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She nods. “Clearing my head.”
“Why don’t we take a walk? Here, this is yours.” I hand her the coffee Maeve suggested I order for her. “Extra milk and two packets of that gross yellow sweetener, right?”
She shakes her head and accepts the coffee. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“To be honest, it was Maeve’s idea.”
Hope laughs a little. “It’s weird how she does that.”
“Very.” More weird is how Darren ended up staying with her. That’s a question I’ve filed away for later, when I have the emotional bandwidth to deal with the guilt associated with the fact that Darren ended up staying with her, not me.
She drops her chin to her chest. “Will ...” She blows out a breath.
“You don’t have to say anything, I understand.”
“No, you don’t understand.” She exhales sharply and breathes a laugh. “Oh, this sounded better in my head.”
I turn to face her and am struck again by the perfect lines of her face.
“Last night—”
My phone rings, the noise cuts across my thoughts like a blade across metal. “Shit. It’s my brother. He never calls ... he ...”
“Answer,” she says, her mouth pressing into a worried line. “It’s family.”
The voice on the other end is loud and stern.
“Sir, this is Officer Thompson. Your brother’s been taken to Kingsette Memorial. He was found passed out on the side of the street. You were listed as his emergency contact in his phone.”
“Is he okay?” My voice cracks.
Hope steps closer. Her nearness is a balm to the jagged edges of the officer’s words.
“I’ll be right there.”
“You don’t have to come with me. I can drop you off on my way.” My voice sounds sufficiently earnest, even though the last thing I want to do is walk into that hospital by myself.
“No, I’m going with you. I may be able to get you better answers than you would get on your own.” Her chin lifts, and she sets her gaze on the road ahead.
Her support makes whatever words I should say in gratitude stick in my throat.
Hope stays quiet, looking determinedly ahead. The silence between us teems with her resolve. It’s a backstop against my spiraling nerves. I drive as fast as I can. Kingsette and all its trivial problems blur into the background.
She directs me to the visitor’s lot. Signs point the way, too, but they don’t register half as well as her voice. Her steady presence.
Later, I’ll need to examine why I need her steady presence so badly, why I feel so unsteady in the first place. Darren and I aren’t that close. And based on how disheveled and wild he was when I last saw him, I could have guessed that a police officer might one day call to tell me he’d been passed out at a bus stop. Yet it feels as if everything around me has turned inside out and upside down. Everything except Hope.
She waves to the security guard, who does a double take. “Are you working on your day off again?”
She flashes a thousand-watt smile. “I am not, as a matter of fact. Just helping my ... Will. His brother got brought in earlier today.”
Bill’s expression changes, similar to the way Hope’s did when the officer called. Like she was ready to rush in to save the day, do what needed to be done. My instinct has always been to turn the other way.
It’s an effort not to give into that instinct as Hope leads me to the ICU.
Anxiety, raw and sharp, throbs through me. I keep my attention fixed on Hope’s back—the set of her shoulders and her confident stride—to keep myself grounded. I hate hospitals. This hospital, specifically. The way the air moves through the vents like a constant funeral song. The way it smells—like sweat and antiseptic. The way it keeps standing, even though the rest of the world has crumbled.
Hope stops in front of a room near the corner and turns to me. “You go in, and I’ll find a nurse to talk to.”
