The mornings had started to feel heavier.
Suzanne still smiled, still joked, still sang — but each day took a little more energy than the last.
At home, her mother marked the calendar quietly. Each red circle meant another hospital visit, another treatment session. Her father drove her every alternate morning, the hum of the car the only sound between them.
Suzanne stared out the window during those rides, pretending to admire the trees but really just counting her breaths.
"Ready, champ?" Daniel asked softly as they pulled into the hospital.
She smiled faintly. "As ready as I'll ever be."
Inside, the walls smelled of antiseptic and hope. The nurses knew her name now; they greeted her with kind eyes and soft voices. But every time she sat in that white chair, a tiny fear fluttered inside her chest — the fear of becoming different.
When it was over, she'd plaster on her brave smile again. "See? Easy."
Daniel would squeeze her hand. "That's my girl."
---
At school, Suzanne made sure nothing seemed different.
Her friends teased her for her new obsession with scarves — they didn't know she wore them to hide the small patch where her hair had started thinning.
Ryan noticed, of course. He always did.
"Trying a new fashion trend?" he teased, tugging lightly at the edge of her scarf.
"Yup," she said cheerfully. "Next week I'm adding sunglasses and becoming a mystery icon."
He laughed. "You'd still be the least mysterious person I know."
But even as he laughed, he noticed how she sometimes leaned against the wall between classes, her hand pressed subtly to her temple. Something about her smile seemed… stretched.
---
One afternoon, while everyone else went to the canteen, Ryan found Suzanne sitting alone in the art room, sketching quietly.
"Hey," he said, leaning against the doorway. "Did the queen of chaos actually skip lunch?"
She looked up, smiling softly. "I wasn't hungry. Just felt like drawing."
He walked over and looked at her sketch — a girl standing on a cliff, her hair blowing in the wind, her face turned toward the sun.
"That's beautiful," he said. "What's she looking at?"
Suzanne shrugged lightly. "Maybe… freedom."
Ryan tilted his head. "You sound like a poet today."
"Maybe I am," she replied with a tiny smile. "Poetry's just thoughts we're too scared to say out loud."
He didn't know what she meant — not yet — but something in her eyes made him go quiet.
---
That evening, back home, Suzanne sat by her window again, watching the sunset melt into gold and pink. Her diary lay open beside her.
> "It's getting harder to hide the tiredness. But I have to.
Ryan looks at me like I'm sunlight — and I don't want him to see the storm."
Her mother knocked softly. "Dinner's ready, sweetheart."
"Coming, Mom."
She closed the diary, smiling faintly. "One more normal day," she whispered.
---
And across town, Ryan sat on his bed scrolling through his phone, staring at a photo of the two of them on stage. He smiled, then frowned.
He didn't know what was wrong — but he knew one thing for sure.
He'd never let anything happen to her.