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The smell of antiseptic hung heavy in the air, a scent that had become a normal event of Coco’s fourteen years of living.
She pushed open the heavy door to her mother’s room, her sneakers squeaking softly on the polished flooring.
Her mother lays still, hooked up to a rhythmic symphony of beeping monitors, her breathing assisted by the steady mechanical noises of the ventilator.
“Hi, Mom,” Coco whispered, pulling a plastic chair closer to the bedside. She reached out, her fingers tentatively brushing her mother’s limp hand.
“I’m sorry I didn't come last week. I really wanted to, but the exams were... pretty brutal.” She rubs the back of her neck in shame. “I was stuck in the library until midnight every single night.”
She kept her voice low, recounting the trivial details of her week.
A failed History quiz, a funny comment Tartah had made in the cafeteria, the way the sunlight hit the trees outside the school windows, and how a new friend seems to look a bit more beautiful when she focused hard enough.
"...And after school, I hung out with Custas and Tartah today" Coco speaks quietly. "Custas dragged me into chasing a dog.” She chuckles, then her smile fell. As if she had personally offended her mother.
“But-I didn't collapse, okay?” Coco reassures quickly. “Well... I did run out of breath, but Tartah gave me my inhaler.”
She goes on about her week, telling her about the things she's done and the things that happened.
She spoke as if, by filling the room with words, she could pull her mother back from the abyss. But the room remained painfully quiet, save for the hum of the machines.
Eventually, Coco stopped talking. Instead, she uses her arms to rest her head on the bedside, right next to her mother's limp and unresponsive hand, as if she was waiting for it to move to her head and run her fingers through her dyed curls.
Although the discomfort of her back was starting to sink in, she ignored the aches and closed her eyes, basking in her mother's presence. Even if she was miles away from where she is.
Suddenly, a sniffle came from Coco. It starts out small, then she starts crying quietly. She shifts her head so her face was fully hidden on her arms as she cried for a person that couldn't comfort her.
"Please come back mom,” she hiccuped. “I miss you,’
It was a huge contrast to the Coco that appeared in school.
The same girl that was loud and cheerful was suppressing her sobs near her mother.
The same girl that acts before she thinks was carefully picking out her decisions next to her mother.
The same girl that always acted brave was making herself smaller next to her mother.
“I don't want to be alone, mama,” Coco sobbed. “I don't want you to leave like papa-”
It made Coco sob harder to the point it physically hurts her chest.
Coco’s throat suddenly tightened, a sharp, suffocating pressure blossoming in her chest. She tried to swallow, but it felt as though her airway was closing entirely.
A sob broke through her lips, unbidden and jagged, and then the panic hit. A cold, frantic wave. She doubled over, her chest heaving as she fought for a single, shallow breath that wouldn't come.
Her vision blurred, the room tilting at an impossible angle. She clawed at her pocket, her trembling fingers finding the familiar canister of her inhaler. She pressed it to her lips and inhaled deeply, the medicine misting into her lungs.
The cruel chronic reminder of a weakness that her body couldn't outgrow had struck again. The rattle in her lungs sounded like dry leaves scraping against stone, a stark contrast to the sterile perfection of the hospital monitors.
The panic subsided into a dull, aching exhaustion. Coco slumped back in her chair, wiping the moisture from her eyes with the back of her hand.
She looked at her mother’s face, pale and motionless beneath the harsh overhead lights.
“I'm sorry,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “I'm sorry for being weak, mom. I'm sorry for being so frustrated all the time.”
A sigh escapes her as she looks down at the floor.
"As much as I hate to say it," Coco mumbles. "I... Feel like the pain's getting worse each day." She shifts awkwardly, looking at the inhaler laying in her hand.
“I... Doctors said I should lay low with activities and all," Coco suddenly recalls. “Or else the pain's gonna be worse.”
She fiddles with the hem of her shirt and sighs, slumping further against the plastic chair.
"Why... Why wasn't I born normal, mom...?" She asks quietly.
Coco sighs, hiding her hand son her face.
"I don't want to lose you like dad," she admits. "I don't want to keep looking at the stars and think that you're finally with him there,"
Coco's brows furrowed, her eyes suddenly gazing at the window. Despite the buildings mostly covering the view of the starry night, she could see one star. One single star that rests between the thin gap of two buildings, like it wanted Coco to see it.
Coco felt sick.
It was like the world was mocking her.
"I...don't want to look at the stars anymore."
She spent the next hour just sitting there, staring at the rise and fall of the blanket covering her mother’s chest, reflecting on the heavy burden of the past few months.
She thought about how much had changed, how the world felt darker since the day her mother closed her eyes for the last time.
