The Knockout

by Sajni Patel

  “Nothing will happen tonight,” I promised.

  Mama nodded and I followed her out to make sure she got to her car safely and that she actually left.

  “Text me when you get home,” I told her.

  Mama closed her door, started up the car, and off she went.

  My phone beeped with a message.

  I’m here! And my brother dropped me off, so I have no way of getting home. You’re stuck with me.

  I smiled and met Lily in the front lobby. She didn’t spring in with her brilliance and cheer, but solemnly wrapped an arm around my shoulder.

  “Do you want me in the room, or shall I stalk the waiting room?”

  “You can come inside the room, but guess who’s here? Or was here.” I pressed the button in the elevator for the fourth floor.

  “Family?”

  “Keep guessing.”

  “Ugh. Saanvi? Want me to kick her butt? I can do that, you know. With no formal training.”

  I giggled, picturing Lily taking Saanvi out with one slap. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t underestimate Lily’s ability to punch like a fighter if she wanted to, but I liked to imagine that Saanvi couldn’t take a hit and a slap was all it took to take her out.

  The doors opened and we stepped out into the all-too familiar wing of the hospital where everyone probably knew me by now. Turning the corner, Lily guessed, “Amit?”

  “Yeah. How’d you—?”

  “Hey,” he said, suddenly in front of us.

  “You look nice. Hope you’re not here because of bad news,” Lily commented.

  He shook his head, keeping eyes on her and away from me. “No. Helping my uncle with some work.”

  “Cool. Is he a doctor?”

  “Medical stuff, but not a doctor.”

  Lily quickly, albeit politely, added, “We better get going. See you at school.”

  “See you in class.” He faced me, his expression serious. “Is your dad okay?”

  A panic surged through me with a dozen questions. Was he that nosy? Did the staff not uphold privacy law? Or did his job allow him to dig into whichever patient file he wanted? In any and all cases, it was a vehement betrayal of privacy. I was not ready for him to know this part of my life. It was not for anyone to know. “What the hell?”

  “What?” he asked, taken aback.

  With gritted teeth, I asked, “How did you know?”

  “Um, the packet that the doctor gave your mom. I know that packet. It’s for seriously sick patients.”

  Hot breath escaped my lips in a guttural noise. “That is not your business.”

  I stomped past him, but he caught up, explaining, “I’m sorry. I didn’t pry, but I was standing right there and noticed.”

  “Still not your business,” I snapped, stopping dead in my tracks and pivoting on my heels so that he walked into me.

  His hands landed on my waist and kept me from tumbling backward. I wanted to smack them away, but he had me against his chest, releasing me the moment he saw my anger.

  He backed away. “I’m not trying to wriggle into your personal life, but I wouldn’t notice someone I know at the hospital and not ask if they’re doing okay. I’m not asking because I’m nosy. I’m asking because I care.”

  I scoffed and turned from him, because seriously, how else could I react? Papa’s health wasn’t something that I wanted to discuss with others. I didn’t know how else to handle someone getting this close to the truth. How did one tell their friend that their father could die any day now?

  Amit took my elbow and drew me close, speaking into my ear, “You don’t have to walk away from me.”

  “You act like you have the right to know it all. You don’t.”

  “I know that I don’t, and you don’t have to tell me. But you don’t have to stomp away, either. Friends can be silent, in the dark, but still supportive.”

  I cocked an eyebrow.

  “I can sit with you, wait with you, and you don’t have to say a word.”

  I gulped as everything and everyone around us disintegrated.

  “That’s what friends are for,” he gently added.

  Except Amit Patel wasn’t just a friend. He had been at some point, for a short time, and quickly evolved into much more. But my brain cells couldn’t handle anything else that scared me. Just like computer programming, too many unknown variables created a glitch. One glitch could easily lead to another and bring everything down.

  “Okay,” he replied softly. “I’ll go. But you can text or call anytime. And I will be right there.”

  He turned and walked away. I clenched my eyes shut for a few seconds. So much of me told myself to let him go and keep things bottled in this corner of my world. The fewer people who knew, the fewer who reminded me of Papa when I saw them. On the other hand, when I saw Mama and Lily, I didn’t think of only the bad things. I thought of a lot of amazing things and they made the situation better.

  “Wait,” I croaked, unsure if he could even hear me as he made his way down the hallway. But Amit had superpower hearing and turned back.

  We stood toe-to-toe, and for some reason, adding him to the select few who knew these deepest troubles calmed my derailing emotions. That was too important to dismiss.

  I rubbed my arm and forced the conversation. “My mom and dad think they’re protecting me by not telling me what the doctor tells them. And the doctors won’t talk to me because I’m a minor and she told them not to.” My voice cracked and I hated myself for that.

  He pressed his lips together. His fingers twitched and his hand made the slightest move, as if he were naturally inclined to touch me but held back.

  I let out a rough, irritated sigh. Not at him, but at this whole thing. How did people do this? Deal open heartedly and lean on others to take the brunt of some of their burdens? I bit my lip to keep from getting emotional, but then Amit touched my cheek and I almost lost my crap.

