, crying, because my best friend is lying in a hospital bed, hurting.”

Her voice cracked on the last word, and something twisted in my chest. I swallowed hard, looking away. “I’m fine,” I said stiffly. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Not a big deal?” she scoffed. “You’re in the hospital, Beverly. Look at your hands!”

I shrugged. “I’ve had worse.”

“That’s not the point,” she shot back. “You can’t just…go off the rails like that. What were you even thinking?”

“I was thinking I wanted to destroy something,” I fired back. “And I did.”

“Yeah,” she muttered bitterly. “You sure as hell did.”

“I’m fine,” I repeated, my jaw clenched.