I come back to myself without warning, dragged up from nothing into pain so sharp it steals the air out of my lungs. I don’t know where I am. I don’t know how long it’s been. I only know the sound.

  Kai is screaming.

  It’s coming from somewhere down the hall, muffled by walls and distance, but there’s no mistaking it. It isn’t words. It isn’t even crying. It’s raw, torn straight out of him, the kind of sound an animal makes when it thinks it’s dying and can’t understand why it hasn’t yet.

  It does something terrible to me.

  The pain inside my own body surges in response, like it’s answering him. I clamp my jaw shut and try to hold it in, every muscle going rigid as I fight the instinct to scream back. I tell myself to endure it. I tell myself that if I can just stay quiet, if I can just keep it contained, maybe it won’t get worse.

  It gets worse anyway.

  The pressure inside me keeps building, stacking and compressing until it feels like my bones are going to split apart from the inside. My chest locks up. My vision goes white. The sound tears out of me whether I want it to or not, broken and ugly and humiliating.

  There are people in the room. I can sense them moving around my bed, hands grabbing my shoulders, my arms, trying to hold me still while I thrash like I can fight the pain if I move enough. Someone says my name. Someone else says something sharp and urgent that I can’t make out.

  Then there’s a sudden sting, cold and decisive, and the world drops away again.

  When I wake the next time, it lasts longer.

  Time doesn’t make sense anymore, but later, when I try to piece it together, I decide it must have been about five days. That’s the number that feels right. Not because I saw a clock or counted meals, but because I hear Finn’s voice, hoarse and desperate, arguing with someone nearby.

  He’s pleading.

  “You’re making it worse,” he says, and there’s panic in his voice now, the kind that strips him down to something younger than eighteen. “You have to put them together. You have to.”

  I don’t understand what he means at first. I don’t understand anything except the pain, which is still there, still gnawing at me from the inside like something alive. I grit my teeth and try to ride it out. I tell myself I’ve handled worse. I tell myself I can do this.

  I can’t.

  My body arches against the bed as the pressure spikes again, and I lose the fight to stay quiet. I thrash, hands clawing at the sheets, legs kicking uselessly as if there’s something to push against. Finn’s voice rises, sharp and breaking, shouting now, demanding that they do something, that they stop this.

  I manage to choke most of the sound down this time, my throat locking around it until it hurts. My breathing turns shallow and frantic, sweat soaking through the mattress beneath me. Every muscle convulses like it’s being pulled apart strand by strand.

  I force one word out between gasping breaths.

  “Kai.”

  It hurts to say his name. It hurts worse not to.

  The next time I wake up, the pain has changed.

  It’s still there, heavy and all-consuming, but it’s no longer razor sharp. It feels more like everything in me has been stretched too far and left that way. My ribs ache like they’ve been cracked, every breath scraping through my chest. I keep my eyes closed and take inventory slowly, carefully, afraid that the moment I move, something will fail.

  For the first time since the portal, it doesn’t.

  I lie there, breathing shallowly, listening to the quiet hum of the room. My heart is still racing, but it’s no longer trying to tear its way out of my chest. The pressure is muted now, distant enough that I can think around it.

  Stolen story; please report.

  Then I feel it.

  Warmth behind me.

  A soft breath brushes the back of my neck, uneven and familiar. An arm wraps around my middle, too tight for how much I hurt, pulling me back until my spine presses against another body.

  I freeze for half a second, afraid to move, afraid this will disappear if I acknowledge it.

  Then the warmth stays.

  It hits me all at once, a rush so overwhelming it steals what little breath I have left. The days of agony, of being ripped open again and again, slam into contrast with this simple, impossible relief. Kai is there. He’s holding me. He’s solid and real and close enough that the pain finally has somewhere to go besides tearing me apart.

  I don’t even care that it hurts to be held. I don’t care that every muscle protests. I would let my bones crack before I let this go.

  At some point, Finn must have convinced them. The doctors. The nurses. Whoever was making the decisions. I don’t know what he said or how hard he fought. I only know that someone finally listened.

  Kai has my back.

  Literally.