Time seemed to drag, the silence weighing more heavily with every passing minute, until the door creaked open and a doctor stepped in, his face etched with a familiar, apologetic kindness.
“I'm afraid visiting hours are over, Coco,” he says softly.
Coco thanked the doctor before walking away from the room.
The walk home was a blur of shadows and streetlights.
When Coco finally reached her apartment, she didn't bother turning on the lights. She collapsed onto her bed, the darkness wrapping around her like a shroud.
The crushing weight of the day settled into her bones, and she began to sob, a low, guttural sound that filled the empty room.
She curls up quietly, hugging a pillow close to her as she cried quietly.
Coco looks up at the window, and the first thing that her eyes landed on was a star. A bright star, shining in the night sky like it was taunting her.
Her breath hitches, and she immediately rolled to her side. “Stupid, stupid-” she sobs.
A few distant stars twinkled, cold and indifferent. She loathed them. They were supposed to be watching over her, but they only felt like distant eyes observing her misery.
Her mind flickered back to a memory, vivid and painful.
She was six years old, sitting on her mother’s lap on the porch.
Her mother had pointed upward, her finger tracing the constellations. “Your father is there, Coco,” she had whispered, her voice full of soft, warm hope.
“The night sky collects the strongest of our people. They become the stars so they can always light our way.”
She had believed it then.
She believed in everything.
Now, it just felt like a cruel fairy tale meant to mask the reality of an empty house.
The tears eventually dried, leaving her eyes burning and her body heavy with a deep fatigue.
And soon enough, Coco exhausts herself to sleep.
Her eyes start drooping, her sobs reduced to hiccups as the grip on the pillow loosened. She curled into a ball, under nothing but the darkness that weighed over her, the memories of her father’s light fading into a restless, fitful sleep.
She could've sworn she felt her mother's fingers running through her hair, but maybe it was merely just a hallucination or her mind comforting her in a cruel way.
Hours later, the sharp, melodic trill of her phone shattered the silence.
Coco groaned, blinking awake as the screen illuminated the dark room with a harsh, blue light.
It was 10:00 PM.
A name flashed on the screen: Custas.
She answered, her voice thick with sleep. "Custas...?” She grumbles. “It's ten at night."
“Yo Co,” his voice was hurried, underlined with an uncharacteristic eagerness. "We're pulled up to the front of your building” Custas says from the phone.
Coco blinks. Then her eyes widneed in realization. “Wait what...?”
"Coco! Come with us!" Tartah's voice abruptly came from the phone too, sharing the same eagerness and excitement as Custas.
“Wait- you too?!” Coco stared at her phone with a confused look on her face.
“We're going to the beach, the one from when we were kids, remember?” Coco could see the grin from a distance. “It's a thirty-minute drive, but we really want you there. C'mon, Coco!”
“Dudes...” Coco groans softly, rubbing her left eye with her free hand. “It's ten pm...”
At first there was silence. Coco assumed that Custas was reflecting. Just as she was about to say something, she was interrupted by a giggle.
“Nope~”
Coco held back a “fuck you” towards Custas.
“C'mon bro, change to your fit!” Tartah pleaded.
Coco paused. Although she would've appreciated if Custas or Tartah messaged her first, the loneliness of her room pushed against the offer of companionship.
She looked toward the window one last time before letting out a long, shaky breath.
She needed a way to release her mind, anyways.
“Fine... Give me five minutes,” she said.
“You not gonna change?” Custas asked.
Coco looks at her clothes, and she was still wearing the same when she visited the hospital and when she slept.
“...I'm already-”
“Wait, fuck- dude, c'mon Tartah!” Custas suddenly yells out.
It's either something happened or Tartah happened.
“It wasn't my fault!” Tartah defended.
As the two bickered through the phone, Coco stands up and walks to the living room.
“Idiots...” Coco whispered. But she couldn't stop the smile growing in her face.
The drive to the beach was quiet, the sound of the car tires against the asphalt providing a rhythmic backdrop to the city lights fading into the dark expanse of the coastline.
When they arrived, the air was different. It was heavy with salt and the cooling breath of the ocean that they were so familiar with.
Coco stepped out of the taxi with a “thank you” to the driver, feeling the grit of the sand beneath her shoes as Custas and Tartah led the way toward the water’s edge.
They didn't talk much at first, letting the rhythmic crashing of the waves fill the space between them.
They walked in a loose formation, their shoulders occasionally brushing, a clear physical reminder that she was not alone.
The tension that had been coiled in Coco's chest since her visit to the hospital began to fray at the edges, loosened by the vastness of the sea.
After a while, Tartah slowed down, gesturing toward a large, weathered piece of driftwood further up the beach.
