Chapter 1 - Room 214
The supply cart squeaked as I pushed it past the third door on the pediatric oncology hall, matching name tags to room numbers the way I did every Tuesday. I'd walked these corridors as a volunteer for three years. I knew their rhythm by heart — the soft beeping, the hushed voices, the smell of antiseptic that never quite faded.
I stopped outside room 214, where a new patient had been admitted. A man sat inside, hunched in a hard plastic chair, one hand resting over the blanket where his daughter slept.
"Excuse me," I said gently, stepping in. "I'm one of the volunteers. I just wanted to introduce myself."
He looked up, and the clipboard nearly slipped from my fingers.
Twenty-five years fell away in a single heartbeat.
It was Julian. My childhood best friend.
"Hi," he said. "Thank you for coming by. She's finally resting." His smile was warm and polite. And completely empty of recognition.
"Of course," I managed. "How's she doing?"
"Some days are better than others." He glanced back at the bed, at the girl whose scarf had slipped slightly on the pillow. A graduation announcement was propped beside her water cup. "She's tough. Tougher than me."
I studied his face, searching for any flicker of the man I'd loved like a brother.
"You look like you haven't slept," I said.
"I slept here." A small, worn smile. "The chairs aren't so bad once you stop expecting comfort."
At fifteen, that same smile had greeted me across a classroom when I was too afraid to speak. It had waited beside my hospital bed while I cried about my hair falling out in clumps.
"Has she been sick long?" I asked, forcing my voice steady.
"A few months now." He rubbed the back of his neck. "You think you know how strong you are until it's your kid."
"I understand more than you'd think," I said quietly.
He nodded the way people do when they assume a stranger is only being kind. "Everyone's been wonderful here. It makes a difference, feeling like people actually see you."
I almost laughed at that — it came out closer to a breath. "It does. It changes everything."
He didn't catch the weight in it. Why would he? To him I was just another gentle face in a place full of them.
"I'm sorry, I didn't get your name," he said.
"Renata."
Something changed in his face. His eyes stayed on mine a second longer than they should have. For one heartbeat, I thought he knew.
"Renata," he repeated slowly.
My heart jumped. Then he smiled politely and held out his hand. "Julian. And that's my daughter."
Of course. Renata wasn't an unusual name, and twenty-five years had changed both of us. Still, hearing him introduce himself to me made my chest ache.
"It's good to meet you, Julian," I said, and shook the hand I'd held through some of the worst days of my life as though he hadn't been part of them.
I glanced at his hair, cut short now and threaded with gray. Once he'd grown that hair for a full year and never told a soul why. He'd put up with the jokes and whispers, shrugging every time. "I like my new style," he'd said simply.
"Get some rest if you can," I told him, backing toward the door.
"I'll try." He settled back into the chair, eyes already drifting to his sleeping daughter.
I stepped into the hallway and leaned against the cool wall, thoughts spinning. He didn't know me. After everything he'd given me. He'd come to school one day with his hair cut short, carrying a box — a wig-maker had turned his hair into something for me. That gift had meant everything at the time.
May you like
After the debt I'd carried for twenty-five years, my oldest friend looked right through me.
But Julian had given me more than a wig back then. And there was something from those days I'd never been able to throw away.
