Chapter Twenty-Three
Caleb
The automatic doors slid open, and the rush of sterile air hit me like a fist to the chest. But I kept walking. This place wasn’t going to bring me down. Not today.
I’d been riding a high since the clinic.
Zadie’s hand in mine, the whoosh of a baby’s heartbeat filling the room, the look on her face when she realized what she was hearing.
That image was seared into me—her wide, wet eyes, her fingers crushing mine, the raw wonder breaking through every wall she’d built.
A heartbeat.
It wasn’t my child. I’d had no part in creating it. And yet, I’d felt something shift when that sound filled the room. Something fundamental. Like a door opening to a future I hadn’t known I was walking toward.
I held onto that feeling as I moved through the corridors of Copper Ridge Regional. Past the familiar faces at the nurses’ station. And past the hallway that led to the wing that had owned too much of my childhood.
“Hey, Renee.” I stepped into the volunteer office.
“Caleb!” She practically launched herself out of her chair. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Me too.” The words came out automatic, but I realized I meant them. Despite the dread humming under my skin, there was something else building. It was a stubborn, quiet resistance. A refusal to let this place define me.
“There’s someone I’d like you to meet.” Renee was already heading for the door. “A girl who could really use a friend.”
I followed her toward the children’s wing, each step pulling me deeper into the part of the hospital I’d spent years trying to forget.
“Abby’s twelve. Sweet girl, but she’s alone more than she should be. Her mom’s single with three other kids at home. She does her best, but there are gaps. Staff try to fill them when we can.”
“How long has she been here?”
“Not long. But this isn’t her first stay.” Renee’s brightness dimmed. “She’s having a stem cell transplant.”
The air locked in my lungs. My muscles contracted so hard my vision blurred for a second.
Could I do this?
Doubt tried to flood my system, but I pulled myself back to the sound. That heartbeat. That fast, fierce whooshing that had filled the ultrasound room and rearranged something inside me.
Miracles were possible. I was walking proof.
“Ready?” Renee asked when we reached the room.
I swallowed past the block in my throat and nodded.
The room was bigger than the one I’d occupied all those years ago. A wide window let the gray November light filter in, softening the space enough that the overhead fluorescents were off.
I’d always hated those lights. The harsh, unnatural glare of them. They made everything feel clinical and cold, and they’d made me crave the sun with a desperation that bordered on obsession.
But it was the little girl in the bed who lit up this room. Pale, fragile, and sporting the biggest grin I’d ever seen.
“Ladies, this is Caleb.” Renee made the introductions. “Caleb, this is Abby and her mother, Melanie.”
Melanie looked exhausted. Her smile was thin and practiced. It was the kind you wore when you’d been smiling for other people’s benefit for too long.
I recognized that smile. I’d watched my own mother perfect it.
“Nice to meet you both.”
“You don’t look sick,” Abby blurted, her face crinkling with confusion.
“Abigail,” Melanie whispered, mortified.
“It’s okay,” I assured them. “I’m not sick.”
“But I thought you had the same thing as me?” Abby looked at Renee, the confusion deepening.
“Caleb had the same type of cancer you have, Abby,” Renee explained gently. “But he had treatments. Like the one you’ll be having.”
“It made you better?” Abby’s small hands clutched the blanket in her lap. Melanie covered them with her own.
I took one step closer. One step toward this kid’s fear and my own. “Yes. It did.”
“The doctor said I’m going to lose my hair again. It’s already started falling out, and I was worried it might not grow back as nice as before.” Her eyes traveled to my head. “But you’ve got lots of hair, so I guess it can grow back okay?”
“It’ll take a while.” I smiled. “But it grows back.”
She sighed, studying me with an intensity that felt twice her age. “You’ve got really nice hair. How do you get it so shiny?”
Renee and I both laughed, but poor Melanie looked like she was fighting tears.
“What do you say we give your mom a break?” I suggested. “Melanie, would it be okay if I hung out with Abby for a bit? You could go grab a coffee or something.”
Melanie hesitated, but Renee offered to walk with her to the cafeteria. With some gentle convincing and a promise to keep it brief, she agreed.
The door closed behind them, and the room went quiet.
“Is this weird?” Abby asked.
I took Melanie’s vacated chair beside the bed. “Is what weird?”
“Hanging out in a hospital. With me. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have to be.”
“What would you rather be doing?”
“School, maybe.” She thought about it, her fingers fidgeting with the blanket. “At least then I’d get to see my friends. Maybe play soccer.”
“You like soccer? That’s a solid sport. Lots of running, though. I was never great at that part.”
“What do you like?”
I told her about skateboarding. The freedom of it. The pain of it. The way it had given me something to focus on when everything else felt out of control. She was only twelve, but I didn’t talk down to her.
For once, I didn’t pretend cancer was a thing I’d left behind.
We talked about what it meant to be a survivor. How getting better didn’t mean going back to who you were before. How scary it was to build a new version of yourself, and how grateful I was to have the chance.
“Does it hurt?” The fear crept back into her voice.
“The transplant? Not too much.” I made myself go back to the memory. The one I usually kept locked away. “The doctors will make sure you get the right meds. They’re good at that.”
She didn’t look convinced. “What about after?”
“It might.” My throat tightened. “But I can honestly tell you, Abby, it gets easier. Every single day.”
Her smile returned, still wide and youthful, but I could see her wearing down. The fatigue that lived underneath the bravery, visible only if you knew what to look for.
I knew it all too fucking well.
“Listen, I’ve got somewhere I need to be, but do you think I could come back and visit? Since you’re stuck in here anyway.”
“Like I’m going to say no.” She laughed. “I like you, Caleb. You’re the first person here who hasn’t talked to me like I’m five. Everyone forgets I’m practically a teenager. I’m not dumb. You get that.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Can I ask you something before you go?” She blushed, turning suddenly shy.
“Of course.”
“Do you think maybe you could teach me to skateboard? When I’m better?”
The request hit me harder than I expected. Not the words themselves, but the hope behind them. When I’m better. She was already looking past this room, past the transplant, past the fear. She was planning a future.
“It would be my absolute pleasure.” I wanted to give her something to hold on to. Something beyond illness and pain and the endless, grinding uncertainty of treatment.
But as the words left my mouth, I realized she’d given me something too. A reason to come back to this hospital that had nothing to do with my own ghosts.
“Just one more thing,” she insisted. “Do you have a girlfriend?”
I choked on a surprised laugh. “I know a girl. She’s a friend.”
“Does she like your hair that long? It kinda looks like you could use a trim.”
“Trust me, Abby.” I stood, still grinning. “She likes it just fine.”