My fingers close around the edge and I pull back the curtain, listening hard over the messy clattering sound the metal rings make against the rod.
I freeze, curtain still in hand.
Syd is reaching around Devon’s head, trying to get at her hair band and Devon is smacking her hands away, much like she had when I tried to inspect her Achilles.
“Hi,” she says from beneath Syd’s armpit.
That smile. I forget to breathe.
Syd spins, smiles at me, and says, “I’ll be waiting in the men’s locker room,” then brushes past and leaves me to take in what I’ve been missing.
She’s sitting on the table with her legs up and her shoes off so that I can see the bottom of her socks where there’s a little picture of an open can labeled whoop ass.
My tongue is so thick, I’m going to choke on it. Her cheeks redden a little and she pulls her bottom lip into her mouth. Talk, Jeff. Move. But I can’t even think past the moron screaming in my brain.She’s here. She’s here.
No shit.
She looks down at her lap. The smile that blinded me when I opened the curtain has crumbled at the edges as she rambles. “I came with Syd. For moral support—not that she needs it—and I’m in town to meet Dr. Basantis about a job offer—but I’m sure you know all about that.”
I nod.
“Jeff—” she starts then stops. She slides her ass to the edge of the table and reaches her toes toward the tile that’s still a stretch away.
“Don’t stand up,” I tell her.
She narrows her eyes.
“Just give me a second to think. And to figure out this isn’t my reoccurring dream,” I say.
Her smile unfolds, slow but certain.
She scoots back onto the table and bends her legs beneath her.
Her voice is a whisper. “What you did for Syd. No. What you did for my mother. For me.”
I take a step closer. Reach out to touch her foot, then pull back.
“It’s no different than what you’ve done for every student in your classroom.”
She shrugs and says, “It was nothing.”
“We both know it’s not nothing.”
“Fine, it’s something.” She looks up at the hospital lights and chuckles. “You know your mom sent me a care-package.”
“I’d heard—made Jenny go pick up whatever the hell it was?—”
“It was a vibrator,” she laughs.
Oh, mother. What the hell am I going to do with that woman?
“With a note—a poem really—while you’re away without my son, bought you this for a bit of fun.”
I nod. “Clever.”
“Very,” Devon agrees.
“So, why are you here?” I ask.
