Page 85 of When the Sky Falls

“You were in a medically induced coma,” the doctor explains, voice low and even. “Three months.”

Three months.

The word echoes through me like a bell underwater—muted and enormous.

“You were in a critical car accident. Placental abruption, internal bleeding. We had to deliver the babies early to save all three of you. It was… close.” His eyes flicker. “But you made it. They made it.”

I don’t say anything because I can’t. The words back up in my throat like traffic on a bridge that’s already snapped. It’s too much. It’s all too much.

“Your sons are doing well. They’re in the NICU, but they’re fighters.” He smiles. “I imagine they get that from you.”

I look down at my hands. They’re trembling.

When the doctor leaves, it’s like the world exhales.

Fletch lingers in the doorway for a moment, just long enough for the grief in his eyes to punch me straight in the sternum. “I’m gonna let them know you’re awake,” he says, voice thick. “They’ve been waiting.”

And then he’s gone.

Seconds later, the door flies open like a gust of heartbreak.

Reese.

Her face is blotchy, eyes ringed with dark moons of sleeplessness, makeup long since cried away. And when she sees me—really sees me—she breaks. Her knees hit the edge of the bed like she’s trying to climb into the past and rewrite it, and her arms are around me before I even think to lift mine.

I cry. Of course I cry. Because her grief tastes like mine. Because I didn’t realize how lost I was until she said my name and made me remember I’m still here.

“I thought I lost you,” she whispers into my hair. “I thought we all lost you.”

“I missed everything,” I manage, my voice paper thin.

“No.” She pulls back just far enough to look at me, her thumb swiping beneath my eye. “You made it back. That’s what matters.”

There’s so much I want to ask. About the boys. About the band. About whether any of this is real and not some cruel extension of whatever dream I was trapped in.

But before I can untangle any of it, she’s kissing my forehead and telling me she’ll be right outside. That the others are coming. That my dad is next.

The door swings open again, and my father steps inside.

His face is older. Wetter. Like he’s aged and softened in ways I never thought possible.

“Hey, mija.”

“Hi,” I whisper. “You look like crap.”

He laughs. Chokes on it. “You’ve got my genes, so buckle up.”

He pulls a chair closer, takes my hand—his thumb brushing over my knuckles like he’s praying to a god neither of us believes in.

“Dad?”

“Yeah, baby?”

“Kingston…” I hesitate. “He was there. In the dream. With me. For all of it.”

He freezes.

And I know before he says it. I know.