She doesn't ask if I'm okay.

She whispers, "You want to stay and talk or you want to go home?"

Nobody wants to talk. We're all shell-shocked.

I'm not sure I can talk. Too much is going through my head.

"Home," I whisper back.

She nods and takes my hand and leads me back to her car.

We go back to my place. We make dinner together then stare at it as we watch TV on the couch.

We have sex in my bed.

I make her come three times.

But I don't feel her there.

I don't feel anything.

35

Mal

For a week, I spend every spare minute in Mom's room. Ethan and Piper are there about half the time, sometimes one of them, sometimes both of them.

Lacey comes some of the time. Even when I tell her it should just be family, she waits outside the room, her brown eyes filled with concern.

The mood stays heavy, even when we tell stories about old times, even when we play cards, even when we watch some fucking TV rerun.

It's there every fucking moment.

The night before Mom's surgery—more the morning, really—we throw her an it's your last meal before surgery party and smuggle all her favorite foods into the hospital.

But with every single bite I think this is probably her last meal, period.

Surgery is tomorrow afternoon.

In a little more than twenty-four hours, my mom will be dead. Eighty-five percent chance.

How the fuck am I supposed to breathe again?

Ethan is leaning against the beige wall outside Mom's room. His eyes are on the window, not on me. He's watching Mom and Dad whisper something to each other.

Something that isn't for our ears.

Mom wants to sleep.

We're supposed to come back tomorrow at eight. When they start prepping her for surgery. We're supposed to wait with her as she—

"Are you listening?" Ethan pushes off the wall. "Hello. Mal? You do realize there's someone here you could boss around."

"Fuck off," I say. It's just me and Ethan. Piper left a few hours ago to beat traffic. Really, she couldn't take it anymore. She hates that she's devastated a

bout Mom. She hates that someone who hurt her by abandoning her showed up just to make a show of dying.

I don't blame Piper for running away.

Tags: Crystal Kaswell Dangerous Noise Erotic
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