“VAN, WHERE ARE YOU? NOLAN’S AWAKE!”
Fifteen
Nolan’s room is chaos. The entire family is there, including Aunt Sheila and the guy Alice has finally nailed down as Uncle Joe, plus what looks like every nurse and resident on shift today. People are bustling around, calling things out to each other, Babs is wailing loudly with happiness, and Alice tries to disappear into the background.
Her mind is spinning. She should be figuring out her next step here—she needs to act quickly. He’s awake; that means it’s time to come clean. To tell the Altmans about the misunderstanding, to plead for their forgiveness that she let this charade get so out of hand. It was always the plan to tell them right when he woke up so that their elation would keep them from realizing how weird her obsession with the family is, how fucked up it is that she (technically never) lied to them.
But now that it’s happening, now that “when he wakes up” is the same time as “right now,” it feels impossible. It’s so busy and frantic in the room; what did she expect? That it would bequiet and soft, only the family there, maybe just Babs and Marie, actually, and she’d say, “Okay, so, fun fact about me…” and they’d all say, “Whatever, honey!” and that would be that?
What the fuck kind of plan was this? Why the hell did she convince herself this was going to work?
“Holy shit,” she hears one of the young doctors whisper to another. “I’d have bet serious money this guy wasn’t waking up.”
“Dude, I know,” the other whispers back. “Never would’ve seen this coming.”
Oh right. That’s why.
Because the good thing has never happened to Alice in this hospital. Every test to “rule something out” always came back positive. Every operation that had a good chance of success failed. Every condition they could have survived, they didn’t. Her mom died. Her dad died. At one point or another, both of her parents had better odds than Nolan did after nine days, and they both died.
Alice didn’t think he would wake up.
But he did. And it’s not that she’s upset about it—she’s thrilled for him, for the family—but she’s quickly realizing that she is well and entirely fucked.
She looks over and sees Van wiping a tear off her cheek, and her heart clenches. The plan was shitty twenty minutes ago, but as of ten minutes ago, this is a full-fledged catastrophe. Ten minutes ago, Alice had her tongue in Van’s mouth, her hands under Van’s sweater. Alice was literally groping Nolan’s sister ten minutes ago, only feet away, and now Van is crying with joy that he’s awake and what Alice is about to tell her is going to absolutely ruin everything.
No way can they come back from this enormous lie. No way can Alice see any of the Altmans ever again, nor wouldthey want to see her. The girl who lied to them, who manipulated them during the worst nine days of their lives, the girl who abused their kindness and ended up pitting Van against her comatose brother.
No way will Van ever want to kiss her again.
“Van,” Alice says, because she’s already losing what nerve she has, but she has to do this before Nolan sees her and asks who she is. “I have to tell you something.”
Van is turning to look at her, but at that moment, Nolan says, “Marie, when did you dye your hair back?” and the whole family stills.
Alice looks sharply over at Marie, who has the same jet-black hair as everyone else in the family. Is it dyed? It looks natural, but what does Alice know? She’s not a cosmetologist. Although there were those couple of pictures of Marie from high school on the wall when she had bright blue hair, weren’t there?
“What?” Marie asks. Maybe they all heard him wrong.
“Your hair,” Nolan says, blinking as a resident shines a light into his eye. “It was blue.”
“Nolie,” Babs says, her voice weirdly high. “Marie got rid of the blue for her sophomore musical. That was…years ago, honey.”
Nolan blinks, clearly confused. “It…was?”
“What the hell,” Van whispers. She’s not taking her eyes off the bed, but her hand finds Alice’s, and she squeezes it so hard that Alice starts to worry about permanent damage. But it’s the last time they’ll ever hold hands—not to mention the first—so Alice swallows back her wince of pain and returns the pressure as best she can.
“Nolan,” his dad says, leaning down over him. “What’s the last thing you remember, son?”
Nolan shrugs, still prostrate in the bed. “I don’t know. Being at work. Talking to Angela about the Howerman case.”
“Angela?” Babs says, looking at her husband with what Alice thinks might be panic. “Wasn’t she…doesn’t she work in L.A.?”
“Yeah,” Nolan says slowly. He looks like he’s aware there are some puzzle pieces missing, but he has no idea how many or what it means. “She has the office next to mine.”
“In L.A.,” Steve says, and Nolan nods.
“Obviously, yeah. In L.A. Is that not…Aren’t we in L.A.?”
Van’s grip gets even tighter. Alice can feel the sweat on her palm. “Fuck,” she mutters, and Alice figures that’s pretty apt.
