But it was real, and I understood, holding Gabriel’s hand on that floor, that I would rather have a real family with a hero and a villain plainly visible in it than a comfortable fiction that had been lying to my face for twenty years.

Chapter 24 — Stable

Heavy footsteps came hurrying down the corridor toward our alcove, and I turned to see the head surgeon approaching, his expression serious, and I stood up at once and braced my back against the wall, because something in his tired eyes told me he was carrying news I was not ready for.

He stopped just short of us, and glanced between Gabriel and me, and opened his mouth.

And at that exact moment, the nearby elevator chimed, and the doors slid open, and my parents stepped out into the hallway, their expensive winter coats folded neatly over their arms, composed and crisp as ever, as though they were arriving at a dinner party rather than the ward where their daughter was fighting for her life.