  “It’s coming,” I said, my voice weak and trembling.

  “Not today, though, okay?” he said. “Where’d your mom go?”

  “She went home for a bit. She usually never goes home.”

  “Are you two staying all night?”

  I shook my head and sighed. “No. They don’t let us stay all night, but my mom will probably try to sleep in the visitor’s room.”

  “I can give you a ride later, if you need. I can stay. If you want.”

  “Lily’s here, so . . .”

  He didn’t look over my shoulder at Lily, who waited at a nearby corner. “I’d like to stay and be here for you.”

  I opened my mouth to tell him “no,” but the way he looked, his focus still on our hands, all innocent and kind, made me crack. He really did care. How could I not lean on him for some extra support? “For a little while.”

  A little while turned into a few hours.

  “You should go home, Lily,” I told her after the sun set.

  “I don’t have a car, remember?” she said.

  “Maybe Amit can take you home?” I was tired and wanted to sleep, even if only for a few minutes.

  “I’ll just sit here,” she insisted.

  “I want to stay too,” Amit added.

  “No. I appreciate it, I really do. But they have different rules for ICU. Can’t have too many people here, and they ask us to leave at ten.”

  “Amit and I can walk the hall and get anything you or your parents need.”

  “That’s super sweet, but—”

  “But what?”

  “It’s Thursday. You got school tomorrow.”

  “We get kicked out at ten anyway. That’s not late for a school night. Besides, forget class. You need us. We’re best friends. You’re stuck with me.”

  “And this is what friends do,” Amit added.

  Lily purposefully nodded once,
a final, There ya go. We’re staying. Deal with it.

  I sighed, hoping it was more begrudging than not so they would give us this moment as a family without outside eyes. But nope. They were true-blue friends, and I couldn’t hate them for that.

  Lily swiped in for a sneak hug, extracting a laugh, one filled with gratitude.

  “Do you want to talk?” she muttered in my ear.

  I hugged her back and whispered, “No.”

  “Do you want something to eat or drink?” Amit asked after we pulled away and Lily went back to the chair.

  “Nah.”

  “Quiet?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Gotcha,” Lily said with a wink.

  Amit sat beside me on the bench seat in Papa’s room, and Lily took the chair. The nurse brought extra blankets and pillows and it was just like any other sleepover. Or it would have been if Papa’s life didn’t hang in the balance.

  We kept quiet most of the evening to keep the atmosphere calm and peaceful for him. Eventually, Amit and Lily went to the cafeteria for food, but my stomach couldn’t take anything in. Amit brought back a slice of pecan pie anyway.

  Lily plopped down beside me and tucked her legs beneath her. Amit sat on the chair, his elbows on the table, and slid the small plate toward me. I eyed the slice.

  “You know you want some.”

  I gave in with a roll of my eyes. “How’d you know?”

  “What are the chances of being Southern and not liking pecan pie?”

  The first bite was always the best: sticky, thick, sweet filling with a giant pecan crunch on top and near soggy crust on the bottom. “Whenever we would fill up gas or take a break on long rides, Papa always bought me those little packaged pecan pies from the convenience store. I loved them so much that my mom started to buy them from the grocery store whenever they were in season. Once we’d tried to make one from scratch. Was a total disaster. The bag of leftover pecans was good, though.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  I quirked an eyebrow and he indicated Lily, who shrugged and said, “I gave him the honor of bringing back a slice.”

  “It’s good,” I admitted. “Did you guys get a piece?”

  The slice wasn’t huge and dwindled down to a corner. I stuffed the last bite into my mouth when Amit replied, “It was the last slice they had.”

  Our eyes made contact and he smiled warmly as I gulped down the last piece.

  We read and checked social media on our phones to pass the time. Lily swaddled herself in a green blanket and fell asleep for a good minute. She was the type of person who could sleep anywhere, anytime, and in any position. I was sort of envious, to be honest.

  Amit sat beside me on the bench and tossed a blanket over us and pressed his arm against mine as we watched silly videos on his phone with the sound turned low. As sleep prowled closer and closer, my head fell against his shoulder but it was too heavy to move. He rested his head over mine and we sank into the bench.

  I must’ve dozed off at some point because when I came to, my head was snug against the pillow at the end of the bench, my legs stretched to the other side, and a blanket was over me. Lily quietly played on her phone from the chair. The still mass of blankets beside me on the floor must’ve been Amit.

  Twenty-One

  “Kareena, beta?” Mama gently shook my shoulder, rousing me from a groggy, heavy sleep.

  I groaned and pried my eyelids open. They were so heavy and sticky, the eyelashes kissing each other like tomorrow would never come. Yawning, I sat up and contorted my face. It hurt. Sleeping on my side on a barely cushioned bench left a crick in my neck and a deep soreness in my right cheek and jaw.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” Mama replied and handed me a cup of orange cinnamon tea. It smelled like autumn.

  I took a sip as she explained, “Everything is stable. I had a nice shower but could not sleep at home, not without your Papa. You go home and shower and sleep in your bed.”

  “No—”

  “Choop,” she softly chided. “Go home. Everything will be fine, hah?”

