Chapter 38 – Alise #6
Beau turns his head slowly toward his brother, like his neck’s too heavy to hold up on its own. His lips twitch into something that’s supposed to pass for a smirk, but it’s thin, stretched over exhaustion, and his eyes are too dull to match the curve of his mouth.
“What, no flowers? No balloons?” His voice is scratchy, almost lazy, like he’s aiming for casual but overshoots into something brittle. “Worst hospital—”
“Don’t,” Cooper snaps, his voice cutting straight through the words like a blade. “Don’t you even try it. You scared the hell out of us. You collapsed in front of everyone, and now Momma is telling us you’ve got lupus?”
Beau’s smirk falters, but he still clings to it, the stubborn edge in his voice a last-ditch shield. “Guess I’m just trying to keep life interesting.”
“Enough.” Cooper’s voice spikes, the air in the room tightening around us. “No more jokes. Tell us what’s going on.”
“I… found out a few months ago.” Beau’s gaze drops to the blanket, his jaw flexing like he’s chewing on the truth, reluctant to let it out. The air in the room stills, heavy and unmoving, like the walls themselves are holding their breath.
“You what?” Cooper’s voice cracks, his arms falling to his sides as if the words themselves knocked the strength out of him.
“I didn’t tell anyone,” Beau says quietly, almost like the confession itself costs him something. “Didn’t want you looking at me like—”
“Like you’re my brother?” Cooper takes a step forward, voice climbing with each word, anger and heartbreak tangled so tightly they’re impossible to separate. “Like your family? Jesus, Beau. We would’ve carried you if you’d asked.”
“That’s exactly why I didn’t.” Beau’s eyes close for a beat, his voice low and frayed.
From the corner, Auntie Mel sits perfectly still, her hands clasped so tightly her knuckles are bone white. She says nothing, but her eyes—glassy and red-rimmed—say everything.
Cole, planted at the foot of the bed, looks like someone’s ripped the ground out from under him. “Months?” His voice is raw, the word breaking apart on its way out. “You’ve known for months, and you kept it to yourself?”
“I—” Beau starts, but Cole is already shaking his head, fury and hurt flashing hot behind his eyes.
“I can’t—” His voice breaks, and he turns sharply, storming out. The door slams hard enough to rattle the glass panel, making the heart monitor spike.
“Cole!” Michele calls, chasing after him, her sneakers squeaking on the tile.
“I… don’t understand. Lupus?” Kyle shifts uneasily in his chair, glancing between each of us like he’s waiting for someone to translate the pieces into something that makes sense.
The curtain parts again, slower this time, and a new doctor steps into the room.
He’s middle-aged, his white coat crisp, a stethoscope looped around his neck, and a tablet balanced in one hand.
His expression is careful, voice even, but softer than before.
He doesn’t launch straight into the facts, looking at Beau first and then the rest of us, gauging the temperature in the room.
“I’m Dr. Patel. I’m with the cardiology team.
I’ve reviewed the notes from the ER, and I want to walk you through what we know so far and what happens next.
” He pauses long enough for the words to settle and for us to brace.
“The ER team stabilized your heart rhythm. That was the immediate priority. But given what happened tonight, we’re concerned your lupus may be affecting your heart muscle. ”
The air seems to thin around us. Beau doesn’t answer; his eyes stay fixed on some point near the blanket, jaw tight enough to lock the words in his throat.
“What does that mean?” Kyle leans forward, elbows braced on his knees like he’s holding himself together with his own arms.
Dr. Patel shifts his tablet against his chest, his gaze steady but kind.
“It means that lupus, which is an autoimmune disease, can sometimes attack the heart. In Beau’s case, we think it may be inflaming the heart muscle itself.
When that happens, the electrical signals that control the heartbeat can misfire.
That’s likely why his rhythm became so unstable earlier.
The good news is that we were able to stabilize him quickly, but inflammation like this makes the heart more vulnerable to dangerous arrhythmias. ”
“Is this permanent?” Ramona asks, her voice quick and brittle, the kind of sharpness that comes from fear, not anger.
From the corner, Auntie Mel’s voice is low but urgent. “What’s the worst-case scenario?”
The question hangs like a stone dropped into still water.
No one breathes. Dr. Patel doesn’t answer right away, his silence heavier than words.
His eyes flick briefly to Beau, then back to the rest of us, and that tiny pause says enough.
Ramona presses her hand to her mouth, Kyle shifts forward until his shoulders hunch, and Auntie Mel’s fingers knot tighter in her lap as if she’s bracing for impact.
I can’t hear anything beyond the monitor’s uneven blip and the dull roar of blood rushing through my ears. My focus narrows to the man in front of me, to the way his jaw tightens like he’s bracing for a hit, to the pulse beating fast and uneven under my palm.
More voices fire questions—about treatments, recovery, and how soon they’ll know for sure—but I don’t catch them. I can’t.
“If they confirm the damage to his heart,” Dr. Patel’s voice slices back through the noise, steady and merciless, “continuing to play hockey could be dangerous and potentially life-threatening.”
Beau’s head jerks up, his voice breaking through the tangle of sound like glass shattering. “Until…?”
The doctor meets his eyes, quiet regret etched deep into his expression. “If the diagnosis is confirmed… never.”
The room stills. It’s as if every molecule of air has been sucked out, leaving only silence and the thunder of my own pulse.
The last thin thread of humor Beau had been clinging to snaps.
I feel it in the way his shoulders sag, in the sudden, painful grip of his hand crushing mine.
His eyes drop to where our fingers are laced, as if he stares long enough, he can pretend we’re anywhere but here.
I curl my other hand over his, anchoring him with everything I have, even as I feel him folding inward, retreating into the hollow space the word never has carved into him.
The others are still talking, voices overlapping, sharp with worry.
Kyle’s asking something about long-term effects, Ramona’s voice breaks on the word dangerous, and Auntie Mel keeps asking what happens next, like there’s an answer anyone can give right now.
But all of it sounds distorted and muffled like it’s coming from underwater.
All I can hear is the rhythm of his breathing and the fragile beep of the monitor that measures what I can’t touch.
Each rise and fall of his chest is shallow, like the air itself might give up on him if I stop watching.
I want to tell him it’s going to be okay, to promise him something solid to hold on to, but the words stick in my throat.
They feel like lies. So, I do the only thing I can: I hold on tighter.
My thumb traces slow circles over his knuckles, trying to anchor him to me when I can feel him drifting further away with every second.
And for the first time since they wheeled him through those ER doors, I let myself admit the truth clawing through my chest. I’m terrified. Not just of what the tests will show or what he might lose, but of the fact that I can already feeling him drifting to somewhere I can’t follow.