My heavy footsteps catch the group's attention—Tonya glances over Paul's shoulder at me, eyes filled with a blend of fury on my behalf and worry for me. Atticus stands nearby, hovering close enough to intervene if Tonya throws a punch, but keeping Jane behind him, as if he's shielding her. My mom is peering at Paul, curiously, like she's seeing something we don't.
Finally, Paul follows Tonya's gaze and turns to me. He visibly pales a bit when he sees me.
But all I feel is dread.
Emergency contact. Paul's still Sophie's emergency contact, which means he will have priority. Over me. He can just step in and push me out. He'll be the one they talk to about her treatment if she's not awake.
Even if she is awake, will she want to see him? Does she miss him? Will the months we've spent together mean anything against thesix yearsthey've spent together?
The emergency contact is just a reminder to me of the time they had, the life they built before the cancer, before he cheated on her. Do I even measure up in comparison?
"How is she? They didn't say anything on the phone," Paul asks me, his voice broken, his face even more so.
These are the first direct words he's spoken to me in almost two decades.
The last time he spoke to me was about a girl I had a silly crush on, and this time, he speaks to me about the woman I'm in love with.
The woman he's still in love with.
Funny how life circles back in the cruelest of ways.
My jaw locks, muscles tightening, and I swear my hands curl into fists on instinct. For a brief, sharp second, I imagine punching him hard enough to shatter every fucking tooth in his mouth. Maybe then he'd feel afractionof the pain he'd put my Sophie through.
And as much as I want to toss his ass out of this hospital, snarling that Sophie's not going to want to see him, I can't.
I fucking can't because I realize that I am probably beholden to him regarding Sophie right now.
"Her fever spiked. They're stabilizing her now. That's all we know," I tell him, practically grinding it out between clenched teeth. I feel the fight leave my body, and I brush past him back to my chair, retaking my seat. Leaning forward, I rest my elbows on my knees and bury my head in my hands, trying to ground myself while the helplessness ebbs and surges in me.
"Did you..." Paul says, his voice coming closer to me. I see out of the corner of my eye that he sits across from me, his movements tentative like I'm a temperamental bear.Hell, right now, I am."Did you call her sister?"
"Yes."
"Okay... good." He exhales shakily. "I, uh... I didn't want tohave to do that. Tess is probably not a big fan of me right now," he huffs out, sarcasm laced with self-loathing. "Wouldn't be surprised if she tries to kill me when she gets here."
"Sounds like a smart woman," Tonya mutters, plopping into the chair on my left side. Atticus and Jane take their seats across from us, Atticus taking the chair next to Paul and purposefully making sure his broad shoulder jostles the man. He glares at the blonde for a quick second before wrapping his other arm around Jane, who folds herself into Atticus's embrace.
My mom sits down next to me and lays a soothing hand on my shoulder.
We sit in awkward silence for a couple of minutes before I lean closer to Tonya, keeping my voice low. "Do you think she kept him as her emergency contact on purpose?"
Tonya scoffs, rolling her head toward me with a look that screamsdon't be stupid."You think Sophie is the type to talk out of both sides of her mouth? Promising you things while leaving the door open for him?"
Shame hits me like a punch to the gut at my doubt.
No, I don't think that.
I think Sophie is good, true, and honest, and I trust her. Completely. She loves me. I know she loves me. She doesn't just tell me; she shows me every single day we're together.
"No, Sophie is..." I trail off because there isn't a word big enough to hold what Sophie means to me.Loveis close enough, but even that pales in comparison to what I feel. It's not just a feeling, and it can't be condensed into simple words—it's some kind of action and language only she and I understand.
It's in the way she knows when I'm feeling stressed and lays a soft hand on the back of my neck, squeezing and grounding me. It's the way she can make me laugh harder than anyone ever has just by being her silly little self. It's the way she will cry with me at the end of The Princess Bride, not judging me for myemotions, just feeling with me. It's the way I'm twice her size, but she makes me feel so safe and protected from the world, from my insecurities, from my anxieties.
It's the way she feels likehome.
"No, Callum, I think Sophie was filling out paperwork for her cancer treatments and was scared but hopeful that thefucking assholeover there would be there for her," she spits the words, and I can see that Paul hears them by the way his shoulders flinch.
Tonya just shakes her head with a disgusted look on her face, dropping her voice. "I think she got her shit rocked when that prick confessed to cheating, and she had to face the fact that she was about to start this battle alone. I think she had a thousand changes hitting her at once and some things... fell through the cracks. Hell, it took until last month when I went for my mammogram to realize Roxy was still listed as my emergency contact."
