Page 65 of Break Point

“Hi,” I say, trying to make my voice small.

“I’ll give you my chair,” her mom says.

“No, I can stand,” I say, but she pats the now-empty cushion, then steps aside. “I have to use the restroom, and I’d like to walk a bit. We came right from the plane, and I still feel it in my joints,” she says, stretching an arm across her chest.

I nod and take over the chair as her parents slip outside. I hold Jaden’s hand in both of mine and force the calmest expression I can muster onto my face.

“I’m sorry I scared you,” Jaden says, her voice hoarse.

I shake my head.

“I can handle it,” I say. Barely, but I can. And I’ll get stronger.

Her gaze settles on mine, and we look into each other’s eyes for several quiet seconds.

“They said they think I have epilepsy.” Her voice breaks with the word, and that breaks me inside. I keep it there, though.

“That’s what your dad said. They’re running tests?” I glance to the monitor, then to the whiteboard on the wall across from the foot of the bed.

“They are. They want to see how many seizures I have overnight. Seizures.” Her emphasis on that word cuts my chest. Her eyes are tearing up, and that kills me too.

I run my thumb under her eyes, dabbing the tear before it can fully slip down her cheek. I lean in close and run my hand through her hair as her eyes flit closed. Her lips tremble. She’s scared. I’m scared for her.

“You’re going to be okay. No matter what. You’re going to be—”

“How?” she breaks in.

My lips shut, and I give myself a short moment to make sure I get my response just right. The smile hurts to make, because I’m not entirely sure I believe it. But I need her to believe it for her to have a chance to be everything I know she wants to.

“The same way you do everything. With your whole entire heart.”

I clasp her hand between both of mine again, then kiss the back before holding it to my cheek.

“Promise?” she finally utters.

I pull one hand away to cross my heart, and then I wait for her to drift into a much-needed sleep while I mentally plot all the things I need to do to keep it.

Chapter 24

Jaden

I’ve been on levetiracetam for two weeks, which I know is not long enough for side effects to fade, but really . . . I need these side effects to fade. I’m tired all the time. So tired.

I’m also tired of this hotel room. And I’m sure my parents would like to get back to Beck and my grandmother and selling the restaurant. I guess it’s more a matter of settling the restaurant now, though. They aren’t selling it; they’re losing it. They didn’t have to tell me. I figured it out on my own. I’m decent at looking things up online, including bankruptcy filings, it seems. At least for small-business-owning blue-collar folks like my mom and dad. I doubt I could google my way into Bryson’s father’s bank records.

At first, I embraced hiding out. The noise from the Score app fanbase was a lot to take. One influencer, JadenIsMyQueen57, put out an entire series of videos speculating on what happened to me. I’ve tracked down her real name, and she doesn’t even go to Cordon. In fact, she’s in her thirties and lives somewhere in the Midwest, married with two kids. But someone managed to snap a photo of me getting hauled off on a gurney, and the social sphere blew up. I’m pretty sure it was Adrianne, and Taryn’s dying to confront her about it, but I’d rather do it myself.

If I want to do that, though, I’m going to need to leave the hotel premises. And visits to the neurologist don’t count.

“I’d like to sleep in my apartment tonight,” I announce. My parents lift their heads from their bowls of pasta, the same dinner we’ve eaten five nights in a row at the restaurant in the hotel lobby.

They look at one another, then back to me, wordless. I drop my fork into my angel hair with marinara and press my back against the leather booth.

“You guys can’t live with me in this hotel forever. At some point, I have to go back to class. And I’m going to need to figure out what to do about my scholarship now that—”

“You don’t have to decide that yet. Tennis is in the spring, and the doctors said if the medication continues to be effective, there’s no reason you can’t compete.” My father has been insistent that I can still play. Maybe he’s right. It just feels irresponsible. And there’s no way I can make the starting squad with energy levels like this. Even if my neurologist says it’s possible, he didn’t necessarily say he recommended it.

“Humph,” I sigh, flopping my chin in my open palm, elbow on the table. I stare at the cartoon sketches on the restaurant’s wallpaper border. It’s peeling in places, and I’ve grown to hate the illustrated pigs eating fettuccini.