“She’s alive!”
“She was never dead,” the heavier, gruff voice said.
“Bee? Bee? Can you hear me?”
Minty-berry bubblegum-scented breath tingled over my nose. I knew that scent anywhere. My whole house smelled of it.
“S-Sunny?” my voice croaked as my eyes fluttered open.
Sunny hovered an inch above my face, her deep brown eyes wide and bright, her signature gum hanging like it was about to—
“Oh shit!” she said as the gum bounced off my chin. “I’d been building up that ball of gum since LAX.”
A few feet behind her, Teddy stepped forward and pushed her to the side. “Let’s get you some water and maybe a brush. I promised your moms I’d have you on FaceTime the moment you woke up. We should get you camera-ready for them.”
“So that ferocious monster definitely did not kill me?” I asked, my voice scratchy.
I glanced past him to Sunny, and that’s when I realized that not only was I not dead, but my best fucking friend in the whole wide world was here. And that’s when I began to sob—like, snotty, ugly, meltdown cry. “You’re here,” I managed to say.
“Oh for fuck’s sake, please don’t cry,” Teddy begged.
“Too late,” I said as Sunny flung herself on top of me and joined me in my tears, because my best friend was a bubblegum-chewing empath.
But most importantly... she was here.
And Nolan was not.
Chapter Seventeen
Nolan
“Mr.Kowalczk, there is nothing more I can tell you right now,” an impatient doctor explained on the other end of the line. A hard, cold wind whipped around the corner of the farmhouse I was standing behind and gusted right into the phone’s speaker, which I knew was probably irritating for the doctor, but it couldn’t be helped. The farm, and more importantly its field, had been rented for today’s horse-riding scenes, but the farmhouse was closed to us, and the only thing that counted as inside right now were the canopies the crew were huddled under while they froze their tits off and grumbled about the still-missing last page of the script.
Not exactly where I wanted to handle a family emergency.
“We won’t know anything more until we get the CT scan,” the doctor kept saying. “And until the rest of her labs come back.”
“She just started a new medication,” I said, trying to sound calm and not at all like I wasflipping out, which I had been since Maddie called to tell me that Mom had fainted in the middle of a Michaels parking lot and hit her head on the concrete. “Could she have passed out because of an allergic reaction? When I Googled it, there were all these warnings about severe allergic reactions—”
“We don’t think that’s what’s going on,” the doctor said.
“And her head—”
“—has been stitched and she’s due for her scan at any moment, so we’ll be able to conclusively rule out stroke or concussion.” His voice softened a little. “She’s in good hands. I promise.”
I knew that on an intellectual level. I knew this doctor was probably very good at his job, and that Barb would harass anyone she came across who wasn’t good at their job, and that Kallum would make sure everything outside the hospital was handled. I knew that Maddie was way more mature than she should have to be at this age and had done everything right after Mom collapsed—called 911, given the hospital a list of Mom’s meds, called Barb and me and Kallum.
But knowing something intellectually wasn’t enough, because I should be there. I should be there right now, making sure everyone was okay, and... and I should also be on the other side of the farmhouse doing my job.
Doing my job with Bee, who was terrified of horses and had been relying on me to help her get through the day.
“Nolan?” I heard my sister say. The doctor must have handed the phone back to her.
“Hey, Mads,” I said, trying to exude calm-older-brother energy. “I think I should probably come home tonight—I haven’t had a chance to look at flights yet, but I’m sure I could find one out of Burlington in time for me to drive to the airport—”
“Shut up. You’re not doing that,” Maddie said.
“Maddie—”
