Page 18 of Sunset on the Solstice

Realizing she was starving, Shelby crept down the hallway and bought food from the vending machine: pretzels and candy bars and a diet soda. In the corner, she nibbled on the salty snacks and tried not to look at anyone in the waiting room too closely.

It was then that her roommate Molly texted her.

MOLLY: Did you go home with Orson? Or should I be worried about you? Text me back, please!

Shelby didn’t want to write her roommate back, but she didn’t want Molly to send out a search party, either.

SHELBY: In Cambridge. Jared in a coma. Will call you tomorrow.

MOLLY: You’re kidding. OMG. What happened?

Shelby ignored the message and took a bite of a Twix bar, praying that the sun would come up soon.

When ten in the morning finally rolled around, Shelby filled out a form so that she could visit Jared Kissinger, the coma patient lying unconscious in room 323. A nurse led her down the white hallways. Shelby expected that she’d ask her who she was and what her connection to Jared was, and Shelby was prepared to explain herself in a few sentences: I love Jared. We broke up, but I didn’t want to. But the nurse was unbothered by Shelby’s presence. She had other things to do.

Jared was alone in his room. He was connected to many different beeping machines, and his hands were splayed on the tops of his legs. Shelby noted that his fingernails had recently been clipped, and she felt a surge of jealousy at the idea that some girl had come in to do that. She sat in the chair beside his bed and felt a level of surreality she’d never experienced before. She’d written about the surreal movement countless times in papers. She’d read about it. But this was the first time she’d been in contact with it—and it made her feel like the world was upside down.

“Hi,” she whispered to Jared, her heart racing. “I don’t know what to say. I can’t believe this. I…” She trailed off. Scrutinizing his face, she had the sense that she’d never really seen him before. Had he had that mole on his cheek before?

Feeling foolish, Shelby sat there alone for two hours. She wanted to tell Jared she loved him. She wanted to pull him up from the depths. But there was nothing to do but listen to the beeping of his machines and watch the clock. Already, she’d missed two of her classes and one meeting with her professor, all of which she cleared up with emails from her phone. But a little past noon, her phone died, leaving her naked to the world. What was she going to do?

At one, a couple Shelby recognized as Jared’s parents came into the room and stopped short at the sight of her. Jared’s father Jim looked remarkably like him, with the same haircut and the same intense gaze. His mother, Monica, was slight and blond, like a Swedish ballerina.

“You must be Shelby,” Jim said.

Shelby stood and tried to smile but couldn’t. It only occurred to her now how strange it was that she hadn’t met the Kissingers during their shared summertime on Nantucket. Why hadn’t Jared invited her to his parents’ place?

“Hi,” she said. She told herself not to burst into tears. She didn’t want them to think she was weak. “I didn’t know.”

Jim and Monica sat on the opposite side of their son. Monica touched Jared’s hand, then quickly stopped doing that, as though she didn’t want to be seen having a heart, especially not by Shelby.

“The doctors won’t tell me anything, obviously,” Shelby said, when nobody else spoke.

Jim and Monica glanced at one another, seeming to have a whole conversation without words. Shelby thought about screaming to wake them up.

“He was tremendously careless,” Monica said finally. “All we can hope is that he’ll wake up so we can be fully angry with him.”

“We told him…” Jim began.

“Don’t,” Monica said, before looking back at Shelby and saying, “We were surprised he fell in love with an islander, is all.”

“It messed with his head,” Jim said.

Shelby was taken aback. “I’m not really an islander. I go to…”

“Columbia,” Monica said. “We know.”

Jim nodded, as though being a student at Columbia was even worse than being an islander, or on par. Whatever that meant. Her stomach soured, and she thought she might have to run to the bathroom to throw up her pretzel sticks and candy bars.

“I really care for your son,” Shelby breathed, her eyes wet. “I came as soon as I learned what happened to him.”

“Who told you?” Monica asked, as though they’d tried to keep it a secret.

“It doesn’t matter,” Jim said. “She’s here now. And we all care about Jared. All we can do is pray he’ll get better.”

Feeling foggy-brained and out of her element, Shelby excused herself and walked outside to get some air. It was nearly October, and a drizzle crept through the fog. Out here, Shelby couldn’t pretend to herself any longer that everything was going to be all right. Jared’s parents hated her. Jared was in a coma without any promise of waking up. It all felt tragic.

Just then, two figures appeared in the fog, rushing toward Shelby. Shelby flinched to get out of the way before realizing the figures had their arms open, and they were calling Shelby’s name.