I think back to the moment she held her ground against William. When he all but ordered her out.
She stayed.
She surely is feisty. And loyal. Not at all what I expected her to be.
I turn toward her.
"You know…" I say. "Charlotte will be sedated for hours." I nod toward William. "There are worthier battles than this one in an uncomfortable chair."
I watch her think about it, her eyes going briefly toward William and back.
Then the corner of her mouth lifts. "What do you say," she says. "Should we ditch this joint?"
I can hardly control the laugh that is trying to escape. That would be highly inappropriate given the circumstances.
"Let's go," I say.
We stand. I let go of her hand. I feel the loss immediately. And we cross the room towards William.
Carter looks up when we approach. William looks at us.
"You know how I feel about hospitals." I say it without preamble. William's jaw tightens fractionally. He knows.
"Now that we know Charlotte's okay," I continue, "I'm going. I'll come back when she's awake."
He pulls me in. His hand hits my back once, solid. "I know how hard this was." Said quietly, into the space between us. "Thank you for being here."
I step back. Nod.
Sienna clears her throat and says “I’ll be going to,” and then narrows her eyes at William and says “But, I will be back later… Bill” and without giving him time to reply, she turns and leaves.
I fall into step beside her. The doors slide open.
"You do know he hates being called Bill?" I ask..
She puts her hand flat to her chest. Her eyes go wide with an expression of sincere and deeply unconvincing shock. "Does he?"
We are both laughing when the outside cold hits us.
The fresh air gets into my lungs immediately and I let it. One full breath, all the way down. Out here the air tastes like early morning and nothing else. The city is in that grey-dark hour when the night has run out and the day hasn't started. The parking lot is nearly empty. A couple of cars, a security light at the far end making a column of yellow, the sound of the highway somewhere beyond the building, barely audible.
I stand there for a moment and just breathe.
My nervous system is doing what it always does after hours of holding something down. The tension breaks, and what's left underneath it is restlessness.
The emotional exhaustion has burned through and left something underneath that needs to move, to do something, to feel like I'm still in my own body.
To feel “alive”.
I check my watch. 4:08.
Too late for a club. Too early for a run.
I look at Sienna.
She is standing beside a rusted truck, one hand resting on the door handle but not yet pulling at it. She's looking out at the parking lot, not at me. The yellow column from the security light catches her in a partial profile. She looks tired.
I'm not ready to say goodbye. That's the honest version of it. I can acknowledge that without doing anything about it.
