“I’m sorry,” she cried, and if it were possible for a heart to rupture, mine might. Just from bearing witness to hers breaking.Just from hearing the pain in her voice. From hearing her say those words she didn’t need to be saying.
“Shh.” I tucked my head against hers and started walking her down the stairs. Theo was by the door, keys in hand. He gave me a questioning look, and I nodded, accepting his silent offer to drive. “Don’t do that. Stop apologizing.”
“But—”
“No,” I interjected more forcefully as I set her down on the little bench in the entryway. “No, baby.”
Ellie seemed reluctant to release her hold on me—echoing my own sentiments about letting her go. But I needed to find her shoes. I needed to put shoes on her feet so I could get her to the hospital and make sure she was okay and then never let her go ever again.
I frantically scanned the entryway, searching for anything that would work, when Theo’s hand appeared in my direct line of sight, holding her sandals. I took them, nodding in response to my brother as he murmured something about getting the car ready. The porch door creaked a second later, and I tried to focus. I dropped down, sliding El’s leather sandals onto her feet before glancing up to find her blinking at me with watery eyes and a touch of confusion on her pretty face.
“Aren’t you upset?” she breathed.
My stomach lurched, my throat clogging with emotion that I couldn’t hold back any longer.
“Oh, El.” Crouching in front of her, I took her hands in mine. And then I couldn’t say anything else. Not for a long moment, while I looked at the ceiling and struggled to get my words out. Both because I couldn’t get my vocal cords to break free of the chokehold this sudden grief had on me, but also because I didn’t know how to put my feelings into words. “I’m—” I shook my head, crying in earnest now, and Ellie reached up, wiping my tears away with a soul-crushing look in her warm, brown eyes. “Yes.” It was all I could manage. “Yes, but not at you. Okay?”
It took her a long time to agree with me, but eventually, shedid, murmuring, “Okay,” in a voice so soft I might not have known she said it if I hadn’t seen her lips move.
And then, miraculously, Ellie let me take care of her.
I picked her back up, and I brought her to the car, holding her in the back seat on the way to the hospital.
Everything is going to be okay, I told myself, even as Ellie’s pain seemed so thick in the air, filling the car and then the waiting room and then the hospital bed.
Everything is going to be okay.
Everything is going to be okay.
Everything is going to be okay.
It had to be true.
It was the only outcome I’d accept.
seven years ago
SULLY
“Sul, can I call you back later? I’m about to head into a lecture?—”
“Yeah, yeah.” I could barely catch a breath enough to talk, but the hospital loomed in front of me, andfuck, fuck, fuck, I needed to know what I was walking into. “Can you just quickly tell me, like, what it means if someone has a—a pulmonary…embolism? I think that’s—yeah. A pulmonary embolism.”
“I—” Blake’s voice cut off, sounding as though he’d stopped in his tracks. “Why are you asking? A pulmonary embolism is a potentially life-threatening condition. About one in three people—” He stopped short, and a buzzing filled my head; my vision blurred.Life-threatening, life-threatening, life-threatening.“Sully, is something?—”
“Ellie,” I choked out, and Blake went silent. He was so silent that I wanted to scream. “But I talked to her. She was…talking, breathing. She was?—”
I’d never wanted to finish a sentence with the word “okay” more in my life.
“Talking and breathing are good signs.” My brother’s voice had morphed, become a different version of itself. Quieter, more careful. Less like a regurgitation of a textbook. “Was she in a lot of pain?”
“I don’t—I don’t know. She didn’t say anything about pain. She wasn’t in pain this morning. I’m almost there, at the hospital.”
“You need to breathe, too, Sul.”
I tried to, but air felt useless unless Ellie also had it. And I needed to see her, make sure she was still breathing.
“What were you saying?” The words slipped out, my anxieties talking for me. “About one in three people?”
