"What if I'm not dying?" Jerica's voice broke the silence, soft yet tinged with a vulnerability that gripped Jared's heart.
Jared froze, her words pulling him out of his spiraling thoughts. He turned to her, his hazel eyes wide with a mix of surprise and fragile hope. "What… what do you mean?" he asked gently, leaning closer, as though her answer could shatter if he approached it too hastily.
Jerica looked up at him, her eyes glassy and shimmering with a hesitant light, one that seemed foreign amidst the shadow of her illness. "What if the doctors were wrong? What if…" Her voice wavered, a flicker of possibility she was too scared to fully claim. But then, as if catching herself mid-dream, she shook her head with a bittersweet smile. "Never mind."