“Listen, I shouldn’t have brought it up.” I tuck my hands in my pockets,panic attack pockets, and try to look unaffected. For myself, for her. “You’re probably right.”
“No, I’m—” She raises a hand to her brow again, looks over her shoulder back toward the door of the showcase. “Let’stalk about it.”
“Greer, please,” I say, my voice firm, distant, calm. I am such anasshole. “I’m sorry I said anything. Go back in, all right? I’ll be in right behind you, and we’ll finish this.”
Finish what, I don’t know. I only know I want what I wanted when I left that room, and that’s to be alone, to collect myself. For a few seconds, Greer stares across the sidewalk at me, her blue eyes looking darker than usual under the streetlight, against the fabric of her dress, and she’s so beautiful, sonecessaryto me that I drop my eyes, stare down at my own feet against the concrete, already rallying my thoughts to go back inside.It’ll be fine.Less than an hour.
It’s why I miss what comes next; it’s why I don’t see Greer turn away. It’s a split second of movement—all that’s necessary, really, for my heart to stop beating—Greer turning to go back inside, a shouted, too-late warning, the skid of a tire, the gasp of shock followed by the brief,aborted scream.
And the sick, thudding sound of Greer’s body hitting the ground.
* * * *
“She’ll be all right, man.”
Aiden’s voice is a quiet rumble beside me, a gentle giant comfort that’s so different from how he was—fast, efficient, emotionless—in those first minutes on the sidewalk, after he’d run out to where it’d happened, to where I’d knelt on the ground beside Greer, the barely even bruised cyclist frantic next to me,to where Greer—
I bring my hands up from where they rest between my legs, press my palms against my eyes, trying to get the image out of my head. Greer on the ground, her body tangled with the frame of a bicycle, blood on the sidewalk, enough of it that I hadn’t been able to tell, at first, where it was coming from—a gash across her forehead, one on her leg, a long, ugly scrape from her elbow to the palm of her hand. All of that I could’ve handled, maybe. All of it would have been easier if she’d opened her eyes. If she’d moved at all.
“They put her—” I say, my voice shaky, my throat clogged with terror even at the thought of it. “On that board.” The one they’d strapped her to, calling instructions to each other about staying steady, not moving her head or neck, keeping her as still as possible.
“Not uncommon,” Aiden says. “She’s high risk, but she was awake in the ambulance. She passed all her pulse, motor, and sensation tests. That’s a good sign.” Aiden’s put his hand on my shoulder, squeezing slightly. We’re seated on a row of chairs in the lobby of the emergency room, slightly apart from the rest of the group—Greer’s siblings and their respective partners, Zoe and Kit and Ben, even Greer’s boss, whom I’ve learned in the last hour of waiting is named Dennise. She sits a little apart too, her head bent and her hands clasped, as thoughshe’s praying.
Greer’s parents are with her, rushing into the hospital two hours ago, Susan’s keening cry audible even before they passed through the doors. When they’d gone back, welcomed through the swinging double doors by a nurse, I’d felt the same powerful but utterly useless anger and frustration that I’d felt when they’d put her in the ambulance, when Humphrey—her brother, of course her brother—had been the one allowed toride with her.
I nod at what Aiden’s said, desperate to believe him. But I saw her, Isawher there, pale and motionless and cut up; I’d been all of fifteen feet away from her and I hadn’t been able to stop this, to keep her from this. He could tell me she was dancing a waltz back there, swimming laps, what the fuck ever, and none of it would help until I get some picture of her in my mind to replace the one that’s haunting me.Please,I think, looking over at Dennise,be the kind of person whose prayers get answered.
There’s a melodious chime that makes me raise my head instantly, spots from the pressure dancing behind my eyes as I look toward the double doors. It’s Michael there, his face drawn but relieved, and he puts both his hands up as we all stand at once, making ourway toward him.
“She’s okay,” he says, and that’s the first time I realize Aiden must not have taken his hand from my shoulder, because he squeezes it again, shaking slightly, like he’s making sure the news connects, making sure I feel it through my body. Beside me, Kittakes my hand.
“She’s got a broken wrist, and sixteen stitches in the cut along her calf, from where she got caught up in the bike chain. Also—uh—” He raises his hand, touches the exact spot on his own forehead where Greer had been cut. “Some glue for the injury here.”
“Thank God,” someone breathes, maybe Cary’s wife; I’m not sure.
“Her CAT scan was good. No skull fractures. No bleeds.” He takes a shaking breath. “No damage toher vertebrae.”
It takes me a second to realize the noise I hear comes from me, a groaning sob that I have to place my hand over my mouth to stop. Other than the firm pressure from Kit’s hand, I’ve got no idea if anyone else notices; most everyone is breathing out their own relief, putting arms around each other or clasping hands together in gratitude. “Please,” I say, grateful to be standing close to the front of the group. “Please letme see her. I—”
Michael looks to me, and I hold his eyes. Maybe I should feel embarrassed. Maybe I should feel like the outsider here. Of everyone out in this lobby, I’ve known Greer the shortest period of time. I’ve got the most tenuous connection to her life here. But in the look I give him, I’m trying to tell him that I know Greer just as well.
That I love Greer just as much.
“He was with her,” Kit says from beside me. “When she got hit. Please, let him go back.”
Michael shifts his eyes to the whole group. “She’ll be up in a room within a couple of hours, and then you all can take turns.” He looks back to me, giving me a brief nod. “I’ll take Alex with me now.”
I sag in relief and gratitude against Kit, who’s reached her other hand across her body to grip my forearm above where she holds my hand. Aiden gives me a firm clap on the back, and—yeah. He’s basically the nicest fucking guy I’ve ever met, or at least as nice as Ben, as Henry, as Bart—another dot on the map I’ve made here. I’d hug the hell out of him if I wasn’t so busy catchingup to Michael.
It’s louder behind the double doors, more beeping machines and ringing phones and shuffling feet. When we’re halfway down the hall, Michael stops and turns to me. “They gave her something for the pain. She’s always been sensitive to opiates, so she—she’s not awake right now. Don’t let that scare you.” He’s got a gentle, understanding look in his eyes, beneath all his own concern. “It’ll probably be a long wait.”
I think about that as we make our way down another hall, past several curtained bays, past a couple of empty gurneys along the walls, past a few medics leaning in doorways, heads bent over clipboards. Years ago, on one of my first freelance jobs in Argentina, I’d met a photographer for Reuters named Oumar who’d watched me shoot a protest in Buenos Aires, masses of young people holding signs and raising fists in the air. “You don’t understand the light,” he’d said to me, telling me I had to learn to wait for it. I’d argued—I had to get the shot in the moment, when the news was happening. But he’d stuck to his guns. “They’ll be here for hours. You’ll get a better shot when the light changes. Waitfor the light.”
I’d taken some of my best pictures later that afternoon, and from then on, I’d done my best, whenever I could, to wait for the right light, to watch it move across the landscape, my eyes chasing it, chasing that moment where it’d give me the right illumination.
So when Michael pauses before another curtained bay, his hand pausing briefly before pulling it back, that’s what I steel myself for again, the waiting. I’ve been waiting for the right light my entire adult life. Chasing it.
Iknow the light.
