Franknotices.
“So,” Frank says casually, “this is the part where you pretend I’m just another patient, huh?”
Colton’s jaw tightens. “You are a patient.”
“Sure,” Frank replies. “But you liked me better when I wasn’t dying.”
The room goes still.
I glance at Colton, waiting for him to push back or to deflect with humor, to snap, to do something.
Instead, he nods once. “I’ll check back later.”
And then he’s gone.
The door clicks shut behind him with a finality that makes my chest ache.
Frank exhales. “There it is.”
I step closer to the bed. “He cares about you.”
“I know,” Frank says gently. “That’s the problem.”
Over the next few days, it becomes impossible to ignore.
Colton limits his time in Frank’s room to what is medically required. He doesn’t sit. He doesn’t joke. He keeps his hands folded behind his back, like he’s bracing himself against something unseen.
I start catching the way he pauses outside the door before going in, like he’s preparing for impact.
It’s subtle. Anyone else might miss it, but I don’t because I’ve seen it before.
It’s easy to love Frank. He makes it easy.
He disarms people. Pulls them in. Makes them feel like they matter. And Colton, for all his control and sharp edges, has never been immune to that.
Frank didn’t just become a patient to him. He became a mirror.
I watch Colton retreat further into himself as the days pass, his presence on the floor more fleeting, his smile almost nonexistent now. He speaks less. Doesn’t laugh at all.
And something in me starts to worry because this version of him … this is new.
Or maybe it isn’t.
Maybe this is who he’s always been when the mask slips.
One afternoon, after a particularly long visit filled with goodbyes Frank pretends not to notice, I linger behind while the others filter out.
Frank studies me for a moment. “He’s hurting,” he says quietly.
“I know,” I reply.
“He doesn’t do loss well.”
I swallow. “Neither do I.”
He nods. “Difference is, you learned how to let it change you without hardening.”
I don’t know how to respond to that.