Chapter 17
Emerson
Every winter in Everston, the snow buries everything.
Although this winter was shaping up to be unusually dry, more of a powder than the heavy blankets that normally coated the town.
The hospital halls were slightly chilly and smelled like antiseptic and stale coffee, but someone made an effort with Christmas decorations.
Tinsel strung haphazardly along the nurses’ station, a little tree in the waiting room with an assortment of mismatched baubles and handmade ornaments, its branches bent at all angles.
Someone even taped a paper snowflake to Winnie’s door, upon which was scrawled in a child’s handwriting: Merry Christmas, Winnie!
Inside, her room was dimly lit, the weak afternoon light spilling in from the window.
Despite the festive touches, there was no disguising how tired she looked.
The sharpness of her collarbones, the hollowness beneath her eyes.
It was strange how quickly a body could change.
A month ago she was in her kitchen, covered in flour, arguing with me about whether a lemon tart needed more zest. And now she looked so small, like a tiny little bird.
A collection of gifts from the group was gathered on the table beside her.
Julian and his wife sent a bouquet of fresh white lilies, their fragrance softening the clinical scent of the hospital room.
A box of chocolates from Gill sat unopened, but, knowing Winnie, she’d already rationed them in her mind—one piece per visitor, no exceptions.
Wren and Olivia brought a stack of books, some well-loved, others brand-new.
Rita had sent a pile of glossy magazines, and Bobby had delivered an assortment of baked goods, because, as he put it, If you can’t bake, the least you can do is eat.
Henry left a crossword puzzle book with a note on the inside cover: Don’t cheat!
Normally I would have asked him to stay and help me figure out the answers with Winnie, but I was still so mad at him.
“See,” Winnie said. “Plenty to be merry about this season.”
I hadn’t had the heart—or the stamina—to argue with her, even though every part of me wanted to scream.
How could this be happening? How could the world keep turning, the town keep decorating, people keep stringing up lights and hanging garlands, as if nothing had changed?
As if time wasn’t slipping through my fingers in every conversation, laugh, or moment that we shared?
Christmas songs played faintly from a speaker down the hall, cheerful and out of place against the hum of the hospital machines.
Someone walked past carrying a plate of sugar cookies, and I hated how normal it all seemed.
Because nothing about this was normal. Nothing about this should be happening.
“You need to go home,” Winnie rasped, her voice weaker than it had been even yesterday. “It’s been four days.”
I stopped staring out the window and made a point of sniffing my T-shirt dramatically. “Eh,” I shrugged. “Who am I trying to impress anyway?”
“A lady should always pride herself on her hygiene,” she replied primly.
I scoffed. “Lady? Who are you and what have you done with my best friend?”
She smiled, but it was tired. “Oh fine,” she said. “You’ve won over the nurses, I suppose.”
I grinned. “Oh, I did that with these baddies,” I said, pulling up my sleeve to flash my scars. “They love me here. I can get away with anything. Maybe we could look up your ex-husband’s medical records and prank call him?”
Winnie chuckled, but it turned into a painful-sounding cough. I sat up straighter, worried, but she waved me off.
“Don’t fuss,” she scolded lightly. “I’m not made of glass.”
I swallowed hard. She wasn’t glass. But she was breaking all the same.
I cleared my throat. “You know, the poetry evening is—”
“Months away yet,” she said softly.
“Yes, but we could—”
Winnie gave me a look, one that said we both knew better.
“Emmy, we both know I won’t be going,” she said.
My chest tightened. I guess we were done with pretenses.
“I don’t know how to do any of this without you,” I said, staring at the blanket. “I don’t know how—” I gestured vaguely, trying to find the words.
“Nonsense,” she said. “You have your whole life ahead of you.”
“Yes, but—”
“You don’t have to know, Emmy,” she said. “You just have to keep going.”
“I feel like a failure.”
Winnie squeezed my hand, surprisingly firm. “You can pick a new dream,” she said.
“Oh, yeah?” I murmured. “Like what? Gymnastics was my whole life.”
She tilted her head, looking me over. “Have you still not learned?” she asked. “Gymnastics was not your whole life, Emerson. You love poetry and birds, you love reading and baking and debating. There are so many more things to you than bouncing around on one of those beams.”
