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“Okay?” Grayson asks, as if to sayokay, what?
“I’m okay,” I tell him. “You can go do what you need to do.”
He keeps his hands on my arms, and when he looks at my face, I can see how unsure he is. I mean, you can’t blame him either. I did just have a minor breakdown. And now he’s supposed to walk away?
I unwrap one of my arms from his inside his grip and wipe my face. “I’m fine. Really.” And then I start to laugh, and that’s when I know I’m not really all that okay, because I can’t stop. I giggle and shudder and it goes on and on.
My knees tremble, and I reach out and wrap my arms around Grayson again. I need to catch my breath. “I swear, I’m not hitting on you,” I say between blurts of laughter. “But I might fall over. I think I’m in shock.”
“Sage,” he says, his mouth near my ear. “I’ve got years of training. I’m actually a doctor. I know you’re in shock. This is not news to me.”
That makes me laugh even harder.
And shake. Shudder. Shiver? I’m giggling and wriggling, is what I’m saying. And that whole situation just makes everything funnier.
“Can we please go inside?” I ask, practically wheezing to catch my breath.
“I can’t unlock the door without power,” he says.
“That sounds like a problem,” I manage to say, but I’m still laughing to an almost pathological degree. “But I might have a solution. See, it’s possible,” (gasp, wheeze) “that I just got electricity powers from getting hit by a gigantic bolt of lightning. Let me try something.”
I pull my arm out from his grasp again and hold my hand, palm forward, against the key reader. Just, you know, to be cute. And funny. To make him laugh like I’m laughing. Or at least like a normal person would laugh if their date did something cute.
Hand flat against the reader, I hear a beep and the light flashes red. I feel my mouth drop open, and I look at Grayson. His mouth is open, too.
I actually stop laughing for a second, because—did I just do that? Restore power to the building? With my magic hand? For a second, I believe I did. I must have. Because, evidence. Then I remember that’s not real. Or possible.
Grayson bursts out laughing. “You’re a miracle of science,” he says, and my laugh starts up again as we watch the lights flicker back on across campus in the world’s most hilarious occurrence of comic timing.
I mean, it must be, right? Because I still can’t stop laughing. Okay, it’s not that funny. It’s a return of electricity to campus. It happens. Every time the power goes out, it comes back on. Sometimes soon, sometimes later, but always. So why is it so hilarious now?
Yeah, I’m definitely in shock.
Grayson swipes his key card over the now-active reader and the door clicks.
He pulls the door open and holds it for me. I enter the clinic for the millionth time, but the first time with him at my side. I mean, these days he’s always in there when I have an appointment, but today, he’s got his arm at my back when we walk in. I’m still laughing, and it’s growing higher, like I’m playing the laugh on the E string.
There’s a low blue glow from emergency lights along the edge of the ceiling. It’s like how you’d light an empty science lab in a movie—the opposite of a warm candle light. I mean, obviously, it’s clinical. There’s no more appropriate place in the world for clinical lighting than in a clinic.
So why, I have to ask myself, am I feeling like this is the most romantic room I’ve ever been in?
Because really? This is not the best room ever. Maybe it’s the sterile and fairly uncomfortable waiting room chairs. Maybe it’s the lack of decoration. Maybe it’s the memory of dozens of times I’ve sat in this very room waiting to find out thatthistime,thisillness is real.
So I guess maybe it’s the company.
Grayson still has his hand resting on my back, low but nottoolow. Comforting but not icky.
Not that I’d mind a little ick—because of course, right now, it wouldn’t feel . . . never mind.
What I’m saying is, I’m still giggling.
Grayson points me to a chair and I sit down. Or at least I try to, but as soon as I sit, my legs push me back up again. I start pacing around the waiting room.
“Come here,” Grayson says, taking a seat and patting the chair next to him.
I shake my head. “Can’t.”
His arm is stretched casually over the back of the chair next to him, and there is a big part of me that wants to go sit there in the protection of his arm. But a slightly bigger part of me needs to move.
