Held Together
Copyright© 2026 by Heel
Chapter 5
The nurse paused at the door, her hand resting lightly on the frame.
“You have a visitor,” she said. There was warmth in her voice, and a hint of amusement. “He looks like he’s been pacing the hallway for ten minutes.”
Before Dara could answer, the man himself appeared.
He stopped just inside the doorway, suddenly uncertain, as if the room were more dangerous than any forest. He had cleaned up since the last time she’d seen him—fresh shirt, neatly trimmed beard—but his hands were the same, large and rough, gripping his cap like an anchor.
When he saw her fully, he froze.
“Oh,” he breathed.
Color crept up his neck and spread across his face, deep and unmistakable. His eyes flicked over her cast—her legs elevated and suspended, wrapped smooth and white, her arms rising almost vertically beside her head, fingers free and still. He swallowed hard, clearly torn between concern, awe, and not knowing where to look.
“You look...” He shook his head, then gave a small, helpless laugh. “You look like they packed you up real careful.”
Dara smiled. “They did.”
She watched the tension ease just a little from his shoulders when she spoke, when he heard strength instead of fragility in her voice. He stepped farther into the room, slow and deliberate, as if afraid the floor might give way beneath him.
“I wasn’t sure,” he admitted. “Didn’t know if you’d want to see me. Figured I should at least come by. See how you were.”
“I was hoping you would,” she said simply.
That stopped him again.
He pulled a chair close to the bed, sitting awkwardly at first, knees spread, hands resting on his thighs. Up close, she could see the way his eyes kept returning to her face, checking it—searching for pain, for fear, for signs that she wasn’t really okay.
They talked quietly.
About small things at first. His work. The way the forest had felt strange for weeks afterward, like it was holding a secret. How he’d replayed that day over and over, wondering if he’d done the right things, or enough.
“I ain’t trained,” he said again, softer now. “I keep thinkin’—what if I hurt you more?”
“You didn’t,” Dara said without hesitation. “You stopped me from tearing myself apart.”
His jaw tightened at that. He nodded once, eyes down, absorbing the words.
The room grew still. The hum of hospital machinery faded into the background. Dara became acutely aware of the way the cast held her—firm, supportive, unmoving—and how different it felt from the living warmth she remembered so clearly.