“But you need to be in there. You care about her, right? You’ll make sure she doesn’t die.” I shake my head, trying to clear it. But nothing will get rid of this nightmare.
“This is the right choice, Hazel,” Julia says. She’s using her social worker voice, not the one she used with Cosmos the other night at dinner, but the one she used the first day I met her. Gentle. Cheerful. Firm. “He can’t be your boyfriend and be on your mom’s team. It’s a conflict of interest. A breach of ethics.”
“Then… you’re not my boyfriend. I’m breaking up with you.”
Cosmos rears back like I’ve punched him. “You don’t mean that.”
“I do.” Even if the tears streaming down my cheeks say otherwise.
“It won’t make a difference,” Julia says. “He’s already too close, and the relationship was disclosed when the EMTs saw him at your house.” Her steady logic is not what I’m wanting in this moment. Not at all.
“She needs you,” I repeat, hating how whiny I sound, how my throat constricts. I can feel the tension building in my body and shaking through my muscles. I’m barely managing, one wrong word, wrong movement, wrong breath away from yelling and losing it completely.
“She’s in good hands.” Cosmos reaches for me again, but I step away. I feel like the room is contracting, tightening like a trap. The numbness is gone, and in its place is something animalistic, wild, desperate.
“But what if—” I pace away from Cosmos and Julia. “I can’t lose her.” I chant the words like a roar, louder each time.
“They’re doing everything they can,” Julia says.
“You don’t understand.” I’m yelling, and I don’t care. I can’t stop it anymore. The animal of emotion I’m always trying to subdue has burst its cage. “She’s my person. She’s the only family I have. She’s my best friend. If I lose her, I lose everything. I lose a part of myself that no one else knows, no one else sees, no one else cares about. She’s the only one. No one else cares. It’s just her. I. Can’t. Lose. Her.”
Cosmos takes a hesitant step toward me. “She’s not the only one who cares about you, Hazel.” Hishand comes up like he’s going to touch me, but stops a few inches away. “I care.”
“No. You don’t.”
He drops his hand. His lips curl under. I’ve hurt him. I don’t want to hurt him. But this is what I do. I can’t control this animal all the time, and when it gets out, it bites and scratches and injures. Jeremy tried to tame it to no avail. It always breaks free eventually. I always break down eventually. Kane learned that when Mom was first diagnosed. He couldn’t handle it, so he left. Mom was the only one who knew how to sit with me when I was like this, let it pass without taking it personally, pet the beast into peace.
It’s better Cosmos finds out now. “You don’t really know me, Cosmos. Not really. This is me. I’m messy and emotional. I’m too much and not enough. I melt down. I freak out sometimes for reasons I can’t even explain. Reasons that make no sense at all.”
“Your mom’s in surgery, Hazel. It makes sense that you’re feeling a lot.”
“But that’s just it. This isn’t an anomaly. I get mean and self-protective. I throw tantrums. I’m a grown woman, and I throw tantrums.”
Julia steps between the two of us. “I think Hazel needs some space right now. You can talk about this later.”
“I’m not giving up.” Cosmos waves a hand between us.
“Right.” My laugh is dark, bitter. “Just like you didn’t give up on the other girls you thought the universe wanted you to be with when you found outthey’re real people with real faults.” I spit out the words, and he reels back.
“That’s not fair,” he says defensively.
“No? Well, what do you think they thought? When you told them it was destiny and then left? We’re no different. Don’t you get it? We can’t stop time anymore. It’s over. We’re done. There’s no reason for you to want me now. We may as well get it over with.” The words spew out of me with no thought, only fear.
“Wearedifferent. I never told those women we were destined to be together.” Cosmos is yelling, too, now. “What I felt for them is nothing like what I feel for you. I barely knew them. Sure, I fell fast, and it never lasted long. But I already know you better than I knew any of them. You make it sound like I’ve pathologically broken hundreds of hearts. That’s not true.”
“That’s what she made it sound like.” I jut a finger at Julia.
She holds up her palms in front of her. “Hey, I wasn’t trying to imply anything like that. I just thought it would be good to go slow. This is exactly why… This isn’t a conversation to have while your mom’s in surgery. I think you should both take some deep breaths.”
“Are you kidding?” I almost laugh. “Deep breaths won’t do anything for me now. My mom is on an operating table. Dying. I’m way past taking deep breaths. I’m way past all of this. I hate this! I hate allof this!” I wave both hands through the air frantically, loud enough to attract even more attention.
A male nurse peeks through the door with a concerned frown. “Everything okay in here?”
Julia shrugs. Cosmos gives me a long look. A long look that doesn’t stop time.
“I’ll go check on things.” He pushes past the nurse and out of the room. Gone. Just as I expected.
I sink to the floor. All the heat expended. The wild animal, exhausted. Julia doesn’t try to get me to move to a chair. She sits down on the floor with me and lets me cry.
