by L.J. Shen
“You shut me down every time I tried getting through to you.”
Jesus Christ.
“You’re dead to me.” And in that moment, it was the truth. “Fucking. Dead. Don’t call me. Don’t talk to me. Don’t even think about me. I won’t be thinking of you.” Then I stormed to the door and slammed it behind me, bolting to the nearest bar on the block.
I tapped my fist three times over the counter.
“Bartender. Brandy.”
And blacked out.
My eyes fluttered open and I groaned, reaching with my hand to touch my temple. There was an annoying sound buzzing in my ear. It sounded like an old car trying to pull through a journey it wasn’t meant to do anymore. That was when my eyes grew wide, and I realized I had tubes tucked into my veins. IV drops next to me. Bright room. Fluorescent lights. The whole big hospital show.
Story of my life, and I’m getting tired of the angsty plotline.
“What’s going on?” I coughed, even though I had no indication that someone else was there. My fuzzy vision got clearer with every blink. The room was scorching hot, and I wondered who tampered with the thermostat. It was hot and humid enough to fry bacon on my forehead. Mmmm, bacon. I was hungry. That was a good sign, surely.
The machine. It kept on doing that noise that seemed to scrape on my nerves.
Phhhhhhsttttt. Phhhhhhsttt. Phhhhhhsst.
Someone seriously needed to turn it off before I went all Hulk on it.
“You’re at the hospital.” I heard my sister’s voice before I felt her warm hand on mine. Even though I was sweating, my skin still felt bitter-cold against her flesh. I lolled my head to the side, squeezed my eyes shut, and opened them again so I could look at her. My parents were sitting by her side. Three wide-eyed faces, inspecting me like an animal at the zoo.
Her lips came down to my cheek, fluttering over it. “How are you feeling?”
“Better than I look, I’m guessing by your stares. Why am I here?”
I remembered most of what happened. I remembered pounding on the door to that house in the Hamptons until the skin on my knuckles split open. I remembered calling and texting Dean. I remembered hailing a taxi while shivering in the rain. But I don’t remember what happened next. My anxiety attack came back in full swing and I must’ve fainted or something.
“Who brought me here?” I coughed out every word.
“The taxi driver.”
Oh. I felt like a complete idiot for asking the next question.
“Where is Dean?”
Millie looked at Mama, Mama looked at Daddy, and Daddy looked out the window.
“We don’t know.” Millie munched on her lips. “Vicious is trying to get ahold of him. We flew in the minute we heard.”
I looked around me. I didn’t recognize the room, which meant that it wasn’t Lenox Hill Hospital. We were more than two hours away from Manhattan. And in Manhattan, they didn’t have that machine, with that terrible, terrible noise.
“You have a serious lung infection.” Mama pushed Millie aside and sat on my bed. She took my hand in hers. I almost whimpered at the gesture. I pressed my fingers to her palm, enjoying this brief moment of intimacy. Her face remained tortured. “Your infection has spread, and the fact that you caught a cold didn’t make things better. Your system is weak.”
I patted her hand and mustered a smile. “Don’t worry, Mama. I get lung infections all the time.”
“This time your liver and pancreas are affected, too.” Millie licked her lips, blinking fast. Daddy walked over to the window and pressed his forehead against the glass. Rain pounded on the other side of it, and maybe he did it because he didn’t want us to see him cry.
“We told you the boy was trouble.” Daddy sighed. He wasn’t angry anymore. Exasperated, maybe. Drained, mostly.
“Now’s not the time,” Millie scolded him.
“You should’ve just come back to Todos Santos.” Mama wiped the tears from her face, and it occurred to me that maybe my biggest problem wasn’t that I didn’t know where Dean was. Because Mama rarely cried, and my father never did. And Millie…? I chanced another glance at her. She nibbled on the dead skin around her finger, fighting tears, too.
“Can someone turn off that machine?” I changed the subject, trying to lighten the mood. “You know? The one that sounds like it’s about to explode in a second,” I barked out an awkward laugh.
Millie looked up from her round belly and inhaled before she opened her mouth. “That’s your lungs, Rosie.”
