Then his voice would crack.
“But you’ve got people waiting on you, little man. Your mama’s got faith. And I’ve got faith too.”
One afternoon I walked in and saw him holding his phone, showing pictures to my unconscious son.
“This was Lucas,” he whispered. “About your age in this one. Loved baseball. Thought he was gonna make the majors.”
The giant biker started crying.
And something inside me shifted.
I hated him.
But watching him sit there grieving for a boy he’d lost while caring for mine… it cracked the wall I’d built around myself.
“Why do you keep coming here?” I finally asked him.
He looked surprised that I’d spoken to him.
Then he answered quietly.
“Because when my son died, I wasn’t there.”
He rubbed his hands together.
“I was working a night shift. By the time I got to the hospital… he was already gone.”
He looked at Malik.
“I couldn’t save Lucas. But your boy’s still fighting. And I won’t let him fight alone.”
After that, things changed.
I started staying in the room longer.
The three of us—me, Lena, and Ronan—took turns sitting beside Malik. Reading. Talking. Playing music.
On day twenty-three, Ronan brought half his motorcycle club with him.
They filled the hallway in leather vests and heavy boots. They couldn’t all fit in the room, so they stood outside and prayed.
Then they went down to the parking lot and started their engines.
The sound echoed through the hospital like thunder.
“Malik loves motorcycles,” Lena said, crying. “If he can hear anything… he’ll hear that.”
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