Page 27 of You’re So Vein

“I resent that. I am a bottomless well of sunshine. Look over there!” I shout, pointing at the ward behind him. “Someone is urinating without a permit.”

Augustin lowers his arm as he turns to look. I did not expect that to work. I swipe the flowers from his hand and take off down the hall.

“Ms Ahuja, give those back! This is childish!”

But even as he admonishes me, I feel his breath on my back as he gives chase. Augustin Durant can’t bear to lose. I leap through the door to Papa’s room, whooping with triumph. Augustin grabs my arm and spins me. My back hits the wall, and his long arms cage me in, his face inches from mine.

I freeze as I flashback to being trapped with him in the stationery cupboard. His scent, his soft, deep voice telling me a story, the cool reassurance of his hands drawing circles on my back. The way he’s looking at me now is anything but safe.

His eyes are blown out, the black irises consuming the warm amber. He’s breathing hard, his chest grazing mine every time it rises. The sharp point of a fang peeks out of the corner of his lip. I remember what he said before, that he hasn’t had blood, that he’s sick with hunger. Is he seeing me, his archrival, or is he seeing dinner?

And why do I want to tilt my head to the side and find out?

“Did you two lovebirds come to see me?”

Augustin leaps back as Papa emerges from behind his curtain, gripping his IV pole for dear life, dragging several tubes and drains behind him. I press my hand to my chest, willing my heart back to normal. If Papa hadn’t interrupted us, what would have happened?

What did I want to happen?

Wait a second—

I narrow my eyes at my father. “What are you doing? Get back into bed!”

“I’m going home, Beta,” he says, pointing to the walker at the door. “It’s Social Night tonight. I haven’t missed a single one, and I’m not going to let cancer stop me.”

Social Night is a monthly meetup for the local desi community. It used to be organised by the Hindu centre in the nearby village of Grimdale. But then too many well-meaning white people got into yoga and Eastern philosophy and started coming along, and it hindered our ability to bitch about well-meaning white people getting into Eastern philosophy, plus their potluck contributions are TERRIBLE. So Papa started running it from our house instead.

Papa’s jaw is set in his “do-not-question-me” face, but he’s breathing heavily and dragging a ton of tubes and drips behind him. There is absolutely no way he’s been cleared to leave the hospital. I debate calling Mamma, but that would result in the entire auntie network descending on the oncology ward, and I won’t do that to Shera.

I have to fix this.

“Papa, I don’t think this is a good idea. Look—” I hold out the red flowers. “This was the last bouquet left by the Gorilla Gardener. They’re your favourite red – the colour of Mamma’s wedding sari. Why don’t we get you back to bed, and I’ll put these in water and tell you about the crazy customers I had today—”

“Beta, you will drive me to Social Night.”

“That’s not a good idea.” I can be just as stubborn as Papa. After all, I got it from him. “Back to bed.”

“Absolutely not. The doctor said I could go home.”

“He did?”

Papa nods vigorously. “He did. He said that I’m mostly recovered from the surgery now. All he had to do was sign my paperwork and I can leave. But then he got called away to an emergency and hasn’t been back to sign it off yet, and I’ve been waiting forever and I’ve never missed a Social Night.”

I turn to Augustin, knowing that Mr Sensible Vampire will talk him out of this madness. But instead he says, “I have an idea.”

He disappears into the hallway and returns with a wheelchair.

“Chirag, you get into this. Councillor Ahuja, you wheel him out to the car and get him inside.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Create a distraction. Hand me those flowers.”

Reluctantly, I hand them over, still not convinced this isn’t some grand plan of his to steal the last bouquet. Instead, Augustin waves his hand over the blooms and stalks out into the ward. I watch from the door as he walks up to the nurses’ station and says, “Excuse me, I have a strange problem. These flowers seem to be exploding.”

Shera’s head snaps up. “What?”

Somehow, the flowers multiply. They cascade from Augustin’s hands across Shera’s desk, springing up nearly to the ceiling, creating a cunning screen between the station and the open door of the ward.