The chaos overwhelms me more than usual. It seems like twenty roads and five tram lines converge here. I hurry down Churchill Avenue. What will Samantha look like? How will I feel seeing her like this? I hope Karel isn't there. So that I'm alone with her. But of course, he'll be there, he's her father. The roar of traffic drives me into side streets, where I get lost and need my phone to find the hospital.

The warmth of the waiting room immediately relaxes me. I buy a hot chocolate and a Milky Way from the vending machines. The chocolate bar is stale, and the filling tastes like an eraser. I chew mechanically as I look at the sign above the reception desk. Apparently, I have to follow the red arrows. Red is not good, I tell myself.

A little later, I'm in the hallway outside her room. Karel is sitting on a chair next to the door. The moment he sees me, he squints his eyes. His glasses are on his thigh, looking like a crumpled newspaper.

“I'm Ophelie,” I say.

“Ophelie...” For a moment, he looks like he's searching his brain. “Yes, of course. Do you want to come in?”

Samantha lies on the bed with her arms by her side. A bandage covers almost her entire skull, and she wears a neck brace. Her hands are deathly pale, small, looking as if they're underwater. Karel updates me on what the doctors said. A brain injury. The word sits like a block of granite in the middle of the room. I see images of people being fed with a spoon, and my forehead starts to burn.

With weak knees, I approach her. For a moment, I stand still about a meter away from the bed. My body feels like a pile of compressed air with a layer of skin over it. Then I step forward and hold her hand. Clammy and moist, limp and weak, as if there's nothing inside.

New Year's Eve, near Heiligenborre. There, in that turn beyond the pond, that dark hole with tall trees. He had smoked a few joints and was driving without lights. Samantha wasn't wearing her helmet. She was probably still upset. If I hadn't turned away when she tried to kiss me, she wouldn't have run out of my room and jumped on her bike. Then she wouldn't be lying here, and I wouldn't be standing here.

I want to talk to her, even if she can't hear me. Just like I imagined when I was on the tram. But seeing her lay there like that, as if she was frozen, I didn't expect that. I wonder if she would recognize me if she woke up. Last week, we sat next to each other, bent over her iPad, she taught me how to make selections in Procreate, flat color areas, all the steps and techniques for coloring. Now she might not even know what an iPad is anymore.

I sit on the radiator under the window, staring at the bed until it starts turning blurry. And then at my fingers, the cuticles. How angular and irregular they are, the yellowing at the corners. Images that also fade. I look at various things until they turn into shadows. I stand by the window and look outside. It relaxes me for a moment, but then there's that trapped air in my lungs again. My breath catches, and I have to yawn. It takes almost a minute before I can breathe normally again. My head spins, and I stand up. Karel asks if everything is okay. I shrug and mutter that I'm going outside for a bit, or that I might even go home.

He nods with a worried look, raises his index finger, and pulls something out of his bag. It's Samantha's iPad.

“She talked about you so often. I'm sure she would want me to give you this.”

I don't know what to say. I nod with a weak smile and thank him.

As soon as I step outside, I start to sob. I sit on a bench. Tears start rolling down my cheeks. I hate that this is happening and try to stop it, which only makes it hurt even more. The gray sky, the clouds, a plane, a flock of crows and their cries. I scan the windows until I see Karel's silhouette, although it could be someone else.

People are approaching. A couple in their fifties with a child. I look down so they can't see my face. They pass me by. When snowflakes begin to fall, the child starts laughing and jumping around. It makes me smile.

I look up at the clouds, rub my eyes dry, and follow them until I reach Brugmann Avenue. I decide to walk home. Forty-five minutes, an hour at most. I pull my hat over my ears and my jacket sleeves over my knuckles. Thick snowflakes dance in the wind. I look at the gray sky and then at the long, wide avenue, sloping up to the horizon and abruptly ending there, as if there's nothing beyond it.