I clamped my mouth shut and listened carefully. Crap. It was my lungs. They wheezed every time I drew a tender breath.
Phhhssssstttt. Phhhhsssstttt. Phhhssstttt.
“I don’t get it,” I muttered. “I’m fine. Really.”
Was I? I tried to sit up in bed, but my back ached and my lungs burned. Millie darted up and helped me, rearranging the pillows behind my back as Mama held me by the shoulders so I wouldn’t fall backwards. My eyes zoomed to my feet, and I swallowed, thinking back to what Dr. Hasting told me in one of our very first meetings.
“You can live a fulfilled, happy life, Rosie. If you play your cards right and take care of yourself. Most cystic fibrosis patients die of long-term lung complications and become disabled as time goes by, but if you do your exercise, intensive physiotherapy, and take your medicine, you should be fine.”
Was my health taking a wrong turn? Riding the road to lung complications, taking a curve in the direction of disability? I definitely didn’t feel like I held the power over my body. That scared me, even more than the idea of death.
When Mama released me to sit on the bed with my back against the pillows, my eyes darkened. I no longer tried to pacify them. It was time for them to pacify me.
“Can we get you anything, Rosie-bug? Maybe chocolate?” Mama’s contrived smile felt like an insult. It was painful to see her try so hard. No wonder they begged me to move back to Todos Santos. It took me exactly four short months to let myself deteriorate since Dean and I happened and find myself pounding on locked doors in the middle of the pouring rain, waiting on Ruckus to open up his heart.
Stupid girl. The words floated in my mind, just like they did all those months ago, after we had sex for the first time. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
“I’m good, thanks,” I said, just as Vicious swaggered into the room. The fact that he was there in the first place took me by surprise. My health really was in the shitter if Vicious dropped by to say goodbye. He tucked his phone into his dress pants and leaned down, kissing Millie on the forehead. My heart squeezed.
“Dr. Hasting is on her way. She’s cutting her vacation short,” he said to no one in particular, but we all mumbled our thanks. I thought she was out of town on a family emergency, but maybe the emergency was taking a break from people like me.
Vicious looked up and asked, “How are you doing, Rose?”
“I’ll live.” I laughed bitterly. “I mean, you know. Or not.”
“Dean’s MIA,” he admitted, raising one eyebrow and looking at Emilia, as if asking for her permission to continue. She gave him a faint nod.
“You can tell me. I’m a big girl.”
Even if I don’t look like one. Even if I didn’t act like one by recklessly standing in the rain waiting on Dean.
Vicious rubbed the back of his neck and blew out air. “No one’s heard from him since Friday morning. So, a little over twenty-four hours.”
Good. I hoped he was dead.
No. No, I did not.
Worry gnawed at my gut. What happened with his father? What happened with Nina? Why did he slip under the radar, and at what point was I going to shake myself off of the loyalty I had for him and focus on myself?
“No one cares about Dean.” Millie bared her teeth, standing up and holding the back of her chair. “And if he shows up here, I will give him a piece of my mind.”
“Dude.” I coughed, and everyone stopped and looked at me, waiting for me to finish. My whole face reddened bef
ore I managed to stop the flow of dry barks. “Make sure he’s okay first. Find out that he is healthy, and then give him a piece of your mind.”
“And if he wants to see you?” she asked.
“If he comes here walking, no, thank you. On a stretcher? Yes, please.”
“Glad you still have your sense of humor.” Her nostrils flared. “Now quit joking around and get some rest.”
She didn’t need to ask me twice. Ten minutes later, I was fast asleep again, tucked securely in the arms of unconsciousness and painkillers. And even though the voices around me were muffled and the light in the room didn’t keep me up, the sound of my life slipping away played in the background as my lungs fought for air.
Phhhhhhhsssttttt. Phhhhssssssttttt. Phhhhhssssssttttt.
WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT smell?
It took me about a minute from the moment I recognized that I was lying somewhere on my stomach, in a room I didn’t know, till I managed to open my eyes. Shit, they were heavier than carrying Trent on my back, which I actually did once when he got injured in high school. That wasn’t the time to dwell on that story, though.
