Lina’s jaw clenched. Her fingers froze on the trackpad.
Julian’s arm moved.
Not a twitch. Not a spasm.
It lifted.
Deliberately. Slowly.
His hand curled into a fist… and opened.
He reached up and rubbed his eye.
Lina recoiled from the screen, gasping. “No… no no no…”
She pulled the laptop closer. The video played on.
Julian looked around. His head—his head—turned.
He sat up.
It took effort, clearly. He moved like someone stiff from years of stillness. But he sat up fully. His eyes scanned the room. Then he swung his legs off the bed, stood, and walked.
Walked.
Not perfectly, not swiftly, but on two legs. Like a man who had walked into a nightmare and back.
Tears rolled down Lina’s face.
He had been lying.
All these years.
She watched in stunned silence as Julian walked to the window. He stretched. He pulled a granola bar from under the mattress and ate it with one hand while scrolling through a phone he had hidden behind the dresser.
Her knees gave out.
The video kept playing, but Lina saw no more. Her tears blurred everything. Her mind reeled.
Why?
Why would her son fake a coma for 23 years?