Hard Beat

The immediate sight of her staggers me. She looks ten times worse than I ever imagined and a hundred times better than my fears had her looking. I expect my feet to falter when I see her bruised face, the cannula in her nose for oxygen, her small body dwarfed by the white, imposing bed, but they don’t. And I don’t pay an ounce of attention to the two doctors off to the other side of the room as I take her in because nothing and no one matters right now but her.