“Mom,” I whisper. This can’t be happening.
“Her pulse is weak.” With quick efficiency, Cosmos swipes the broken glass out of the way. He takes Mom off my lap. Lays her flat on the ground. My vision tunnels. I can’t lose her.
“911, Hazel.” Cosmos’ steady voice directly opposes the hurricane wrecking my insides. “Now.”
I scramble to my feet, run back to my room for my cell phone, and call 911.
“Please state the nature of your emergency.” The voice is infuriatingly calm.
“My mom—” I don’t know what else to say. Mytongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. My throat constricts into a sob.
“Put it on speaker,” Cosmos commands. He continues chest compressions while he explains to the operator exactly what’s happened. I listen, but can’t take it in. His words are foreign.Collapsed. Arrhythmia. Just had surgery. Pulmonary embolism.
I feel like a boat that’s anchor has snapped. I can’t find purchase. There’s no harbor. Tossed. Adrift. Lost. I need it to stop. I need everything to stop.
I grab Cosmos’ arm. “Look at me.”
He looks up, and our eyes meet, but time keeps moving forward. I can still hear the sirens getting closer. Lights flash through the window. A firm, aggressive knock sounds on the door. Why won’t everything stop?
“It’s not working.” My voice sounds far away, like someone else is saying the words. Someone angry.
“Get the door, Hazel,” Cosmos says, his eyes painfully sad. “It’s the EMT.”
I snap out of my daze and run to the door.
The emergency team barges into the house like a stampede, and a middle-aged woman drops to her knees next to Cosmos.
“Dr. Romero?” She sounds surprised.
He doesn’t respond to her unspoken question, only stopping chest compressions long enough for the EMT to take over. “Mrs. Berton lost consciousness roughly ten minutes ago.”
A woman straps a blood pressure cuff to Mom’s arm, while a man pulls out an IV bag of something.He rolls up Mom’s sleeve, and I turn away, hugging myself. I don’t want to watch.
Another man comes up and asks me questions about Mom.
“Does she have any known illnesses?”
“Well… cancer.”
“She’s in Dr. Newberry’s trial,” Cosmos cuts in. “She had surgery less than ten days ago.”
I can’t decipher the look that passes between them.
“Is she on any medication?”
“Yeah. I…” My mind can’t keep up. The medications slip from my memory like little white pills falling through my fingers and onto the floor.
Cosmos takes over, giving the man a quick medical overview and a list of meds prescribed after surgery.
They’ve got Mom on a stretcher now, and we follow them to the ambulance. The EMT jumps in with her, and I move to do the same, but she holds up a hand, and Cosmos takes my shoulders, stopping me. He shares another look with the EMT.
“We can sit in the front,” Cosmos says.
I’m not sure that’s normal procedure, but the man doesn’t argue.
Cosmos must have disappeared for a moment while I was trying to answer the EMT’s questions, because I suddenly notice he’s wearing a shirt and shoes. He hands me my favorite sweatshirt and a pair of flip-flops, but curses as he helps me into the cab of the ambulance. “You’re bleeding.”
He’s right. My feet are cut up from the broken glass on the floor. I didn’t even notice.