Where was I? I looked around. There was a white nightstand to my right, the sheets were pink, and the room looked clean and smelled of flowers…
Holy shit, no.
I got up too fast, stumbling over a pile of dresses and righting myself on a white and pink nightstand. I knocked off a row of beauty products, then heard dishes clanking outside the room. I didn’t have my shoes on, but my pants and shirt were intact—thank God—and it took me exactly three seconds to stand in this woman’s hallway—her apartment was the size of my pantry—and try not to throw up my last meal on her floor.
The room spun, my head was pounding, and I was pretty sure there was an infinite hole in my stomach waiting to be filled with soft bread so it could soak up some of the alcohol I consumed yesterday.
“Did we sleep together last night?” I asked the woman in the kitchen. She spun around and looked at me like I was a green creature who fell from the sky wearing a silver onesie. I blinked a few times, trying to figure out if I was hallucinating or if this was real.
“I would stab myself in the face before sleeping with you.” Elle pursed her lips and got back to washing the dishes. “No. I saw you zigzagging on the street and mumbling something about your dad and Rosie. I tried to call your girlfriend, but she didn’t answer, so I figured I’d offer you a place to stay. I took the couch. You owe me a massage gift card. Just putting it out there.” She hitched one shoulder.
Rosie.
I thanked Elle and ran out, not even bothering to grab my coat. My phone died sometime yesterday, and I had to plug it in the charger to read her messages. I tried calling her a thousand times, but she didn’t answer. There were a pile of missed phone calls from the rest of the guys, but I ignored them. My next phone call was to Millie. It went straight to voicemail. I called Rosie’s parents. Nothing. Finally, my screen lit just as I was about to call her again and it was Vicious. I pressed the phone to my ear.
“I don’t know where she is,” I answered, terror gripping me by the throat. “Fuck, Vic, she’s not in her apartment, and she didn’t have the keys to the Hamptons house, so I have no clue where she went.”
“She’s in the hospital, dickbag. Her lungs are collapsing. Her liver is not functioning, and she can barely breathe. Congratulations, you fucked up royally,” he said in his dry voice.
I collapsed onto a stool in my kitchen, clasping the back of my neck so tight I drew blood.
“What hospital?”
“I’m not telling you shit, man. No one wants to see you here.”
“I need to see her.”
“Not happening. I will beat your sorry ass if you try, and even if you somehow manage to get past me, her dad will shoot you straight in the fucking face. Stay away.”
“Vicious,” I growled.
“What the fuck were you doing? What was more important than opening the door for your sick girlfriend?”
Getting drunk, I thought bitterly. Then it dawned on me that that was exactly what she did. Clawed at the door desperately when I was sitting in a bar by a fireplace, drinking hard liquor.
Asshole, asshole, asshole.
“Is she awake?” I asked, already grabbing my keys. He heard and tsked, telling me it was a bad idea.
“She comes and goes.”
“I need to see her.” I was a broken fucking record that would not stop spinning until it got what it wanted.
“You already said.” Vicious didn’t seem impressed by my persistence. “It doesn’t look good. The LeBlancs are distraught. Millie looks like hell. Not a good time to come here.”
“I don’t care.”
“Well, you should.” Vicious’s voice was grave. “Timing is everything.”
It was, and we knew it. Timing brought Millie and me together, even though we shouldn’t have been. Timing tore Rosie and me apart, even though we should have been. Timing was also what brought us back together.
I was going to defy timing. For her.
“Tell me where she is.”
“Not happening.”
“Vicious, I will ruin your ass if you don’t tell me, and we both know that I’ll find out at some point.”
No answer.
“Vicious.”
Nothing.
“Vicious!”
The line went dead.
I had a feeling my heart was going to do the same soon, if I didn’t find her.
I found out where she was hospitalized an hour later. Made Elle call Rosie’s parents, promising her a spa weekend wherever she fucking wanted, and made my way there. Took the Mercedes that sat unused for months and drove there like I was being chased by demons. And I was. Those demons made me drink. They made me responsible for the fact that my girlfriend was dying in a hospital bed.
