Another nod.
Leah was too terrified to believe what Sebastian had just said, that Dylan was going to be okay. And much too terrified to believe that he wasn’t.
Dylan’s focus flicked to her. Brown curls fell against the bright autumn leaves blanketing the ground.
“I’m here,” Leah said to the boy she’d loved since the day he was born. The one who was more important to her than her own wants, her own desires, her own life. “I’m here, sweetheart.”
Sebastian tightened his hold on the skin around the straw, doing his best to create a seal.
He loved Leah. And Leah loved Dylan. He’d once lost what he’d loved, so he would move mountains and oceans with his bare hands to ensure that she did not endure the same pain.
He’d perforated the cartilaginous rings of the trachea. The pressure he was exerting on the wound would mitigate the loss of blood. Even so, he could feel it running down the sides of Dylan’s neck.
“I performed a tracheotomy,” he explained to Dylan, “which means that the straw is functioning as your windpipe, allowing oxygen in and out. The straw will tide us over until we get you tothe hospital. There’s a trip in an ambulance in your near future. And a hospital stay. I’m sorry to tell you that hospital food is just as bad as its reputation would lead you to believe.”
This situation had stripped years off Dylan. Though he was trying to appear brave, he looked young and defenseless.
Leah’s concentration remained trained on her brother. She probably wasn’t aware that tears were wetting her face and turning her lashes spiky.
It was too late, much too late, to protect himself from her. From now on, for the rest of his life, there would be no hiding from the things she made him feel.
A siren’s blare started small and grew in volume.
“You can look forward to a few days off of school for this,” Sebastian told Dylan. “This is a tough way to cut class. But congratulations. You managed it.”
Dylan tried to smile. The straw made a gurgle and Sebastian adjusted the angle of it so Dylan would continue to receive plenty of clean air.
The paramedics arrived. Sebastian gave swift instructions. They brought over tape and Sebastian used it to secure the straw so that there was no leakage around it and no possibility of dislodging it.
He helped the paramedics move Dylan onto the stretcher. Blood smeared bright against the boy’s sweatshirt.
Once they’d secured Dylan inside the ambulance, he helped Leah into the back of the vehicle.
“Thank you,” she said.
“I’ll follow behind.”
But she was already looking back at her brother.
Leah had spent the last ten years worrying about the dangers that might devour Dylan. Today, one of them had devoured him, in part, because ofherand the things Dylan had overheard her saying to Sebastian.
The ambulance ride ended at their local hospital’s emergency room. Doctors, nurses, white walls. Dylan, at the center of it all, the only entity she could see in sharp focus.
They replaced the temporary straw with a much more sophisticated tracheostomy tube. Dylan’s vital signs stabilized. The staff informed Leah that they’d treat Dylan here until surgery could be arranged—which would likely take a day or two.
No doubt the surgery and recovery would be difficult, and Dylan might face a degree of lasting damage to his vocal cords. But all Leah could think, sitting beside his bed in the room they’d been assigned, was that the consequence of his injury could have been much, much worse.
Without a doubt, he would have suffocated, if not for Sebastian.
Sebastian hadn’t sought out her attention once. However, she’d been aware of his presence ever since the accident. Two different times, when she’d looked up to find him so that he could answer a medical question, he’d been there. Because of him, she knew not to allow Dylan to be passed off to the nearest surgeon but to insist instead that only the best larynx surgeon in Georgia would do. She’d heard him sharing his opinions with the people who worked here—also known as bossing people around. At one point, she’d discovered a bottled water in her hand. At another point, a cup of tea. She didn’t know how they’d gotten there, only that Sebastian had provided them.
Even now a container that smelled of bacon potato soup and warm bread waited for her on Dylan’s bedside table. Sebastian had left a while ago, saying he wanted to give them time alone. But before he’d gone, he’d brought her food.
She’d eat it. Soon. She just couldn’t bring herself to do so quite yet.
She’d just finished texting people to tell them what had happened. Their mom, who’d yet to respond because it was probably the wee hours of the morning in Guinea. Dylan’s friends. Ben. And, after a moment’s debate, Tess and Rudy. She’d supplied their room number and details about hospital visiting hours.
Dylan was staring listlessly at ESPN on the TV mounted on the wall. Since air was no longer passing over his vocal cords, Dylan’s doctor had said it would be best for him to communicate through texts or notes until speech therapists could begin work with him post-surgery. He’d said that for now, Dylan would have his hands full simply adapting to breathing through a tube.
