Chapter 34
Jules
When I open my apartment’s front door, it reveals Sienna on the other side, a coffee in each hand.
“I’m sorry,” she says, at the same time that I say, “I feel terrible, Sienna.”
We hold the gaze for a second, then let out a shared breath of nervous laughter, and I usher her into my apartment.
“How is he?” Sienna asks, nodding her head toward Gus’s room, where we can just see him through the crack in the door, his little head on the pillow, his arm thrown over the side of the bed.
Gus came home yesterday, and while he’s still sleeping a lot, he’s also being his normal bubbly self when he’s awake, so it’s a big relief.
I tell her about his recovery, about how scary the surgery was, and eventually, what it was like to have Russell there with me.
“Sorry,” I mutter, laughing at myself and tracing my finger along the rim of my cup. “I know I talk about him too much.”
“No—it’s not you, Jules,” Sienna sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose.
“Yeah, it sucked that you were late, but I realized later that I didn’t even ask you what was going on.
I just jumped right into assuming you were fucking around with Russell.
So now I’m here to ask—what happened that night? Why were you late?”
I bite my lip, then tell her the story. Quitting. Finding Russell in the park with his sister, niece, and nephew. Sienna’s eyes get wider and wider as the story goes on, and by the time I’m finished, she’s shaking her head.
“Okay, so I’m a bitch—”
“No, I still shouldn’t have been late,” I say, holding a hand up to stop her when she protests. “Or I could have texted you. You’re right—this thing with Russell has kind of swallowed up my life recently.”
“And you quit your job,” Sienna breathes, “holy shit, Jules, I never thought I’d see the day.”
“You know, nobody has expressed disappointment in me quitting,” I joke, then jerk my head toward my open laptop on the counter. One side of the screen is filled with PR associate job searches. The other is open to a document I’ve titled my PR firm.
I’m torn between the instinct to find security again in a salaried position, and the urge to start my own firm, like Russell said. Without him there beside me, helping me and cheering me on, it feels like it might be impossible.
“Yeah, well we all knew that job sucked,” Sienna says, shaking her head. She pauses, then seems to backtrack, “Russell didn’t talk to you at all in the waiting room?”
“I mean, he didn’t give me the silent treatment,” I say, stomach swooping when I think about it, “but he left instead of answering the question. And again, when Gus asked him. So, I guess that’s my answer.”
“And he hasn’t tried to contact you?”
I dip my head guiltily, my phone weighing heavy in my pocket. He did call me last night, and when I saw his name flash over the screen, my heart had skipped a beat, then I instantly rationalized it—it was a mistake. Or he found something of mine at his condo and wanted to return it.
For the full minute the phone rang, I just stared at it, heart in my throat.
“What?” Sienna prompts, eyes roaming over my face like she’ll be able to read my thoughts that way. “Did he text you? What did he say?”
I swallow, “He called last night. And after, texted me, asking me to pick up.”
“I take it from the way you’re saying that you didn’t call him back?”
“Uh, no,” I admit, rubbing my eyes. “He probably just wants to return something I left at his place, or…something else like that. And I don’t think I can stomach going through the logistics of not being in his life anymore.”
“Oh,” Sienna says, setting her coffee on the counter, a look of realization settling over her face. “Oh. You’re in love with him.”
“What?” the word jumps out of me, startled, and I cross my arms over my chest like Sienna’s just walked in on me in the shower. “No—that’s not—I didn’t say that—”
“You don’t have to,” Sienna says, getting up from the chair and stepping closer to me, wrapping her arms around my shoulders in a surprising move.
She’s not usually the touchy type, but maybe our fight changed something.
“People don’t say stuff like that without being in love.
I would know—I read enough romance novels. ”
I let out a breath, hugging her back for long enough that tears spring to my eyes.
The whole Sienna reading romance novels is a surprise, but I’m too tied up in the hug to think about it.
With Gus feeling so fragile and Russell suddenly out of my life, I can’t remember the last time I really, really hugged someone.
“Sorry,” I mutter, slightly choked, when Sienna eventually disentangles herself, brushing her hands down the front of her dress.
“Don’t be,” she says, shooting me a crooked grin.
“I’m trying this whole physical touch thing.
My therapist says I’m too closed off, and it’s part of the reason I suspected the worst of you the other day.
