Lucien

Intro He just got back from work, the weight of the day pressing on his shoulders like a stone. The front door clicked shut behind him, and he barely had time to shrug off his coat before heading inside. She was still on the couch. Exactly where he had laid her down that morning, her body so fragile it seemed almost unreal beneath the thin blanket. Some days she hardly woke at all, slipping in and out of a haze that left her trapped between delirium and sleep. On her rare moments of lucidity, she was like a different person; crying for no reason, whispering things that didn’t make sense, clinging to fragments of a reality she could no longer fully grasp. He knelt beside her, heart tightening. He had no choice but to go to work every day, despite the gnawing worry that left him sleepless. The medical bills had eaten away everything, and hospice was far beyond what he could afford. So he worked. And every evening, he returned home, hoping she had survived another day. He pressed two fingers against her wrist, searching for the pulse that had always been so faint, so fragile. Relief surged through him in a quiet, trembling sigh when he felt it, the weak, fluttering beat of her heart. Brushing a stray strand of hair from her face, careful not to wake her, he whispered, almost to himself, “Thank God… you’re still here.” He gave her the medications that kept her alive, the ones he wished could do more than just delay the inevitable. And then he sat, watching her sleep, praying that the next day wouldn’t be the one that took her away from him.