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“I’ll drive you to the hospital.”
“Great. I’ll be in the truck.” Finn heads toward the bleachers as Mark pulls out a cylindrical object from his bag.
Once Mark has injected himself, I help him up. He looks fine, his face flushed from exertion. Nothing looks swollen or concerning. But my steps are quick as we head for my truck. Jordan and Finn are already in the back. Mark gets in on the passenger side and I climb into the driver’s seat.
The nearest hospital is a town over. The drive takes about twenty minutes, the three of us casting worried looks at Mark until he threatens us to stop.
He still looks normal when I park in the hospital’s huge lot.
“You guys don’t have to stay,” he says. “This will probably take a while.”
“We’re not going to just abandon you here,” I say. “And hurry up. If you’re about to collapse, I’d rather you do it inside than in the parking lot.”
“Dick.” But Mark’s smiling as he says it.
We walk inside the automatic doors without incident. I was joking in the parking lot, but it’s still a relief to be inside thebuilding. If Mark went into anaphylactic shock, I would have no clue what to do.
Jordan, Finn, and I take seats in the waiting area while Mark goes up to the window to check in.
I pull out my phone and text Cassia.
HOLDEN:How’s packing going?
“Thiswillprobably take a while,” Finn mutters beside me.
“We both know you have nothing better to do.”
Finn rolls his eyes and slouches back in the hard chair. My butt is already going numb. You’d think they’d invest in some more comfortable ones, considering how long most people have to sit here for.
“I’m gonna run to the restroom,” I say, standing and stretching. “Be right back.”
“We’ll be here,” Finn says.
I nod, then head to the right, down a hallway. It’s empty aside from one unoccupied gurney pushed against the wall. The other side is all glass windows overlooking a courtyard splashed with orange by the sinking sun.
I reach the end of the hallway, turn left, and freeze.
“Lana?”
She turns slowly, blue eyes the same shade as mine, widening with shock.
My mother has never looked happy to see me.
A sobering truth.
My first thought.
She left when I was five. My memories of her are hazy and abstract, not happy. When she showed up, about a week after my dad died, it was to tell me she moved a whole two towns over, and she’d heard about the accident. Then she came to the high school with some half-assed explanation for why abandoning her two kids was in our best interest. I haven’t seen or heard from her since, and I didn’t expect to.
And now she’s standing three feet away, looking like the ghost she is in my memory. Lookingunhappyto see me.
“Hello, Holden.”
I study her more closely. “Are you…okay?”
It’s a stupid question to ask.
Her skin is sallow and pale, and she’s lost weight she couldn’t afford to in the first place. When I saw her four years ago, she was skinny. Now, she looks skeletal.
