Chapter 16
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
BEFORE
Iwas sick of that fucking smell.
Every corner of this place reeked of it.
Cold and sterile, like it should be—but the constant whiffs of stale coffee, antiseptic, and whatever they used to sanitize the floors had started to seep into my bones.
I knew that even if I never stepped inside a hospital again, I’d still smell it. Just from memory alone.
My dad’s oncologist’s office was in a different building.
That one didn’t smell as bad. But we weren’t called there.
Instead, we sat in a small room with white walls and leather armchairs in a washed-out blue that matched absolutely nothing.
No decorations. No windows. Just a single box of Kleenex perched on a side table like it knew exactly what was coming.
There was a chart in his lap, but he wasn’t looking at it. He was looking at me. I could feel it, even as I kept my eyes on the tissues.
“Thanks for calling us, Doctor,” my mom said.
Us.
It was just the two of us. Ilana was mid-flight, and I didn’t know where my brothers were. Maybe no one had told them.
When I’d arrived, I hadn’t stopped to greet anyone in the waiting room. I’d walked straight to the ICU.
The nurse walked me through it—tried to, anyway.
She explained the ventilator, the swelling, the strange way his body looked.
He’d lost so much weight during treatment that now, ironically, he almost looked like himself again.
But not really. His fingers were puffy. His face was rounder.
There was a pale band where his wedding ring used to sit.
She’d said they’d had to take it off because his hands had started to swell too much.
We’d wandered from his room, me still dazed, trying to make sense of the fact that the man in that bed was my father. That this wasn’t just some awful dream I was about to wake up from.
“It’s not a problem,” the doctor said, tapping his pen against the edge of the chart.
“Noah.” My mom’s voice pulled me back. Her face was drawn and tired. No makeup, which was rare for her—strange enough to make her look almost younger.
“Yeah?”
Her hand landed on my shoulder—light, practiced, like a motion she knew would look motherly. “The doctor needs to tell us something.”
I nodded and finally met his gaze. It wasn’t unkind. This wasn’t personal. I just didn’t want to be here. The sterile air made it hard to breathe, harder to hold in.
“Your father’s labs showed a number of concerning changes,” the doctor began gently. “We’ve seen progression. Several of his organs are under severe strain. His kidneys, his lungs, and now his liver have all been affected.”
I nodded automatically. The words floated in the space between us, detached from meaning.
“When he was brought in,” he continued, “he was experiencing severe hypercalcemia—dangerously high calcium levels, which can happen with certain cancers, like Hodgkin’s lymphoma, especially when treatment stops working.
It caused confusion, irregular heart rhythms, and ultimately, loss of consciousness. ”
I tried to breathe, but something in my chest caught.
“We placed him in a medically induced coma to stabilize him and relieve pressure on his body, especially his heart and brain. But…the damage had already progressed. The scans now show signs of multiple organ failure.”
Silence.
“He’s on life support,” the doctor added carefully. “But at this stage—”
“Medically induced coma,” I interrupted. “That’s what you said it was.”
His expression softened. That look—like he already knew what he was about to say would stay with me forever—made my chest feel like it might crack open.
“Yes,” he said. “But things have progressed beyond that. His body is no longer responding. The coma isn’t something we’re maintaining anymore. It’s where his body has gone on its own.”
“Can he get a transplant?” I asked, suddenly desperate. “A liver or kidneys? I can donate. We have the same blood type. That matters, right?”
My mom’s grip tightened on my shoulder. A soft sniffle.
“I’m sorry, Noah,” the doctor said. “At this stage, none of his organs are strong enough to survive surgery. He’s not a candidate for transplantation. There’s nothing more we can do but keep him comfortable.”
Another sniffle. Closer this time.
I flinched. “I don’t get it.”
“Do you want me to explain it in more detail?” he offered.
I shook my head. “How did it happen this fast? Less than two weeks ago, they said he was stable. They said the scans were better. That he had more time. You all said he had time.”
He held my gaze for a beat, then looked away, brow furrowing as his eyes flicked to my mother.
That was the moment.
That shift in his gaze. That silence.
She hadn’t cried when I’d walked into the room. Hadn’t looked upset. Hadn’t told me anything was wrong. Just said the doctor wanted to talk. Just smiled like everything was under control.
And now she sniffled again. Playing the part.
“Noah,” she said softly.
Something cracked.
