Three weeks passed quietly.
Not the heavy, suffocating quiet Clara had grown used to in the past, but something softer. Something steady.
Life moved forward.
Work resumed. Projects piled up. Meetings filled their calendars. The world did not stop simply because someone was lying unconscious in a hospital bed.
Melissa still hadn't woken up.
Every evening, either Clara or Lily visited. Sometimes Margaret stayed overnight. Sometimes Henry brought flowers that probably cost more than the amount of food they ate in a month and set them by the window with an awkward cough, like he didn't know how else to help.
It must be hard for him, Melissa took him in and treated him like her own son, seeing her in that state must be heartbreaking.
Nothing changed.
Melissa simply slept.
But even with that lingering weight in their hearts, things had begun to heal.
