Chapter 6 - The Longest Night
Noah developed an infection.
For the next sixteen hours, nobody left.
Rebecca sat beside the incubator.
I worked my shift and then stayed.
Sebastian remained in the waiting room because medical staff needed space.
At 3:11 a.m., Rebecca walked out.
“I can't do this.”
Sebastian stood.
“Yes, you can.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“I can't watch him die.”
Sebastian's expression changed.
He understood those words too well.
“Come here.”
Rebecca stopped.
“Seventeen years ago, I walked out of a NICU because I couldn't watch my sister die.”
I stared at him.
He had never told me that.
Sebastian continued.
“She died six minutes later.”
Rebecca covered her mouth.
“I wasn't there.”
His voice cracked.
“For seventeen years, I've remembered those six minutes.”
He stepped closer.
“So if you need to scream, scream.”
“If you need to cry, cry.”
“If you need to hate God, me, this hospital, everybody—do it.”
Then he pointed toward the NICU.
“But don't leave because you're afraid.”
Rebecca was sobbing now.
“What if he dies?”
Sebastian swallowed.
“Then he dies knowing his mother stayed.”
Rebecca returned to Noah.
At sunrise, the infection markers stabilized.
By noon, his oxygen improved.
By evening, the doctor finally smiled.
“He's responding.”
Rebecca collapsed against me.
Sebastian sat down.
For several seconds, he covered his face.
Then I noticed him removing something from beneath his sleeve.
Lucia's bracelet.
He held it in his palm.
“You okay?”
He nodded.
“I think I'm done wearing it.”
I sat beside him.
“Why?”
“For seventeen years, I thought taking it off meant leaving her.”
“And now?”
He looked through the glass at Noah and Rebecca.
“Maybe keeping a promise doesn't mean staying trapped in the day you made it.”
He closed his hand around the bracelet.
May you like
“What will you do with it?”
“Something I should've done years ago.”
