Blank, sterile hospital walls greeted Elise on her return from the depths of her dreams. A mist of cloud-covered sunlight wafted into the room through the nearby window, its clean white shutter blinds cracked a touch to reveal the world beyond. From over her head, the whispered strikes of a minimalist wall clock etched the silence into paper-thin pieces that slipped away as quickly as they came by. Curled up in her chair with her eyes shut, Elise unravelled the knots that twisted through her limbs and immersed herself in the morning's slow peace.

    Then Elise opened her eyes, and the weight of the previous night plummeted onto her shoulders. Cadence lay unmoving in the cold hospital bed, less than an outstretched arm away and yet estranged from the worldly threads that wound around her. The ends of her fingers sat stiff and still at her sides, and a mournful grey shade unravelled like ruin along the curves of her sunken cheeks. Yet even here, the girl captivated Elise's attention with every sparse, snatched breath and slight shift of her hair. Even here, Cadence was her beautiful best friend, unmistakable and irreplaceable in every aspect.

    With a last lingering touch of her friend's ice-cold hand, Elise retrieved a set of sticky notes from her bag and worked her way through three pens before one spilled its ink for her. Gone to get coffee – back soon, she wrote, then furrowed her brow. The message seemed so impersonal, so insignificant after such a shocking, draining experience, yet Elise did not know what more to write. She had left all her loving words on her friend's lips the previous night, an exchange that had only intensified her urge to do away with language and let her heart express itself as it wished. Accepting defeat, Elise added a simple Hope you're feeling better, scrawled her name with a wonky heart, and stuck the note to her chair.

    Easing the door shut behind her as she left, Elise scoured the broad, spotless corridor she stood in for the promise of something resembling caffeine. A few steps brought her to the main artery through this wing of the hospital, yet no signs of life greeted her eye beyond the sheening leaves of a convincing fake plant. Her steps filled the hallway with swelling echoes, as if something much larger than herself lurked close behind, following her every move.

    The overheard signs guided Elise to the nearest waiting area, where the sight of a generic, well-used corporate coffee machine chased her dread away. Passing ward staff turned their eyes towards her as the machine shunted and hissed to life, and Elise dodged their glances by digging out her phone. Her device pleaded for the comfort of its charging cable, yet its begging failed to register beside the stacks of missed calls and unanswered texts Robin had left for her to find.

    Guessing you're busy with your friend again, his final message read in steely directness, a solid blow unsoftened by any emoji cushioning. Just get back to me whenever you want. Sorry.

    "Shit," Elise muttered as she stuffed her phone back into her bag. Leaving Robin on read chafed against her better judgement, yet she lacked both the clarity and the energy to render last night's events into coherent sentences. It was not the hour-long road trip, the relentless thrum of the music, the impulsive stage dive, the equally impulsive kiss, the shock of Melody's cruelty, or the horror of Cadence's spiking that she struggled to describe. No matter how hard she tried, Elise could not banish her prescient nightmare from her memory of the night.

    She had seen the crisis coming, and yet she had still let it happen without even trying to stop it.

    "Excuse me?" A small voice sounded out behind Elise, and she turned to see a short man perched on a twitching crutch. Though his eyes were kind, the first sparks of impatience ground through his jaw. "Is that your drink there, or...?"

    Elise glanced over to see her freshly poured cup of watered-down dirt steaming and awaiting her hand. "Oh, sure," she mumbled as she lifted her paper cup out of the way, wrinkling her nose at the distinct muddy aroma that invited itself into her nostrils. "Sorry. I've got a lot on my mind. Last night was...crazy."

    With an exhausted laugh, the man took a cup for himself and set it beneath the machine's spout. "I bet. People don't usually come to hospitals because something good has happened, after all," he said, casting Elise a smile from over his shoulder. "I know I didn't. I was floating along, thinking I had things under control. Then a set of scaffolding came apart right underneath me and did my leg in. It was a heck of a way to realise that I didn't have control over a single thing, and I never did."

