He’s right. When Cosmos says darling, it doesn’t make me think of a creepy old man or a sleazy, suave millionaire. The letters roll through his lips as soft as breath, oxygen to the fire already burning inside me.
I open my mouth to say something, anything, to snuff out the blaze, but nothing comes out.
He smiles, like he knows exactly what I’m feeling, and leans forward, still kneeling in front of me. “I’ll proudly be your first super-fan, darling.”
The endearment lingers in the air like an oath. I break eye contact and look over at Mom. She’s awake now, grinning at me like she just won a bet.
“Fabio booooo,” Mom croons, slurring a little.
“Fabio?” I ask.
Cosmos and I share a look. His brow pulls down along with the corners of his lips. The concern on his face makes me break out in a light sweat. Something’s wrong.
“Mom, are you okay?”
“I’m finnnned.”
“When you add adto the end of fine, you’re notfinnnned.” I quote the line from Friends, but Mom doesn’t laugh.
She pinches her eyebrows together and wrinkles her nose, like she’s trying to concentrate really hard. “He booked you.”
I open my mouth to ask what she means just as today’s nurse appears in the doorway. “You need something?” He’s a burly man, who looks like he belongs at a biker bar, not a hospital. “Someone pushed the call button.”
Cosmos leaps to his feet, away from me. Fast. Shit. We shouldn’t have been so close. I never asked what happened with Samantha last night. The fact that he’s still here tells me he hasn’t lost his job over our nearkiss, but I don’t know exactly what she said, so he still could’ve gotten into trouble.
Despite my mortification over Cosmos reading my romance scene aloud, I take pity on him and break the awkward tension that accompanies Biker Nurse into the room. “Mom, did you page the nurse?”
“Drinky.” She says sleepily, like she’s already had a glass or two of something much stronger than water.
“Did you give her wine or something?” I glare at Cosmos and Biker Nurse, trying to figure out who's to blame, even though I know neither of them would get her drunk. Maybe Mom hoarded some of Aunt Joan’s brownies away somewhere. But that doesn’t seem right. She usually still makes sense when she’s high.
Cosmos takes a breath, like he’s shoring himself up, and looks at Biker Nurse first. “I think the button got pressed accidentally. But it’s a good thing. She’s showing signs of confusion. Can you stop her meds? She might be having a reaction to something. I’ll let Dr. Kim and Dr. Newberry know.” He takes out his phone, thumb moving quickly across the screen.
Biker Nurse unhooks Mom from the IV, then leaves. When Cosmos looks at me again, his expression is tentative. It makes my pulse spike. Something is definitely wrong.
“What’s going on?” I whisper, afraid of the answer, but needing to ask.
“Dr. Kim is on his way. I’ll let him explain, but… occasionally we see this as a side effect from the drug she’s on. It usually results in having to stop the drug early.”
I can’t look at him. I need to see my mom, make sure she’s still here. Still okay. I lean forward and take Mom’s hand, expecting Cosmos to leave, but he doesn’t. He waits with me silently until Dr. Kim arrives a few minutes later. He explains to Dr. Kim that he stopped in to check on Mrs. Berton and found her in a state of confusion. It seems like a nice way of saying she’s making no fucking sense.
“Mrs. Berton, what’s five times nine?” Dr. Kim asks.
“I feel one hundred.” Her words blur together.
“You were right to page me, Dr. Romero.” Dr. Kim pats Cosmos’ arm, then turns to talk to me. “Your mom is going to be okay, but we need to stop the trial drug right away. In very rare cases, this drug can cause swelling in the brain that leads to confusion like this. We’ll get a CT to make sure there’s nothing else going on, but it’s highly likely this is just from the medication. We’ll stop the infusion and watch her closely to see if she improves.”
“What about the trial? Can she still go through with the surgery?”
Cosmos and Dr. Kim share a look that makes me feel like my world is slowly crumbling around me. I try to catch Cosmos’ eye, needing to stop time, wanting to slow all this down. I want him to tell me what Dr. Kim won’t say, to explain what this means for my mom’s chances. No, what I really want is his reassurance that she’s going to be okay.
He doesn’t look at me.
“That will be up to the surgical team. We’ll meettomorrow morning and discuss our options.” Dr. Kim pats my shoulder with an awkwardly limp hand. “It’s likely that we’ll still be able to move forward with the surgery. But stopping the drug early might make the surgery a bit more complicated if the tumors haven’t shrunk as much as we wanted. We won’t fully know until we get in there.”
“What if they haven’t shrunk enough?” Tears are threatening my eyes again, and I blink hard to keep them away.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, she needs to rest.” There’s a softness in Dr. Kim’s voice that just sets my nerves on edge.