“Let’s sit for a bit,” he suggested. They made their way over and settled onto the wood, the sand cool beneath their feet.
For a few minutes, they just sat, watching the dark waves roll in, the conversation meandering through small, comfortable topics. Ranging from school gossip, the upcoming semester, the strange kid looming in the streets and their new plan for their next Minecraft server.
Eventually, the conversation trailed off, and naturally, their eyes drifted upward.
The sky was incredibly clear, a vast, velvet dome scattered with a brilliant, overwhelming spray of stars.
Coco stiffened, her automatic reaction to look away, to hide from the cold, distant lights that had once promised her father’s return. The same starts that might possibly take her mother too.
It was foolish to believe on it, but she was foolish. She was merely a child that couldn't grasp on the concept of “letting go”, clinging to the tiniest of remnants of decaying memories.
She started to turn her head down toward the sand, her jaw tight.
“Look at the constellation near the horizon,” Custas said quietly, pointing a long, steady finger toward the dark expanse.
He didn't look at her. He kept his eyes fixed on the sky, his voice low and devoid of the usual teasing and “nonchalant” edge he reserved for the rest of the world.
“Dagda used to say those aren't just lights. He said they were like lanterns left behind by the people who still care enough to watch the path.”
Coco felt a hitch in her breath. She didn't look at him, but she stopped trying to look away from the sky.
Beside her, Tartah shifted, reaching out to rest a hand briefly on her shoulder, a silent, steadying weight.
“You don't have to like them,” Tartah added, his voice gentle. “But you don't have to carry the hate for them alone, either. We’re just here to look at the view, that’s all.”
The vulnerability of the moment washed over her. In the presence of her two closest friends, the stars didn't look quite so judgmental.
They were just stars. Silent, ancient, and indifferent to her pain, yes, but they were also something she could share with the people who were currently sitting right next to her.
She let out a long, shaky exhale, the tightness in her chest finally beginning to dissolve.
“They're... bright tonight,” Coco whispered, her voice barely audible over the tide.
It wasn't forgiveness, and it wasn't peace, but it was a beginning. She leaned into the small gap between them, feeling the warmth of their presence flanking her.
For the first time in a long time, the silence didn't feel like an absence. It felt like a soft, living thing that they were all participating in together.
The cold sea breeze began to pick up, tugging at their clothes, but the chill didn't bother them as much as it usually would have.
Custas nudged Coco’s shoulder with his own, breaking the heavy, contemplative silence that had settled over them.
“You know,” he started, his tone shifting from the solemn observation of the stars to something a little more comforting, “I bet if we stayed here long enough, we’d eventually see a meteor shower. Or at least a really weird looking satellite.”
Tartah let out a soft, genuine laugh, leaning back against the driftwood. “Always the imaginative, Custas. Maybe just let us have one night where you don't try to identify the debris in the atmosphere?”
“When did you get so wordy? That's cute.” Custas grinned.
“Shut it, Custas”
Coco felt a ghost of a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “You two act like divorced parents.” She snickered.
“And you're the child.” Tartah comments.
“I hope Tartah gets custody of you. I don't know if I'll survive until twenty.” Custas snickered.
“Rude!” Coco grins, nudging Custas' shoulder.
The sheer normalcy of their bickering, the way they fell back into their childhood rhythm so effortlessly, was a balm for the raw nerves she’d been carrying all day.
She pulled her knees up to her chest, resting her chin on her arms, and allowed herself to actually see the expanse above.
They were just lights. They were just fire and gas and distance. They didn't hold her father, and they didn't hold her mother's consciousness, but they were a shared canvas for the three of them.
“You know... I... I used to think that if I looked hard enough,” Coco admitted, her voice steady now, “I’d be able to find the exact point where they started. Like if I stared at the dark gaps between the stars, I’d see something else entirely.”
“Like... a secret message?” Custas asked, finally turning his head to look at her, his expression uncharacteristically soft. “Like those Minecraft args?”
"Something like that," she snorts. She reached into her pocket, not for her inhaler this time, but just to find the comfort of her own hands. She looked at Custas, then over at Tartah.
“Thank you guys for... dragging me out here.” She admits quietly. “I think… I think I really needed to be anywhere but that room.”
Tartah squeezed her shoulder, his hand firm and reassuring. “Anytime, Coco.”
“Seriously. We’re not going anywhere, and neither is the beach.” Custas spoke up, a look of determination in his face.
“Whenever the walls start feeling like they’re closing in, you just call. We’ll be there.”
Coco smiles quietly in response.
They sat in comfortable silence for a long time after that, the sound of the ocean rhythmic and calm.
“Find you at the beach?” Coco asks.
Custas and Tartah nodded at the same time.