"Summer, please don't lose heart," Chloe tried to console her, even as she struggled to hold herself together. "Hope will make it. Dr. Ashton is with her. He is the best there is."
Summer didn't respond. She sat motionless in the chair, her eyes locked on the closed ICU doors. She wasn't crying anymore. She wasn't whining. The tears had dried, leaving faint tracks on her cheeks. A heavy silence wrapped around her.
Yet the stillness was only outward. Inside, her heart was torn apart, bleeding quietly.
Somewhere deep within, she already knew. She knew her daughter wasn't coming back.
No matter how skilled Ashton was, there were things medicine couldn't fix. Hope's sudden collapse, after everything had seemed fine, told her all she needed to know.
Her body had simply given up.
Perhaps this was fate. Perhaps Hope's suffering was finally reaching its end. She would be freed from pain, from this exhausting life.
