The cafeteria was mostly empty this late at night. A few tired nurses sipped coffee between rounds. A doctor scrolled through his phone at a corner table, eyes drooping behind his glasses. Kevin sat opposite Matt at a sticky plastic table, a cold cup of coffee untouched in front of him.
Matt clicked her pen and tore a sheet of paper from her notepad. Her neat bun was starting to loosen a few strands of hair brushed her cheek, but she didn't seem to notice. Kevin noticed though. It was strange, the things you see when your mind is exhausted but your heart is clinging to any distraction.
"Okay," Matt said, bringing him back. "This needs to be clear, honest, and impossible to ignore. Tell me everything. No details too small."
Kevin hesitated. He'd never been good at talking about himself. Most of his life, he'd learned to bury the hard parts, to pretend things were fine. Emily was the only one who ever saw him without the mask. Now, here he was, cracking it open for a nurse he barely knew.
"My parents died when Emily was a baby," he began slowly, eyes fixed on the table. "Car accident. A drunk driver. I was nineteen. No insurance payout, nothing. I dropped out of school to raise her. We bounced around for a while cheap apartments, friends' couches. I did any job I could find. Construction, bartending, delivery… nothing that pays enough to save anything."
Matt nodded, her pen moving steadily across the page. She didn't interrupt, didn't push. Just listened. It made the words come a little easier.
"When she was ten, she got sick just a fever, nothing serious. But I panicked. I thought… I thought I was going to lose her then. It passed. But this…" He swallowed, his voice thick. "This is different. I can't fix this by working overtime."
Matt paused her writing, her eyes soft as she looked at him. "You've done everything you could, Kevin. More than most would. That counts for something."
Kevin almost laughed, but it came out as a bitter exhale. "Does it? The bills keep coming. They don't care how many hours I work if the money isn't there."
"They might care if they see the whole picture," Matt said gently. She turned the paper so he could see the neat lines of her handwriting. His life, boiled down to bullet points and honest confessions. It looked so small on the page, but the weight of it felt enormous.
"How's Emily tonight?" she asked softly, changing the subject before he drowned in it.
Kevin's shoulders dropped. "They said she's stable for now. The new treatment hit her hard. They think if she makes it through the next few days, she might handle the next round better. But even if she does… we're out of money, Matt. The fundraisers barely cover a week at this point."
Matt reached across the table, resting her hand on his. It was warm. Real. Kevin hadn't realized how cold his own hands were until that moment.
"Hey," she said. "One step at a time. Let's get this letter in front of the people who can say yes. If they agree to defer the bills, we buy time. Time is something Emily needs, right?"
He nodded, not trusting his voice. He squeezed her hand, just once, before pulling back. He felt awkward as if he'd crossed some line but Matt didn't seem to mind.
They spent the next hour working through every detail: income, debts, jobs he'd taken, things he'd sold. At one point, Matt even pulled out her phone to look up contact info for the hospital's financial board. She didn't have to do this she was just a nurse. But she did it anyway.
When they finally stood up to leave, Kevin felt… lighter. Not fixed, not saved but lighter.
"I'll push this through tomorrow," Matt said, slipping the pages into a file folder she'd brought from the nurses' station. "I'll talk to the patient advocate and see if we can get you a meeting this week."
Kevin ran a hand through his hair. It felt weird to say thank you. It wasn't enough. But he said it anyway. "Thank you. Really."
Matt gave him a tired but genuine smile. "I'm not doing anything special. Just what I wish someone would do for me, if I was in your place."
Kevin opened his mouth to answer, but his phone buzzed. A text from Emily's room. He didn't recognize the number just the short message that turned his blood to ice.
Emily is asking for you. She's awake.
He looked up, his face pale. "She's awake."
Matt's eyes widened. "Then what are you waiting for? Go."
Kevin didn't think. He didn't say goodbye. He just bolted down the hallway, his boots echoing on the tile floor. For the first time in days, he felt the smallest flicker of warmth in his chest a reminder that as long as Emily was fighting, so was he.
Matt stood there for a moment, watching him disappear into the maze of corridors. She gathered the folder, pressed it to her chest, and let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.
Some battles were too big to fight alone. But maybe, just maybe, they didn't have to.