Hey, asshole. You deserve to die, too.
My dad kept on calling, killing my battery in the process. Hundreds of times. Mom, too. My sisters left voice messages and texts to last for centuries. Fuck ’em. Well, not my sisters. First, gross. Second, they probably only knew what my parents wanted them to know. They would never forgive Eli. Fuck, how could my mom take him back after what he’d done to her? I made a mental note to ask her that when my life wasn’t covered chin-high in shit. Whenever that would be.
I parked by Good Samaritan Hospital in the Hamptons and approached the receptionist asking for Rose LeBlanc. She told me to go fuck myself, but in nicer words. The bottom line was that the LeBlanc patient was not accepting any visitors who weren’t family. I couldn’t tell for sure where the order came from—her or her parents—but the outcome was the same.
I loitered around the waiting room because there was nothing they could do to stop me from staying. Called Vicious, Millie, and Rosie every two minutes. Kicked the vending machine a few times when my mind strangled me with guilt. Pulled at my hair. Made promises to Rosie that she couldn’t hear. Broke those promises. Thought about creative ways to sneak into her room. Remembered I didn’t even know what her room number was. Cursed some more. Generally acted like a fucking madman.
I was losing it, and it wasn’t pretty.
Vicious came out of the elevator a few hours later and strolled over to me, not even half-surprised to see me there. He clasped the back of my neck, just about ready to pull me into an embrace. Fuck no. This wasn’t a daytime soap opera. Though I did find out that his beloved hero, Eli Cole, was actually a manwhore, fucking douchebag of the worst variety.
“You look like shit.” His lips barely moved.
“Fucking coincidence, you ain’t Victoria’s Secret material yourself.” I cocked a brow.
He laughed.
The fucker actually laughed in my face. Rosie was fighting for her life, and he looked like he didn’t have a care in the world.
“Well,” his mirth died abruptly, “you acted like a little shit, too.”
“How is she?” I rubbed my eyes, feeling l
ike I hadn’t slept in years.
“Not good,” he admitted. “Stable, though. She sleeps a lot. And she makes that rattley sound when she breathes. Like her lungs are full of rusty needles.”
Kill. Me. Now.
He knew. He knew by just looking at me that there was no point giving me grief for everything that had happened. I was already in the gutters of life, trying to claw my way out and back into Rosie’s universe with bleeding fingers.
“What happened?” Vicious started walking toward the Starbucks across the road, and I fell in step with him. As much as I hated to be the underdog around Vicious, I had to recruit him to my side. That, in itself, felt impossible. We always went head-to-head. I think that was what had kept our friendship alive. The constant battle.
“The mother of all shitstorms.” I ran a hand through my hair and punched the nearest wall. Fuck, I was going to tell him. Because I had to. Because of Rosie. “In bullets: I’m adopted. Up until now I thought that my parents adopted me from my slutty aunt who got knocked up by a no-show piece of shit. Turns out the no-show piece of shit is actually hot-shot lawyer Eli Cole. He slept with his wife’s sister while they were already married and decided to keep it from me for thirty years. Just, you know, in a fucking nutshell.”
“Fuck,” Vicious hissed, stopping to look me in the eye, making sure it wasn’t all a big, fat, sad joke. After that, we took our coffees and sat down by the window overlooking the hospital. The thought that she was so physically close yet mentally far messed with my mind. It felt like the end of everything. The world. Us. Her. “That’s some heavy mess. I had no idea Eli was capable of out-dicking us,” Vicious said, probably referring to the fact he dipped his dick in his wife’s sister.
“It’s in the genes, I guess.” I stroked my chin thoughtfully, taking a sip of my cup of Joe. “Who fucking cares, Vic? Seriously. She needed me, and I stood her up. She needed me, and she stood in the rain waiting on me. I should burn in hell. In fact, I bet you’d be happy to light the fucking match.”
Vicious offered me an uncommitted shrug, moving his teeth across his lower lip.