    "Gosh, that sounds terrible," Elise said, unsure how much sympathy the man sought. Patchy scars on his face and hands indicated the accident was recent, yet he did not seem to mind bringing it up without much, if any, prompting. "Did they ever find out why it happened?"

    "Maybe. I haven't asked, and I've never really wanted to know, honestly." Taking his cup of sludge, the man swilled the liquid around its vessel and sighed to himself. "As far as I'm concerned, it was a freak accident that I just happened to get caught up in. I could sit around fixating on it until I turn into a stress ball, but it wouldn't change anything. I'll stick to spending the time off with my family, thanks. That's what really matters."

    As the man spoke, a small smile formed at the tips of Elise's lips, accompanied by a soft flutter of joy that beat away the dark clouds around her heart. "That's a nice way to look at it," she said, clutching her coffee close to her chest. "Still, I hope your recovery goes smoothly. It must be hard when you can't do what you love."

    The man let out a lively belly laugh. "Too right, especially when this horrid leg means I'm the one stuck on homework duty. I don't suppose you know any handy tricks for enlarging shapes, do you?"

    "Sorry, but tricky maths stuff isn't even in the same time zone as my field," Elise replied, wishing she Robin stood beside her to handle the calculations she avoided on principle. "Though if you wanted to advertise for a tutor, I could totally write that flyer up for you."

    "Tempting, but I think I'll manage. It's nice to sit down with the kids for a while, even if I feel like an idiot the entire time," the man answered through a chuckle. He stared out of the nearby window, savouring his next breath like a fresh breeze. Shifting back into the moment, he flicked his head towards the waiting area seats and sighed. "I'd best let you get back to it, then. Look after you and yours now, alright?"

    "I'll try," Elise said, parting from the man with an unexpectedly sincere nod and a wave. "You too."

    As she took her first sip of her machine-poured mud, Elise found her phone again, charged through her inhibitions, and fired off a quick reply to Robin. Sorry for disappearing. Things got crazy last night. I hope you had a good time anyway – did Natalie come by again? The ending question arrived as an impulse, yet it was also entirely necessary. After seeing him in Natalie's company, Elise knew Robin would need all the prompting she could provide to confront his feelings for the girl.

    The door to the hospital room shrieked on its hinges, and a precious, peerless impish smile awaited Elise on the other side. "There she is, Supergirl herself," Cadence quipped as she strained to raise her arms in a cheer. With a wink, she gestured at the cup in her friend's hand. "Charging up your powers for your next super cool hero move?"

    "I don't know about that. Super is the last thing I feel right now. Bad hospital coffee might actually be my kryptonite," Elise said, setting the cup down by her chair. The sunlight splashed over Cadence's relaxed form, and the extra brightness blazed a trail of life across her hair, her eyes, down to the final strokes of her weaving sleeve tattoo. Elise did not even think about returning to her seat before she threw herself into her friend's arms, burying her face in Cadence's neck. "Thank goodness you're okay, Cade. I was so worried about you."

    Cadence winced under the shock of her friend's weight, yet the impact did nothing to dissuade her from easing into the embrace. "Of course I'm okay," she whispered as she drew her nails between Elise's shoulder blades. "Like some weirdo's spiced-up dishwater cocktail could keep me down. I'm basically already over it."

    Barely a moment had passed, yet Elise's heart ached to stay hidden in Cadence's warm, welcoming hold, enveloped in the comfort of her friend's soft, musky scent. Gathering all her scrambled willpower, Elise pulled herself away and settled for clasping her friend's hand. "I wasn't just talking about the spiking," she said, running her fingers over the small cuts that besmirched Cadence's palm, souvenirs of her sudden collapse onto the pathway last night. "I was worried about how you'd be holding up after the whole thing with Melody too."

    "Really?" Cadence raised her eyebrow, a picture of pure puzzlement. "Why? What happened?"

    "Don't you remember?" Elise asked, suddenly recalling the side-effects of spiking that the nursing staff had listed to her during Cadence's frantic, exhausting admission. "We found Melody like we wanted to, only she was pretty...standoffish. She wasn't what I'd call prime 'best friend' material."