  The realization breaks something in me that the pain never quite managed to. My chest tightens, and a tear slips free before I can stop it. Then another. I don’t wipe them away. I don’t try to hide it. The pillow beneath my face grows damp, and I couldn’t care less.

  I assume Kai went through the same thing I did. Maybe worse. The thought hurts, but it doesn’t overwhelm me the way it did before. He’s here now. We’re here. That’s enough.

  I let myself sink back into sleep, held in place by the only thing that’s worked since the portal tore us apart. His breathing steadies against my back, and my own finally starts to follow.

  For the first time since that white, tearing pain, I’m not afraid to close my eyes.

  I drift off like that, wrapped in warmth and exhaustion, and despite everything, despite the days stolen and the damage done, I feel something dangerously close to contentment.

  Our positions must have switched at some point.

  I come to slowly this time, drifting up instead of snapping awake. I don’t open my eyes right away, and I definitely don’t move. I give my head a chance to catch up, letting the fog thin on its own. Everything still feels delicate, like if I rush it I’ll regret it.

  The smell grounds me first.

  Herbs and medicines, sharp and clean, layered over that faint bitterness that never quite leaves the infirmary. I’ve smelled it enough times to know exactly where I am. That helps. I’m not falling anymore. I’m safe. We’re back.

  Then I notice the warmth.

  Kai is pressed against me, fully, his back to my chest. My arm is wrapped around his middle, hand resting low on his stomach like it belongs there. He’s breathing slow and steady, and without meaning to, I’m matching it.

  The realization settles in piece by piece.

  I’m holding him. A stray thought slips through the haze, unhelpful and immediate. I’m the big spoon.

  A quiet laugh escapes me before I can stop it, barely more than a breath. The sound seems loud in my own head, and it must be enough, because I feel attention shift in the room. Someone inhales sharply. Someone whispers.

  “I heard something,” Kai’s mom says softly.

  There’s a pause, then his dad’s voice, low and urgent. “Go get Cal’s parents.”

  That’s when the embarrassment really hits.

  I suddenly become very aware of how tangled we are. How my arm is hooked around him. How my chest is pressed against his back. How I’m basically wrapped around him like a bad jacket in the middle of the infirmary with witnesses.

  My face warms instantly.

  I don’t move, because I’m afraid that if I do, everything will hurt, but also because I have no idea how to untangle myself gracefully from this. I can already feel my parents’ reactions in my bones.

  The bed shifts slightly as people move around us. Kai stirs in my arms, a small hitch in his breathing as he starts to wake. I lean closer without opening my eyes and whisper into his ear, keeping my voice low.

  “Please don’t move,” I murmur. “You’re my oatmeal, Kai.”

  His body shakes a little as he wakes properly, a quiet huff of laughter pressed into the pillow. He whispers back, voice rough and sleepy.

  “You’re such a weirdo.”

  That only makes it worse.

  Footsteps hurry out of the room, then back in again. I hear my parents’ voices as they rush through the doorway, worry tumbling over itself as they take in the scene. I can feel their eyes on us. On me. On how thoroughly I am still wrapped around my best friend.

  I consider pretending to still be unconscious.

  That feels like a coward’s move.

  I finally open my eyes and glance down at myself, half expecting to see bandages or bruises everywhere. My arms look normal. I look at Kai’s bare back, smooth and unmarked beneath my hand. No scars. No signs of what it felt like we went through.

  It’s disorienting. After days of agony, I expected to wake up ruined. Broken. Like a boy held together with stubbornness and borrowed pieces.

  Instead, I just look… embarrassingly fine.

  I sigh softly, partly in relief, partly because this is going to be talked about forever.

  Before I disentangle us, I give Kai one last squeeze, brief and instinctive, just to remind myself he’s real. Then I carefully roll onto my back, every movement slow and deliberate, wincing as my body protests.

  The room quiets as I settle, everyone watching.

  I stare up at the ceiling for a moment, then at the cluster of worried, relieved faces hovering nearby. My parents. Kai’s parents. A nurse who is very clearly trying not to smile.

  My ears are burning. My face feels hot. I know exactly what this looks like, even if everyone here understands it isn’t romantic.

  The first thing I say, voice rough but steady, is, “Good morning.”

  And despite the embarrassment, despite everything, I feel lighter than I have in days.