Page 129 of No Good Fight

And I can fix it by drinking the water he’s offering.

I try to say Mrs. Vance’s name, but my throat turns it into a broken rasp that barely counts as sound. Ryder understands anyway.

He sets the cup down before he spills it and says, “She’s alive. Minor smoke inhalation, small burn on her hand, and she’s already yelled at three nurses as of my last count.”

Relief hits so hard I shut my eyes. The room moves strangely behind my eyelids, tilting and dimming, while the nurse checks the monitor, adjusts the oxygen, and flashes a light into my eyes that makes the pain sharpen.

She asks my name, the year, and where I am. I answer with a voice that sounds like it belongs to someone who gargled gravel, but I get enough right that she doesn’t look alarmed. Ryder watches her face after every answer, reading her before he looks at me, like he can memorize medical reactions and force them into changing.

The next several hours come apart in pieces. Mom cries beside the bed with a tissue wadded in one hand and her other hand hovering near my blanket until I reach for her. Dad stands by the window holding a folder he has no reason to have yet because paperwork gives him something solid. Josh stays in the doorway with his arms folded, refusing chairs, water, and every attempt Nia makes to physically move him. Nia eats half of my green Jell-O with a plastic spork she pulled from her pocket, then slides it back onto the tray when I glare at her, which makes Mom cry harder for reasons I don’t have enough oxygen to unpack.

Ryder never leaves the chair closest to me. He doesn’t touch me unless I reach first, but every time I shift, he moves like his body has already decided to catch me. When a doctor comes in and explains that the swelling they saw on the scan is stable, Ryder listens with both hands on his knees and his jaw locked.

Repeat checks, oxygen levels improving, no driving, no being alone, no work, return immediately for vomiting, confusion, worsening headache, vision changes, weakness, or anything that feels wrong. The doctor says it all in a practical voice, and Ryder absorbs each instruction like a threat he can file away and defeat later.

By late afternoon, my voice has returned enough to ask about Mrs. Vance again while Mom is tucking my hair behind my ear with the kind of carefulness that makes me feel five years old and feverish. Mom’s mouth tightens, but she doesn’t cry this time. She reaches for her phone from the little table near the bed and opens a video with the volume turned low.

“She was discharged this morning,” Mom says, turning the screen toward me. “The nurse said she refused another night of observation because hospitals are where germs go to network and she’s got a hotel room that’s more comfortable than any gurney bed.”

The laugh hurts before it gets out. Ryder is halfway out of his chair before I wave him back with two fingers, and even then he stays leaning forward until the coughing passes. Nia takes the phone from Mom and holds it lower so I don’t have to lift my head.

Mrs. Vance fills the screen in a hospital chair, lemon scarf back on her head, oxygen tubing under her nose, one bandaged hand lifted toward a reporter like she is either making a point or preparing to slap someone. The caption calls me a local hero.

Mrs. Vance disagrees with the reporter before he finishes his question. “That girl dragged me to the window and set off that awful screeching thing, and if your headline doesn’t say she saved my life, I’ll know you weren’t listening.”

The clip ends with Nia locking the phone before my face can do anything embarrassing. “Marcy texted me because Mrs. Vance has been calling every outlet in town and within a hundred miles. She wants you to be called the Birch Harbor Badass, but Marcy says that might not clear editorial standards.”

I close my eyes. “Tell Marcy I’m medically opposed to headlines.”

Josh looks up from the discharge packet Dad handed him ten minutes ago that has the list of everything they’re going to require of me when I get to go home. “Mrs. Vance said she’ll write her own if she has to, and then she’ll make sure it gets printed herself.”

That helps in a place deep down in my soul, one I didn’t even know I have. I don’t want to be called a hero, but Mrs. Vance is alive and furious enough to threaten journalism from a hospital chair. For a few minutes, that is the only thing I let myself hold onto. She’s alive. I helped keep her that way. The woman whose only crime was caring enough about me to try and keep me safe.

“She would.” I croak.

They discharge me near dusk because the second scan is stable, my oxygen numbers have improved, and I pass enough neurological checks to convince everyone except Ryder that I’m allowed outside.

I tell the nurse the current president is Mrs. Vance just to see whether the woman has a sense of humor. She does not.

Ryder looks like his soul briefly leaves his body. Nia laughs into her sleeve.

Josh tries to smother her. “Don’t encourage her, Nia.”

“Don’t call me Nia.” She snaps back. “That’s not my name for you, and you damn well know it. Your sister almost died. She can make a joke if she wants to.”

That’s that, and not even Ryder contradicts her, even though I can feel the fear and emotion in his every movement and look.

Ryder carries everything when we leave. The discharge folder, my shoes, the prescription bag, my ruined clothes in a clear plastic bag, and the sweatshirt they cut off me. He has no legal place on any paperwork, no reason the hospital should hand him pieces of me, but everyone does it anyway. Mom gives him the medication instructions. Dad gives him the folder. Josh gives him nothing, but he watches Ryder take it all without argument and doesn’t tell him to stop or try to take it.

Cold air hits my face outside, wet and clean and blessedly free of smoke. Ryder’s truck is at the curb, with Josh’s behind it and Dad’s car behind that, making us look like the saddest parade in Maine.

“Let’s go home.” Ryder presses a soft kiss to my forehead before he catches himself and pulls back again.

Ryder opens the passenger door and waits with one hand braced above the frame. He doesn’t touch my elbow until I reach for his wrist, and then his whole body shifts toward me. He helps me in slowly, one palm at my back, the other guarding my head from the doorframe, his hands steady in a way his breathing is not.

The ride home happens without music or even a discussion. My phone sits dead in my lap until Ryder plugs it into the charger before he even starts the engine. The screen glows with too many missed notifications, so I turn it facedown and watch rain slide across the windshield instead. Sleep tugs at me, but every time my eyes drift shut, I see orange under Mrs. Vance’s door and hear Ryder shouting my name from somewhere I could not reach.

His house is lit up when we arrive. Every exterior light is on, washing the yard white while the cameras catch our little procession before we hit the driveway.