I nod, my throat so clutched I can’t even speak. Thirty hours. I lost thirty hours I’ll never get back… If MC doesn’t make it…
“Drive,” I tell Lex, who quickly returns us to the road.
“Mom, I’ll do my best. We need to organize ourselves, so I can’t promise you anything for now.”
The drive back to the house is a haze. I talk to my mom for half an hour, then my eyes are lost on the road ahead, my mind frantic. As soon as Lex parks in the garage, I jump out of the car and sprint to our bedroom. Time is of the essence, and we already wasted forty and a half hours. There isn’t a second to waste.
I take our suitcases out of the dressing room and throw mine open on the bed.
“What are you doing?” Lex asks, walking in on me shoving an armful of clothes in it.
“Packing. I took yours out as well. I think we can be ready to go in half an hour. Once we’re on the road, I’ll text my mom to let her know our ETA.”
He stands there, doing nothing, as I keep throwing stuff into my suitcase, trying to think of what else I might need to take with me. Bathroom stuff. When I return with my hands full of more things, he still hasn’t moved.
“Can you pack, please?” I insist. “We need to go.”
“Andrea, you need to think about this.”
“What’s there to think about? My abuela, one of the two women who raised me, might be dying in a hospital bed in Portland. Of course I’m going to see her.”
“You’re not,” he counters.
I let what I’m holding fall into my case and send him a confused look. “What? I should send ‘thoughts and prayers’ from afar?”
Once I’ve unplugged my charger, I throw it on top of the disorganized mess of my luggage. That’s good enough. The zipper resists, but pressing on it with my body works.
“Think about this for a minute, will you?” Lex demands.
My suitcase meets the floor with a loud thump, and I roll it behind me, heading for the door. I’m not even changing out of my dirty hiking clothes. I’ll do that in Portland after I’ve seen her.
“Andrea, going there’s reckless. It’ll put you in danger.”
“It’s my grandmother, Lex. She raised me and has been an important part of my life for as long as I can remember. This isn’t negotiable.”
“I’m not letting you go there,” he decides, coming between me and the door. “This is an obvious trap, and there’s no way in hell I’ll let you walk right into it.”
“I don’t care if that’s exactly what that skinhead asshole wants. I’m going. Either you come with me, in which case I will abide by whatever security measures you want to take, or you can stay here and do whatever the fuck you want, Alexander.”
“I’m not letting you leave this house, Andrea. I’m not letting you risk your life for this.”
“Forthis?” I repeat, appalled.
He passes a frustrated hand through his hair. “Fuck, that’s not what I meant.”
“Thisis my family, Alexander. Maybe you wouldn’t give two shits if it was someone from yours, but I care about mine,” I spit out.
The words come out so much harsher than I meant them, but by the time I realize that, it’s too late to take them back. Lex looks down at me with hurt in his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I quickly say. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
He doesn’t answer, still barring the door with his body. Genuinely, I’m sorry to have hurt his feelings, but my abuela might be dying. The woman I’ve looked up to my whole life, the one I want to become when I grow old, is battling for her life. I’ll be damned if I’m not by her side as soon as humanly possible.
For the third time, I move toward the door, but once more, Lex stops me. When I try to shove him out of the way, he grabs me. “Get your hands off me!” I shout.
“Andrea, calm down.”
Fuck, I hate feeling this puny and helpless. Why won’t he fucking let me go? “I need to go! I need to see her!”
