“No idea. Jesus, Tati. Is he going to be okay?”
“I’m not sure. I’m not so worried about the cut. It doesn’t look deep. What concerns me are the unknowns: the amount of alcohol in his system and how hard he hit his head. He could have a concussion.”
I drag a hand over my face. “What should I do?”
She looks at me, her expression drenched in sympathy. “We need to call for help.”
The way she sayswemakes my chest tight.
I turn away.
I dial 911.
Piper
I’m in the kitchen the next morning, scavenging for breakfast, when Tati walks through the front door.
I hadn’t realized she wasn’t in the apartment. She was home when Gabi and I came in last night, on the couch watchingThe Notebookwith Mom’s knitted blanket and a box of tissues her only company. Gabi sat down to talk to her while I went into the bathroom to wash my face. I ended up on the floor, crying into a bath towel until my throat ached, leaving splotches of mascara on the white terry cloth.
Tati will be pissed.
Her outfit is uncharacteristically sloppy: a Wahoos T-shirt she must’ve inherited from Mr. Marketing and leggings that are usually reserved for lounging at home. Loose wisps of hair hang in her face. She looks exhausted.
“Are you okay?” I ask, forgetting all about the recent silence between us.
“Not really.” She pulls her I NEED MY SPACE! mug from the cabinet and fills it with cold coffee left over from yesterday. “Davis was admitted to the hospital last night.”
“Oh. God. I didn’t know. Henry and I—”
I’m not sure how to explain what happened at Hudson’s. My heart hurts every time I think about what I saw on Henry’s phone, and how he let me walk out without even trying to salvage what we’ve spent the summer building.
Tati waves me off. “He found his dad unconscious. You need to get in touch with him.”
“I don’t think he’d want—”
“Piper, don’t be petty.” She sets her coffee down and crosses her arms. “If you care about him at all, be there for him. He’s struggling. Trust me, I’m not the person he wants sitting beside him in a hospital waiting room.”
There it is again, her assumption thatI’mthe problem.
When Gabi found me crying in the bathroom last night, she sank down beside me and grasped my hand. She whispered reassuring words. She rubbed my back and wiped my tears and put toothpaste on my toothbrush. She stood by while I scrubbed my teeth and washed my face for real, then tucked me into bed.
“I’ll stay until you fall asleep,” she promised.
Where was Tati?
“He could call me,” I tell her.
I wait for her to ask why he didn’t.
I’m begging her to invest in me. To love me.
She says, “Why are you always so selfish?”
She picks up her coffee and walks out of the kitchen.
Henry
Last night, Tati insisted on following the ambulance in her car, then stuck around at the hospital even after the ER doctorshared her diagnosis—alcohol poisoning, head laceration, minor concussion—and her plan for treatment: oxygen therapy and a steady drip of fluids, vitamins, and glucose.