I bit my lip, the lump in my throat impossible to swallow. The ache of everything—of this moment, of what was slipping away, thudded in my chest. I had no idea what I was doing.
I mean, I used to. I used to have a plan.
A good one. A full-ride scholarship, a shot at UCLA, a future that looked so damn bright I could barely see past it.
And now? Now I was sitting in a hospital room, watching the one person who always seemed to know the answers slip away from me, and I had no idea what came next.
It wasn’t just gymnastics. It wasn’t just school.
It was everything. Who was I without it?
Without the competitions, the training, the structure?
Without the dream I’d had since I was a kid?
People don’t really tell you what to do when your whole life gets yanked out from under you.
They just say things like You’ll figure it out or You’re young, you have time.
But time feels like a joke when you’re watching someone you love run out of it.
And my mom—god, my mom was trying. She was working late again tonight, texting me updates between shifts, pretending like she wasn’t worried sick about me, about Winnie, about everything.
Pretending like she wasn’t holding down two jobs and holding me together at the same time.
And I was just…stuck. Stuck in this weird limbo where I wasn’t a gymnast anymore, wasn’t a college student, wasn’t anything really.
Just a girl sitting in a too-bright hospital room, counting down the days she had left with her best friend.
I wanted to tell Winnie all of this. I wanted her to tell me what to do, to shake me out of this funk, to remind me who I was, like she always did.
But she was the one in the hospital bed, barely able to keep her eyes open, and I couldn’t ask her to fix me when I couldn’t do a damn thing to fix her.
I blinked hard and sucked in a breath. Maybe she was right.
Maybe I’d figure it out eventually. Maybe I had to.
But first, I had to figure out how to say goodbye. I choked out a small cry. Winnie, of course, wasn’t having it.
“None of that now,” she murmured, her fingers lightly tapping the blanket. “Hand me my water, will you?”
I reached for the cup on the table and passed it to her, watching as she took a slow sip. She still had that same dry humor, that same sharpness in her eyes, even as her body betrayed her. I tried to hold on to that, to pretend, even for just a second, that this was a normal afternoon between us.
I pulled a crumpled ten dollar bill from my pocket and handed it to her.
Her brow furrowed. “What’s this?”
I forced a grin onto my face. “You won the bet.”
“The bet?”
“You said Olivia and Wren were perfect for each other.” I shrugged. “Classic you, always knowing.”
Winnie let out a small laugh, shaking her head. “Well, someone had to be the voice of reason.”
“Someone did,” I agreed, my smile wavering just slightly.
She took the bill in her hand for a long moment, then reached into her handbag and pulled out a small, folded piece of paper. Her fingers smoothed over it as she studied me, her expression unreadable.
“I have something for you too,” she said, pressing it into my palm.
I turned it over, curious.
“Make sure Henry gets this,” she continued. “It’s my poem for the poetry evening.”
I clutched the paper, willing my hands to stay steady. “You can give it to him yourself.”
She gave me a look, one of those unimpressed, knowing glares that could cut through any illusion I tried to build around us. “Emmy,” she said, her voice softer now. “Be kind to Henry. He’s racked with guilt over my choices. You shouldn’t blame him.”
“How can I not?” I argued. “You were in here for two days and I had no idea, thanks to him.”
“He was doing what I asked,” she replied. “If you want to be mad at someone you can be mad at me.”
I slumped in the chair.
“And in any case,” she continued, “Henry is helping me get my affairs in order.” She said it so casually, like we were discussing next week’s baking list. A silence stretched between us, thick and heavy, until she shifted slightly, reaching toward her handbag again.
She plucked out a set of car keys and pressed them into my palm.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“It’s yours.”
My heart stumbled. “Winnie, I can’t—”
“One day, you’ll get behind the wheel again, Emmy. And if it’s in my car, then I’ll be right there with you.”
I blinked the tears away rapidly, staring down at the keys in my hand.
I moved to climb onto the bed, lying down beside her.
“Are you sure you want to stay?” Winnie said. “Aren’t there a million other things you could be doing?
I snuggled into the pillow and clicked on the TV, turning on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. I reached out my hand and closed it over Winnie’s frail, tiny one.
“None that matter,” I replied.