Nurses offered weak reassurances, but their voices held more pity than comfort. Sandra felt her composure fraying at the edges. Each attempt to calm her only deepened the dread settling in her chest, making her feel like a fragile object someone was afraid to drop.
She felt torn between the fierce desire to trust Jake and the terrifying possibility that something awful had surfaced about his past. Her mind wavered between loyalty and fear, each memory shifting beneath her like unstable ground. She felt herself slipping toward panic.