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“And they’re okay? What was with the look?” His chest felt like it might cave in again. “What’s going on?”
Another knock, this one faint, sounded at the door. A young woman stood there, in thick glasses and a plain, shapeless suit, dressed more for function than for fashion. No makeup, hair in a simple ponytail. She carried a clipboard and a folder. “Mr. Merrick?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m from the Department of Family Services,” she said. “I’m here to talk about your brothers.”
Hannah shuffled the deck of cards and dealt around the table. She’d been playing poker in the hospital cafeteria for three hours, but she’d do it for three more if she had to.
Once everyone had two cards, Chris and Gabriel threw pretzels on the table to cover the blinds, and then the bet went to Nick.
Nick didn’t glance at his cards, though he slid them between his fingers, leaving his eyes on Hannah. “You don’t have to keep doing this.”
She gave a meaningful glance at the pile of pretzels beside Nick. It easily dwarfed every other pile at the table, despite the fact that Adam kept eating from the stash. “Are you kidding?” she said, trying to keep the mood light. “My pride is at stake.”
He ignored her attempted humor, but his voice wasn’t unkind. “We’ll be okay, Hannah. You don’t have to stay.”
His eyes, normally a bright blue, seemed dull and tired, leaving dark shadows above his cheekbones. His skin was pale, those few freckles on his face standing out as if they’d been drawn on. He looked exhausted. They all did.
She wondered what she looked like. She’d been here just as long as they had.
“I know I don’t need to stay,” she said quietly. “I want to.”
“No one wants to spend twenty-four hours in a hospital.”
“It hasn’t been twenty-four hours yet. Are you going to bet or what?”
Now he did glance at his cards, then slid them toward her. “Fold.”
She turned expectant eyes to Adam, who tossed two pretzels into the center of the table. Hunter followed suit.
Chris glanced at his cards, then looked at Hannah. His eyes were as tired as Nick’s, cloaked with some combination of wary suspicion and fear. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you want to stay?”
“Because I care about your brother.” She met his anger head-on, but she didn’t take it personally. They were all ready to snap. The past day had been a careful mix of distraction and compassion and brutal honesty.
They’d been up all night long—and while she’d hoped Michael’s brothers would fall asleep on the hospital couches at some point, they never had. Adult Swim on Cartoon Network had held their attention for a while, in a distracted kind of way, but that had worn off around dawn. They’d downloaded half a dozen new apps on their phones. They’d argued with hospital staff and begged for information on their brother—and later, they’d been surly and guarded with the policeman who’d come to ask them questions about what had happened at the Roadhouse.
Michael’s brothers and Hunter knew less than she did.
Out of desperation, she’d tried to call her father, but he hadn’t picked up, and he hadn’t answered her texts.
Around dawn, she’d found board games stashed in a cabinet in the corner, but they’d glared at her when she’d asked if they’d like to play Uno.
“What?” Gabriel had said, his tone sharp since it was morning and no one had eaten. “No coloring books?”
“Actually, there are,” she’d said. “Want to see who can make the most inappropriate picture out of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse?”
So they’d done that. She hadn’t realized how . . . creative a bunch of teen boys could get. But at least it had cut through some of their tension.
Sometimes they’d sat in silence, just waiting, their worry permeating the very air. At one point she’d stood, planning to take a walk, wondering if maybe her presence was making them more uncomfortable, adding a layer of pressure to hold it together.
But they’d all looked up in surprise, full of questions about where she was going and whether she was coming back.
So she’d stayed.