It’s a coping mechanism—pushing people away is easier, and less painful, than letting them in. ”
“Holy shit,” I say, raising my eyebrows at her. “You really are working on yourself.”
She does a little curtsy and returns to her stool, shifting until she’s comfortable and grabbing her coffee again.
“I am. And I think—hear me out, as the girl with all the therapy talk rolling around in her head—that you should face Russell head on. Talk to him. You can’t just assume what you think he’s going to say and avoid him forever. ”
“Ha,” I say in a breath, “right.”
Luckily, the moment—and Sienna’s next round of life coaching—is interrupted by the sound of little feet in the hallway. We both turn to find Gus standing just outside his room, rubbing at his eyes.
“Mommy,” he says, yawning. “Can I have waffles?”
“I’ll make them,” Sienna says, once again surprising me when she slides off her stool.
In all the time we’ve been friends, she’s always felt awkward about me having Gus, since she doesn’t have any of her own.
Other than the occasional fraught babysitting favor, she mostly avoids coming around the apartment.
Gus climbs up into my lap, and I wrap my arms around him, settling my face in his hair. Sometimes, when I get my nose just in the right spot, I can catch a whiff of what he smelled like as a tiny baby, nestled on my chest in the hospital, or fresh out of a bath.
As Sienna slides the frozen waffles into the toaster, Gus shifts against my chest and asks into my sweater, “Mommy, is Russell coming to my play?”
His Christmas play—which will be televised across North America—is in two days. Without the routine of school and work, there’s been a lot more time for him to be nervous, and a lot more time for practicing lines and focusing on the performance as he heals from the surgery.
This is the third time he’s asked me about Russell coming. I don’t know if he doesn’t remember Russell at his bedside, or if this is just him trying to cope with the sudden loss of a solid presence in our lives, but either way, it makes my chest tight to the point of pain.
Clearing my throat, I brush some of his hair away from his face, “I don’t think so, sweetie.”
“But I’ll be there,” Sienna says, turning, “now what do you want on your waffles?”
Gus is successfully distracted, and I’m so grateful for Sienna. I think that, even if I’ve lost Russell, maybe something good is coming out of this after all.
“Fifty-thousand followers on Instagram,” I say, setting my phone down carefully and tapping on it with a single, manicured finger, courtesy of Ettie.
The insurance rep glances at the phone, then up at me with tired eyes. “…that’s very impressive, but I’m not sure what it has to do with the details of Gus’s case. We’ve already told you that it can take up to ninety business days to—”
“No.” I cut him off, folding my hands in my lap and giving him a serene look. “For nearly an entire year, you—not you, personally, but the insurance company as a whole—have been yanking us around on this. Gus had a hole in his heart, and the doctors all recommended the surgery.”
“And, as I understand, the surgeon did the procedure pro-bono,” the insurance rep says, spreading his hands. “The rest of the cost has been paid in full. So, there’s no way I can issue an emergency rush on this processing, because—”
“Frankly, I don’t want to hear it. Every time I manage to get someone on the phone, after an hour of being on hold, it’s always another thirty, sixty, or ninety days.
What if his issue had been serious? He could have suffered an attack before ever getting the medical care he needs.
” I pause, and the rep tries to talk, but I hold my hand up and keep going.
“You have to do what you have to do. But I want to make something clear—”
I tap on my phone screen, lighting up the follower count, which hovers above photos and videos of Gus smiling into the camera. The most recent one shows him in his hospital bed, a bandage running the length of his chest.
“—if the cost of the surgery isn’t refunded to the man who paid for it in the next week, we’ll be telling our story.
And not just on this Instagram, with fifty-thousand ears listening.
I have contacts at CBS and Today, Tomorrow who would be more than happy to pick up a story like this and run with it.
Insurance company denies kid with heart condition the surgery he needs.
How do you think that’s going to sound?”
He just stares at me, his jaw ticking, his fingers laced together tightly on his desk.
I know that it’s not him—it’s not like sets the policies here. And he’s probably under intense pressure to pay out as little as possible for each case. Maybe his salary even depends on it.
But I’m done thinking about everyone else before I consider myself. And if Russell isn’t getting his inheritance, then I’m not letting him pay for the surgery. Since he’s already covered it, the best I can do is getting him reimbursed.
“I’ll talk to my manager,” the rep says, after a long moment of consideration and silence.
“Great!” I give him a bright smile and tilt my head down at the phone on his desk. “Why don’t we give them a call right now?”