  I nodded, although I was fairly certain neither one of us believed her.

  She rubbed my shoulder. “We’ve discussed this before. No matter what, you concentrate on your grades, your mentality, and your sport. Use them as an outlet. We move forward, always. We do not wallow or feel sorry for ourselves.”

  I nodded mechanically.

  “And take them with you.” She jerked her chin first at Lily, who gave a slight wave from the door. Then Mama cocked her chin at the lightly snoring mass between a pile of hospital blankets beside me. “He’s tired. Poor child. Let him take you home. He’s a very nice boy.”

  I didn’t respond, but instead pulled down the green blanket. Beneath, Amit slept in a scrunched position with an arm dangling off the side. He looked so sweet and utterly close to creeping all the way into my heart.

  “Amit,” I said louder than how Mama had spoken to me. When he didn’t move, I carefully tugged his shoulder back. His dark-brown eyes flickered open, streaked red with sleep.

  He offered a tired smile and asked, “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. My mom wants us to go home.”

  He sat up and asked her, “Are you sure, Auntie? We can—”

  “Go home, beta. Your parents will be worried and there’s no need for you to sleep here, on the floor of all places.”

  “Can you take me and Lily home?” I asked him.

  He cleared the sleep out of his throat. “Yeah, of course.”

  We folded the blankets and set them in the corner with the pillows on top. Amit and Lily thanked Mama for the tea she’d given them and off we went, ever so slowly. Mama sat beside Papa on the bed and squeezed his hand as the door to his room gently closed behind us.

  “Are you all right?” Amit asked inside the elevator.

  I sipped the tea. Mama made it extra sweet, just the way I liked it. “No.”

  The quiet clenched around us.

  “I wish I could help,” he muttered.

  “There’s nothing we can do. Medicine can only do so much, only work so fast.” The best we could hope for was that Papa hadn’t slipped into total renal failure or, if he’d gone septic again, that we caught it in time before system failure.

  “How long has this been going on?”

  “The last few years. Worse over time. The end is inevitable. We all end up the same, you know? We know it’s coming soon, and we’re prepared,” I croaked, but clenched my jaw to harden myself.

  “Doesn’t make it any easier.”

  “You have us,” Lily said, her voice as smooth as velvet and just as soft.

  Tears burned in my eyes. They couldn’t fall because once they did, they might never stop. I glared at the screen above the buttons on the elevator wall as the numbers went down to G level.

  In the moderately lit parking garage, Amit unlocked his car and opened the doors for both Lily and me. She sat in the back while I sat in the front. I could barely keep my eyes open, but we managed to get home safely and stumbled into the house.

  “Y’all can sleep in my room if you want, or in the living room,” I offered.

  “Let me call my mom and ask. I’m pretty sure she’s okay with it,” Lily replied and slid to the couch with her phone to her ear. Her parents usually let her spend the night when they knew my dad was in the hospital. As long as she checked in and had her homework and verified with my mom. They were pretty awesome that way, and I didn’t know what I’d do without Lily.

  “It’s okay if your parents won’t let you stay here,” I told Amit, although I wished he could.

  He shrugged and looked off into the corner for a second, like oh, well. “They think I’m working.”

  Lily hopped off the couch. “My mom said yes once she called y
our mom to ask if it’s okay. Wherever you want us. Are you going to bed?” She yawned.

  All this yawning was making me yawn. “I’m going to clean and do laundry and then shower.”

  “How about you eat and shower and we clean?” Amit suggested, casting a hopeful glance at Lily.

  “Tell us what needs to be done,” she said. “I know your laundry room. Just the clothes there?”

  “Y’all don’t have to—”

  “Nah, but we want to,” she intervened.

  “That’s so nice of you.”

  “What else?” Amit asked. On his way to the kitchen, he tidied up the throw blankets and pillows on the couch. “Kitchen cleanup?”

  “Okay. Let me get some clothes from my parents’ room and towels, and I’ll throw them in the hamper.” I jogged through the rooms and returned to the middle room with arms full of used towels and random pieces of clothing that Mama had probably tossed in a hurry.

  The laundry room smelled of lavender fields before I even reached Lily. She had one load going and offered, “I’ll vacuum the house and sweep and mop. Amit can go through the fridge for outdated food. Anything he should definitely keep?”

  I shook my head. “There’s not much in there anyway. The house isn’t that bad, guys.”

  “It’ll keep us busy, and your mom can come home to a sparkling clean house. I know that makes my mom feel better when she’s running around or stressed. We can do a grocery run in the morning too. Go take a shower. He’ll have something ready for you to eat.”

  I couldn’t help it and sprang myself into Lily, muffling her laughter with a bear hug. “Thank you.”

  “Attack hugs are the best.”

  Grabbing sweatpants and a decent shirt and bra, I headed for the bathroom. The hum of the vacuum faded behind the closed door. Hot water steamed the mirror before my clothes were off. I couldn’t scrub hard enough or keep tears from streaming down my face.

  Alone and with time to think, to take it all in, to confront reality and envision Papa passing, of trying to console Mama, of never seeing his face again or hearing his voice was more than my heart could bear. It broke.