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I look up at his face and find it curiously soft. I nod and toss my chili dog trash and Kellan takes my hand.
We walk down a long, white and gray hall that seems to skirt the outside of the building, and Kellan’s breathing is more audible. I stop us. I tug at his sweater.
“What are you doing?” I smile up at him. “Just brushing off some white lint.”
“Are you?”
“Yep. We can resume now.”
The walk is long, so I can tell he must really want to go here. And then we reach the “ambulatory transfer” area, and I blink. It looks a little like the warehouse where we met Pace and Manning that night. I see some nurses at a nurse’s station, and a door to an ER, but otherwise it’s empty.
“Nice place. Lively.”
He smiles down at me. I wish I could see his mouth, because based on his eyes alone, the smile looks sad.
“It was lively that day. Lots of people.” I can’t help wrapping an arm around him. Standing extra close to him. I look up at his face. “People for you?”
He nods.
I squeeze my eyes shut, because I really don’t want to make this about me and my guilt.
His gloved hand rubs my arm through my sweater. It’s an absent gesture, showing how in tune we are with each other’s unspoken thoughts; he doesn’t know I feel sick with guilt, but he can tell I need his touch. I watch his eyes circle the room. And I realize with a jolt: I think he wants me to ask.
So I put on my big-girl panties. “What was it like?” I ask softly.
He pulls me under his arm, up against him, then he wraps an arm around my back.
“I don’t remember that much,” he says, looking thoughtful. “Lots of Dil.” That’s what the nurses call Dilaudid.
I don’t mean to—not at all. But my eyes fill up with tears, and they spill down my cheeks. His eyes widen. He grabs my shoulders. “Hey—what’s wrong?” His voice is low and hoarse, and warm... and loving. “Cleo baby...” His arm comes around me. “You want to go back upstairs?”
“No.” I press my face into his sweater. I can feel him urge me down the hall. “I’m sorry, Cle. There’s flashing lights. That means they’re bringing someone in.” I open my eyes to see flashing lights over the hall.
“Oh shit. I’m sorry.”
We move quickly down the hall, and then we spot an elevator. His hands touch my chest. “Cleo—look at me.”
I do.
“Tell me you don’t feel... sorry? That you didn’t fly with me that day?”
Tears drip down my cheeks. “Of course I do. I hate it that I didn’t come. I didn’t know what to do, so I did the wrong thing,” I whispered. “I took a taxi to my car. Rambled around and figured out the R. connection. And then I got here and…” I shake my head.
“That bad, was I?” I see his cheeks under the face mask. He’s smiling. Trying to make me feel better.
“It was that bad. You didn’t even look at me.”
Kellan pulls me to him, wrapping me tight against his chest. He leans against the elevator’s corner and tightens his grip on me, squeezing me so tight it almost hurts. His face presses into my hair. I feel his chest rise with a deep breath...
I hold onto him as we ride up up and then back down... and up again... and down. No one gets into the elevator, so we sink down to the floor and I sit tucked under his arm.
I can barely breathe. My heart is vibrating. My throat is so so full. I can feel it in him too. The things he wants to say are living in the air around us. Tap tap tapping. They are waiting to be heard.
So I’m surprised when he lifts his arm off me and pulls me to my feet. He tucks my hand in his, and we get off on our floor.
We walk to our room with no fanfare, and when we get there, Arethea connects two IV bags and Kellan lies on his side holding his phone, and I snuggle in behind him like I always do.
But when she leaves the room, he cuts the lights and turns toward me and grips my face so hard his fingers maybe bruise me and he whispers: “It was always you. That’s what I think. Ask me when my mother died, Cleo.”
