They told me he couldn't hear me.
That my voice was just another sound among the soft beeping of monitors and the low hum of the ventilator.
But still, I spoke.
Day after day, in the quiet hours before the ward fully woke, I sat beside him — telling him about the sky, the cafeteria's burnt coffee, and the ridiculous way my bangs never behaved under my scrub cap.
I told him things no one asked to hear.
I told him things I'd never told anyone.
Sometimes, I imagined the walls themselves listening, holding my words in the stillness of Room 407.
I didn't notice the way his breathing deepened when I laughed, or the faint twitch of his fingers when I read aloud.
I didn't know he was listening.
I didn't know he was falling.
And I didn't know that somewhere beneath that quiet, he was fighting — not just to wake up… but to find me.