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“So he’s in a coma?” My voice sounds dead and dry.
“Cleo... I don’t know.” She holds my hands. We’re in my suite at the hotel. “You need to eat.”
“I eat chili dogs. Did you know it’s my blood?” Tears leak from my eyes. “I made Kellan sick.”
“No you didn’t. CMV is common. Very common. He got it at the most likely time to get it.”
Whitney pulls me into her arms, and I sleep a little while. She takes me downstairs to the hotel restaurant. I push some eggs around and ask her to go with me to the hospital.
When we get there, she cries. “Cleo—I’m worried. You’re so much like I was.”
“Is he dead? Are you telling me that Kellan’s dead? I’m not like you! Lyon is dead!”
I run away and don’t come back to Memorial Sloan-Kettering for two days. One of them, I drink in central park. I call Kellan’s father’s office. I call and leave another message for his brother, Barrett.
Manning calls me, asking how I am.
“How’s Kellan?” I ask.
“I don’t know.”
“Liar. Fuck you, Manning. I want to see Truman.”
Manning arrives with the dog the next day. Truman is wearing service dog clothes. “He’s a PTSD dog. Kellan’s service dog.”
I hug the dog. I fall asleep in the waiting room while Manning talks about... something.
I wake up in my hotel room. Manning wants me to eat soup.
I laugh. “I need a feeding tube, or TPN. An IV. I think I have cancer too.”
Manning’s freckle face goes serious and frowny. “Cleo, you have to stop. He wouldn’t like this.”
“Wouldn’t? Or doesn’t? Is he dead? Manning, tell me please!” I start to sob. Manning shakes his head, like it’s a shame, what’s happened to me. I shove him. “Just go away! If you know nothing, go away!”
That night, when Manning flies back home to man the grow house, I hatch a plan. I wait for my ex-friend the receptionist to leave her desk, and then I hit the “open” button on her desk and dash through the doors.
I run straight to Kellan’s room—our room. I throw the door open and nearly pass out from the rush of seeing—
Nothing.
Holy fuck. Our room is fucking gone. The bed is stripped.
Kellan is dead.
I scream and wail. The noises are so strange. They don’t even sound like me. A second later, nurses burst into the room. I don’t even look at them, just throw myself on our bed, clutching the railing as I curl into a ball. “I want to sleep here! One more night... please!”
“NO! NO, NO! CLEO! Look at Arethea!” Tight hands grab my wrists. “Kellan is not here.”
“I know,” I sob.
“No! He is discharged! He is discharged!”
“What?” I sit up slowly. My chest is heaving. “What did you say?”
“He is discharged,” she says more quietly.
I note the nurses’ faces. Sad and sympathetic. They file out. The room goes still. I’m tired, so I lie down on our bed. No more sheets. Arethea reads my mind. She grabs a blanket from the closet. She lies on the bed with me and holds me while I cry.