Everything I’d built to stay strong for him—the walls I’d stacked one by one, all this time—started to tremble. Like an earthquake, quiet at first, then swelling underneath me, until the ground didn’t feel solid anymore. Everything started making sense in the most awful way possible.
They’d lied.
They’d fucking lied.
I stood. The sharp scrape of the chair against the floor echoed like a warning. Her hand dropped away.
“Noah,” she said again, rising partway from her seat.
“How much time does he have?”
The doctor didn’t look away. “A week,” he said. “Maybe less.”
The foundation shifted again, violently this time—but I stayed upright.
Not yet. Soon, but not yet.
“Thank you, Doctor. I need to step out.”
“Noah, please,” my mom said, her voice cracking.
“No.” I couldn’t even look at her. “Not right now. Not with you. I’ll be back.”
I turned before she could say anything else.
I walked fast, one foot in front of the other, each step louder than it should’ve been.
The hall stretched endlessly ahead of me, white and humming.
The smell followed. Bleach. Burnt coffee.
That faint chemical sting I could never name but always knew.
It clung to me—my skin, my clothes, the back of my throat—like it had taken root.
I didn’t want to cry. Not here. Not in the same air she was still breathing.
And then—finally—I found a door and shoved it open.
Cold air slammed into me. I kept walking. Past the parking lot. Past the gardens. I didn’t know where I was going. Just that I couldn’t stop moving until the last trace of that hospital was behind me.
My legs gave out when I reached the edge of a building. I crouched, back against the cool brick wall, chest heaving like I’d run miles. My hands shook. The world out here didn’t smell like antiseptic or death. It smelled like damp pavement and city wind.
I wanted to scream. Or break something. Or call someone and ask them what the fuck I was supposed to do now.
But I didn’t. I just sat there, spine to the wall like it was the only thing holding me up.
My dad was dying.
They’d both lied.
And I couldn’t stop any of it.
Don’t fall apart.
Not yet.
There were Halloween decorations up.
A deflated ghost clung to the break room window, one eye peeled halfway off. A paper bat dangled from the ceiling by a single thread, spinning aimlessly in the air.
I hadn’t even noticed the date. I wasn’t sure what day it was anymore.
Not because I’d been drinking or using—just because I hadn’t left the hospital for the past three days. Except for the occasional lap around the building, chasing air that didn’t smell like grief.
Ilana got called into the room too.
She’d been there the whole time—either with my mom or camped out at my dad’s side, barely sleeping. I paced outside his door, back and forth, wearing down the floor. But I couldn’t walk in.
Nurse after nurse told me I needed to say goodbye.
Then the doctors.
Then my sister.
They all said the same thing. That time was slipping away. That I’d regret it if I didn’t go in and pretend my dad could still hear me. Pretend it mattered.
On that nameless October day, I stood behind the glass doors. Ilana had left with my mom for coffee, and it was one of those rare lulls when the nurses weren’t around. Just the steady beeping of monitors and the soft, mechanical whoosh of the ventilator every few seconds.
It wasn’t a decision. More like my body took over. I moved forward into the room.
The smell was worse in here.
Sterile and sharp—chemicals clinging to fabric and flesh.
Ever since I could remember, my dad had worn that old-man cologne every single day—and a healthy dose of it too. Sometimes it drove me crazy.
Right now, there wasn’t a trace of it.
He was here, but he wasn’t.
I stepped up beside him, to his right. He looked puffy. Swollen. His mustache had grown out a little. My eyes fell to the pale strip of skin on his ring finger where his wedding band used to be.
“You lied to me,” I said to the room. Maybe to him. “Wasn’t the rule no lying?”
His hand blurred.
I blinked hard, trying to bring it back into focus. “What else did you lie about?”
My lip trembled. I bit down on it, trying to stop it.
“Was it me?”
Tears fell—quiet, involuntary.
One by one.
Pitter-patter on the stiff white sheets. On his unmoving hand.
“I can’t say goodbye to you. It’s not fair. Why the fuck are you doing this?”
I rubbed my hand across my face, fingers shaking. Tried to pull the edges of myself together. Even if it wasn’t working. Even if everything was splitting apart.
Just a little longer.
Just a little fucking longer.
I traced one of his fingers with mine. I hesitated for a second before grasping his hand. It was warm, but he didn’t clasp back. The cracks grew bigger and bigger.
“Please don’t die,” I whispered. “You can’t leave me. Please don’t die.”
The tears kept falling.
Pitter-patter.
And the whoosh of the ventilator.
Please let this be a nightmare.