17:45 Lauren:of course. what’s wrong?
17:46 Shannon:My father had a stroke this morning, and I’m keeping it together but just barely.
17:46 Lauren:where are you? I’m on my way.
*
Shannon’s directions pointedme toward the waiting room, but she didn’t mention it resembled a miniature Walsh Associates command post. Power adapters shot out from every outlet and tangled in the middle of the room. Shannon and Patrick huddled around a laminate table-turned-desk where they were furiously typing. Sam and Riley were busy writing all over the windows with dry erase markers, and Matthew was nestled on the floor, asleep in the corner.
How was it supposed to be now? How was I supposed to see him without dissolving into a mopey puddle of regret?
It was awful to admit but I considered ignoring Shannon’s initial text today. She sent several last night, but I turned off my phone on the walk between her apartment and mine, and didn’t power up until after an hour-long bath this afternoon. She wanted to know what went down—I did scramble out of her place like my hair was on fire—but I couldn’t explain the words Matthew and I shared in that kitchen. Or the car. Or his bedroom last week.
And now, with everything in ruins around me, I knew there was no point in trying.
Where Shannon sent her share of texts while I was unplugged, I received none from Matthew. For all my pushing, I hoped for just a bit more pulling from him, just this once. I hoped he’d find a way to make it work, a way that didn’t force me to choose.
Shannon’s friendship was important to me, but I didn’t know how to balance it with the wreckage of Matthew and me. Seeing him now, his long legs extended before him and his arms locked over his chest, the recognition that he wasn’t a treat, an occasional indulgence on par with expensive underwear and decadent cupcakes, settled in the pit of my stomach. I couldn’t lull myself into believing I could manage any amount of moderation, and I couldn’t prevent myself from falling for him.
My head belonged in the mission, and not sidetracked with fanciful activities or growly, bitey boys.
He looked terrible, a gray cast to his skin and an IV in his hand. I knew touching him was a gateway to so much more, but I couldn’t help it. He was frigid, his cheeks ice cold. “Oh, Matthew.”
“Get out of my dreams, woman,” he rasped, and his eyes inched open.
“Not a dream,” I said. “You’re freezing.”
Groaning as he stood up, he braced his hand on my shoulder, and took a wobbly, limping step. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” he grunted.
“What happened to you?”
Flattening his hands on the wall, he shook his head, and dropped his chin to his chest. “I don’t know, Lauren. You tell me. You’re the one who walked out.”
Okay, so that was how it was going to be. “I mean why are you limping?”
“Went for a long run last night.”
“Lastnight?” I cried. “In theblizzard?”
“Yeah, if you want to yell at me, get in line behind the rest of them.” He nodded toward his siblings, and shuffled down the hall, his IV bag tucked under his arm.
“He’s fine,” Sam said, jerking a thumb at Matthew and motioning for me to follow him in the opposite direction. “Just dehydrated. And temperamental. How did you hear?”
In worn jeans and a Cornell hoodie, he looked young and unassuming. Gone was Sam’s smooth charm and composure, and in its place was the vulnerable, neurotic man I knew. “Shannon texted me. How’s your dad?”
“Angus,” he corrected, “is in a coma, but he’s had a few seizures since we’ve been here. They think he’s been having little strokes for weeks, maybe months. They’re worried about…” He wrapped his hands around the back of his neck and shrugged. “There’s a lot to worry about.”
“And how are you?”
He pushed his glasses up his nose and frowned. “I don’t know yet.”
“Oh thank God you’re here,” Shannon called as she rounded the corner. She ran up, pushing Sam away and folding her arms around me. She squeezed hard before pulling back. “Can we get some coffee?”
We walked the hospital halls, and Shannon was silent for several minutes before the dam broke. For as close as she was with her brothers, she was also stoic. It was up to her to hold it together for them, and after all these years, I doubted she knew how to face them with anything less than complete composure.
“It doesn’t even bother me anymore when he calls me a cunt,” she laughed as she wiped tears from her chin. “It’s like nothing.”
Sitting face to face on the floor of a quiet stairwell—really, they were the best places for semi-private tears—we cried together as the story of her father’s reign of terror poured out in a ragged, sobbing mess.
