I nodded. “Can we see him? I don’t want him to be alone.” I couldn’t stand the thought of him being by himself in that room with nothing but the sounds of beeping monitors. He may not know if he was alone, but I would know.
“Of course,” he answered. “A nurse will come get you and take you to his room.”
My stomach churned. “Thank you,” I said as he shook my hand and started off down the hall.
Cancer.The word on my tongue made me feel like I was being choked. I leaned against the wall and scrubbed my hands over my face. What if Sam had cancer? I thought about the sweet girl in the waiting room who was desperate for some good news about the guy she cared about and how much that one little word could wreck her. I thought about how that word had wrecked me too.
I looked up at the ceiling tiles with the angry fluorescent lights flickering. When I closed my eyes, all I could see was Carrie’s face.
* * *
“I hate this,”Ella whispered, wrapping her arms around my waist and leaning into me. “I hate that she’s hurting, and there’s nothing I can do to make it better.”
We were standing outside of Sam’s room in the ICU, watching through the glass as Grace took a few moments with him. After I’d told her what the doctor said, she’d been dead set on not leaving his side. But once she realized I would be staying with him, she’d agreed to go home long enough to clean up and sleep for a few hours before coming back.
“I know.” My mouth felt like all the moisture had been sucked out of it, yet my insides sloshed around like an abandoned life raft at sea. I felt powerless against God, the universe… life. The events over the previous twenty-four hours seemed to be flashing neon signs reminding me that at any moment, everything I love could be ripped out of my grasp. “I wish I could do something.”
“You being here.” She looked up at me, her eyes puffy and swollen. “That’s something.”
Except I wasn’t there, was I? Physically maybe, but my mind was drowning.
I knew I loved Ella and Grace. I was certain of that. But along with that certainty came the realization that I couldn’t bear the risk of losing them.
“Hey,” Ella said, breaking through my thoughts. “You look like you’re a million miles away. Are you okay?”
I forced a tight smile and nodded. “It’s been a… trying day.”
“I know,” she replied. “But I believe that Sam is going to be okay. I truly do.”
I shook my head. “How can you be sure?” Even if he turned out to be okay, the threat was always looming. It was always there. My life was always one diagnosis, one car accident, one phone call away from being over again. Could I handle that? Could I possibly lose Ella or Grace and survive it?
She sighed. “I can’t, but what’s the alternative? Worrying about it is only borrowing from tomorrow’s problems. What matters is that Sam is important to Grace, and that makes him very important to me. So, no matter what it is, we’ll deal with it. Sam has Grace and the two of us, and I know the others think a lot of him too. We’ll make sure he has all the support he needs.”
I opened my mouth to say something but closed it again, afraid I would give myself away for the coward I was.
“I should get her home,” Ella said. “Are you sure you’re okay to stay here tonight? I could get Katie to come stay with Grace and come back?”
“No, I’m fine.” I kissed the top of her head, inhaling the fresh lemony scent of her hair. “You two go get some rest.”
Her hand lingered on me, and I followed as she entered Sam’s room. “Grace, we should get going.”
Grace was at his side, holding his hand in hers, tears slipping down her cheeks. She was quiet for a few moments before finally nodding. She stood and made her way to me, nestling herself under my arm. “Take care of him,” she murmured.
“I will,” I promised.
Ella placed a soft kiss on my lips. “We’ll see you in the morning.”
“Let me know you made it home safe.”
Ella nodded, placing her arm around Grace’s shoulders. “I know Bradley Cooper’s going to be ready to break out the welcome wagon for you,” she said as she steered her from the room, leaving me alone with Sam.
I took the seat by the bed that had been occupied by Grace, resting my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands. “Sam, buddy, I’m here, okay? I don’t know if you can hear me, but I’m right here.”
The room was cold, the kind of cold that could cut you in half, which was fitting because I felt like I was being pulled in two different directions. Half of me longed to be with Ella—to be the type of man she and Grace could depend on. But the other half knew better. A happy ending like the one Jax and Liv had? They were rare and hard to come by.
They possessed a certain magic—the kind movies were made about that sparkled across the screen in technicolor. Any movie about my life would be made in black and white and shades of grey. And no matter how much I wished it to be different, it was very possible that when the credits rolled on my movie, a sad song would be playing as the screen faded into darkness.
I closed my eyes, the silence in the room punctuated by the rhythmic sound of the ventilator and the hums and beeps of the monitors Sam was hooked up to. It was a soundtrack that was both unnerving and hauntingly familiar. With my eyes closed, I remembered sitting in another sterile room much like the one I was in, waiting for Carrie to wake from surgery. It was the day we found out that what was supposed to be a new beginning was really the beginning of the end.