    Shuffling beneath her duvet, Cadence shrugged and traced circles over the back of Elise's hand. "Yeah, I remember. I'm not turning into my mum already, you know," she said with a roll of her eyes. Her speech did not lose a particle of confidence, yet her eye steered clear of Elise's concerned gaze. "So she was a bit pissed off about being jumped by her ghosted bestie and a complete stranger. And I bet you making a big deal about something she already knew didn't help her mood either. Can you blame her?"

    The quiet ticking of the wall clock rumbled through the pause that followed the girl's words. Elise swallowed her surprise and squeezed her friend's hand, hoping to win her full attention. "Are you kidding me? Of course I can blame her," she said, keeping her voice down despite the incredulity rioting in her tone. "She wasn't just 'a bit pissed off'. Melody was an arsehole from the second I ran into her, and she only got worse when you showed up too."

    "Sure, it didn't go as well as I wanted it to." With her eyes fixed on the line that carried hydrating fluids into her arm, Cadence sank further into her bedding. "But it's not like I expected anything more. Crashing in on my old bestie's party was always going to be a longshot, Ellie."

    "Cade, she was this close to ditching you right when you needed her help," Elise said, shuddering at the memory of her friend's visible struggles on the stone path. "She wasn't bothered that you got spiked at all – she only phoned for an ambulance because I called her out in front of everyone for being a total bitch."

    "She was probably just freaked out! Things got so wild so fast, and I bet a bunch of other people were losing their minds too."

    "I know I was freaked out. But as far as I saw, Melody didn't give a damn about anything but the stupid party being spoiled." Elise's throat dried up, and a sip of her liquid sludge did nothing to alleviate the drought. "Maybe she used to care about you, but I'm telling you, she doesn't care anymore. She's changed, Cade."

    The golden rings in Cadence's eyes hardened into choking bands, and she retracted her hand with mechanical efficiency. "How the hell would you know that?" she demanded, clawing at the fabric of her duvet. "And how would you know what Mel thinks? You'd never even met her before last night."

    Elise pressed her stranded hands against her chest, desperate for her racing heart to beat away the chills that plagued her lonely fingertips. "I didn't...that's not what I meant," she said with a deflating groan. Broad sunrays beamed along the clean white walls, their glare encompassing her in a burning ring without escape. "I don't know what Melody was like before –"

    "No, Ellie. You don't. Because she was there for me and you weren't." Cadence drew her feet back beneath the duvet to rest her arms on her knees. Her gaze landed on the dip between her legs, a slender sliver of shadow in the dusty blue sea that washed over her. "Maybe you should head home. Roomie's probably pissing himself because you missed your bedtime again."

    "It's okay," Elise said, reaching out to regain her friend's touch. "I don't mind staying here and keeping you company until they let you go."

    "And I said I want you to leave." Flaring her nostrils, Cadence slumped onto her side, the mattress squeaking beneath her violent motions. "You ditched me for ten years. I think you know how to leave me alone now."

    A wave of wind rushed against the window, its rattling force ushering Elise towards the door. "I'm sorry, really. I shouldn't have gone after Melody like that," she said as she clung to the side of Cadence's bed to steady her shaking stance. "I just want the best for you. You're my best friend, Cade, and I...care about you a lot."

    Without turning in her bed, Cadence glanced over her shoulder. "If you really cared about me, you'd listen to me," she muttered, her voice staying low despite the anger in her words. "And I told you to get out. Now."

    Elise fell backwards and moved to protest, only to stay silent in the face of her friend's stubborn stillness. Bowing her head, Elise held her bag close to her side as she dragged herself towards the door, the handle lacing her palm with its coursing cold. A soft sound escaped into the room behind her, yet Cadence remained on her side, leaden and inanimate. The door swung shut just as the sound returned, thicker and more choked this time. Suddenly aware of her body's weight, Elise kept her head low on the long walk out of the hospital.

    She lacked the means to get home, the energy to devise a plan, and the support of her best friend. As soon as Elise stepped outside the hospital's main doors, she fell against the nearest wall, sank to the ground, and let the scalding tears pour freely down her face.