“Not my mom,” she whispers. “Please.”
I pull her into me. I do it automatically, unconsciously, like I’m driven by gravity. I push her head against my chest and loop my other arm around her quaking back, and I hold her there as hard as I can, both of us on our knees, and I let her cry.
And she does. She buries her head in my shirt and wraps her arms so tightly around me that I think she’s trying to break me, her breathing ragged, gasping sobs breaking through when she can’t stop them.
There’s nothing I can say, so I don’t. I close my eyes against her onslaught and I count my breaths, even and steady: in for one, out for two. In for three, out for four. I open my eyes and look up at the moon, and I don’t think of anything.
Eventually, her arms loosen, her breathing get less ragged.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, pulling away, still wiping at her eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m —”
“Where is she?” I ask gently, cutting her off.
“The hospital,” Thalia says, looking down at herself. “Maybe she’s in surgery now, I don’t know —”
“Where’s the hospital?” I ask, forcing myself to stay calm.
She shoves the back of her hand against her other eye, smearing black outward toward her temple as she fumbles for her phone, clicks it on again, opens a map with shaking fingers.
“They took her to Randolph General, Bastien said, I think that’s the one at Lynnhaven and Broadway,” she says, staring down at the little screen, swiping jerkily from side to side like she can’t stop moving. “I don’t know why, he said she was closer to St. Agatha’s but they didn’t take her there, they took her to Randolph instead and he didn’t say why —”
“Thalia,” I say, softly, to get her attention before she spirals. “In Virginia Beach?”
“Norfolk,” she says, and then looks up at me, face blotchy with tears, eyes bloodshot and red. She takes a deep breath. “It’s in Norfolk. She’s all the way in Norfolk, fuck, fuck.”
I don’t think, I just speak.
“I’ll take you,” I say.
For a moment, she’s silent, no sound but her ragged breathing, her sniffles.
I rise, holding out one hand.
“Caleb, you can’t,” she says softly, looking at it.
“Yes, I can.”
“It’s a four-hour drive,” she says, looking at my hand like it’s some sort of ancient artifact, like if she touches it it’ll crumble into dust. “It’s clear across the state, I’ll borrow a car, I’ll find a bus, it’s fine. I’ll figure something out.”
“Let me take you,” I say, and I sound calm, even as my pulse is racing with remembered panic. “Please?”
“You could get in trouble,” she says, suddenly whispering.
“I know.”
She studies me for a long moment, still on her knees in the grass, her phone held limply in one hand, my arm outstretched toward her.
The knees of my suit are soaked through, grass stained, and my shirt has black smudges from where she cried against me, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter at all.
“Okay,” she finally says, and puts her hand in mine, lets me pull her up. “Thank you.”
For a moment, we don’t let each other go. We just stand there, next to a building older than the country, sliver of a moon above, and look at each other.
I know I should say something to her, some platitude like it’s gonna be okay or your mom will be fine or I’m sure she’s a fighter, but I know better than to lie. I don’t know shit about the future. I only know about the gaping hole that’s opened underneath Thalia. I know that doing something, being in motion, will put it off for just a little longer.
Then we walk to my car, silent except for the click of her heels on pavement.Chapter FourteenThaliaI stare at the toothbrushes in the cup on the bathroom sink. I stare and I stare because I can’t figure out which one is mine.
When did I call home? Was it Sunday, or Monday?
Is it the orange one? The pink one?
What does my toothbrush look like?
What did we talk about?
My brain feels like sludge, like my IQ has suddenly dropped so many points that something as simple as a toothbrush is utterly baffling. I take a deep breath and my eyes fill with tears again because I can’t even figure out which toothbrush is mine and I can’t do anything, not one single thing to help my mom besides hope that she’s going to be okay and —
“Fuck it,” I mutter to myself, savagely, as I bend down, wrench the bathroom cabinet open, and grab a new toothbrush, still in the package.
I go back into my room, shove it into my backpack with my laptop and my phone charger and a few shirts and pairs of underwear. I’m sure there’s something else I should take but I’ve already been in my apartment, packing this bag, for a little over three minutes, and what if that three minutes makes the difference? What if I’m three minutes too late, what if she wakes up and asks for me and I’m not there, I’m three minutes away and then —