Chapter 43 Summer
SUMMER
Má was coping the only way she knew how.
Talking on speakerphone to one relative after another, asking for advice about heart-healthy diets and exercises.
If she could have slathered him in Tiger Balm to fix him, she would have already.
Her tiny, puffy-vest adorned figure paced outside the glass doors.
I’m sure it looked strange to everyone else, but I didn’t bat an eye at her outfit choices in the summer heat anymore.
I shuddered to think of all the remedies Ba was going to be subjected to once he came home.
Which would be soon. Because he would be fine.
I had to believe that.
The waiting room chair offered an abysmal sitting experience.
I’d switched positions so many times during the last couple of hours and never reached even an inkling of comfort.
I wanted my nest. The lights were too sharp, the smells too invasive.
My heat-exhausted omega was agitated beneath my skin, craving the comfort of three warm bodies.
I ignored it, needing to keep my shit together for my parents’ sake.
Má returned and perched herself on the edge of her chair. “I think he’s going to be too cold. I didn’t see any extra blankets in the room. We should ask for some.”
Too tired to reply, I mentally catalogued it. It balanced precariously on top of twenty-four hours’ worth of unprocessed trauma and threatened to topple over.
“Are you here for Victor Pham?”
We both rushed to stand up when the nurse approached. She wore purple flowery scrubs, and I very much appreciated the touch of whimsy right now. “Yes, that’s us,” I nodded.
“You can come through now,” she said kindly. “We’ve transferred him to the cardiac unit.”
Cardiac unit . Was that good? Bad? I tried my best to remain calm as we followed her through the halls. “Will we be getting any results tonight?”
Her answers were perfunctory, set within the parameters of what she was allowed to say. “Yes, a doctor should be coming by shortly to discuss the CT scan and EKG with your father.”
Ba’s hospital gown swamped him. Seeing him like this was awful. Hiding how I felt when I laid eyes on him was worse. Right on cue, my brain offered a defense mechanism and suggested I text Lucy to ask if she could tailor the gown so it wasn’t so huge on him.
I hung back, letting Má fuss over him. The blankets were too thin, she observed. The room was also so noisy, too much light came in even with the door closed so it would be impossible to sleep and that’s why he needed to come home with her.
I cracked a little more, seeing how tightly she held his hand.
“Victor Pham?” The doctor arrived. White coat and official-looking. “I’m Dr.Cheng, a cardiologist here at Elwood.”
They exchanged pleasantries while I bit back the urge to yell at him to tell us the results.
“Good news first—”
My hopes spun impossibly high.
“The CT scan ruled out stroke, and the EKG ruled out a heart attack. We were most concerned about those when you came in, and it’s neither.”
I felt like I had lost all equilibrium, tipped over like a snow globe and my insides left to confetti around. Má released a shaky exhale beside me before giving me a look to say how impressed she was with Dr.Cheng. Or that I should date him. Hard to tell.
“But the EKG did detect something we call atrial fibrillation, or AFib,” Dr.Cheng continued. “This means you have an irregular cardiac rhythm.”
“So his heart is, like, beating…irregularly?” I asked dumbly.
Dr.Cheng was nice enough to answer my question seriously.
“Exactly. It’s also beating faster than normal, so we will need to correct that immediately.
If left unchecked, it puts a strain on the heart and can lead to more serious complications.
” He offered Ba a reassuring smile. “It’s good that we’ve caught it now, and the treatment is straightforward.
We’ll need to keep you here for a few days to administer an amiodarone infusion, and I’ll prescribe you some home medications, too.
As for your arm pain, we’ve organized a consult with orthopedics.
You don’t have to worry, Victor, we’ll take good care of you. ”
He was going to be fine.
There was a treatment and a consult, and he was going to be fine. That was supposed to be good news, right? So why was there so much pressure threatening to leak out of my eyes in a torrent of tears?
My parents needed a couple of things clarified about the treatment once the doctor left, but there were relieved smiles for the first time since we had arrived.
I tried to match them but I think I showed too many teeth. “I’m going to call Lina. She can pack a bag for you and I’ll go pick it up.”
Ba shook his head, embroiled in a difficult blend of shame and gratefulness in needing my help. “I’m…very lucky you are here,” he said finally.
Dear god, if he said anything else I would flood the room. I backed out into the hall, planning my escape route to somewhere where I could lose it in private, like a lady.
“Summer.”
That voice. Husky, deep, and plucking directly at my heartstrings with its desperation.
Jae was here. They all were. In the same clothes as this morning, my scent still lingering all over them.
Good , thought my omega.
Don’t think with your vagina , instructed my prefrontal cortex.
“What are you doing here?” I scraped out.
Lucien stepped forward tentatively. “We wanted to be here for you. Lucy told us what happened.”
“But how did you know where I was?”
“We guessed after hearing what happened.”
Right. Collapsing plus chest pain equals cardiac unit. If only my confusing clash of emotions could be solved so easily. I’d fallen for them when I shouldn’t have. They were going to leave but they were here. An error message spat back out when I looked for answers.
A blue duffel bag hung in Mercer’s right hand. I knew that bag. It used to be squashed in my parents’ hall cupboard next to fifteen rolls of paper towels. “Is that…?”
He offered it and I took it from him, our fingers brushing lightly. “It’s for your dad. Lina packed it,” Mercer explained.
“Lina did?”
I was struggling to process it all. Reduced to a parrot, only able to repeat snippets of whatever I heard last.
“We want to be a pack, Summer.” The earnest declaration burst out of Jae like he couldn’t contain it anymore.
“It killed us knowing you were here alone and you didn’t feel like you could lean on us.
Not that I’m trying to make this situation about us!
This is about, uh, you and your dad, of course, and we are just barnacles really, hanging on to your ship while you steer into the safe harbor of—”
Mercer elbowed him. “I thought you were good with words,” he muttered.
“God, I think I’m going to black out,” Jae wheezed.
Just like that, Jae disarmed me. Lifted my heart the way only he could ever do. He was human, too, figuring out the nebulous, unnamed thing between us, just as I was.
Hope beat its fragile wings, but I was still so impossibly weighed down from the day.
“This is a lot for me right now,” I confessed.
Lucien’s hand twitched at his side as he took a half step toward me. “Will you let us drive you and your mom home when you’re ready?”
“I made your nest, too,” Jae added nervously. “It’s probably not perfect, but everything is clean and laid out the way I remembered.”
Nest . I had never wanted to teleport so badly. “Let me give this to my dad,” I said evasively, retreating with the duffel.
It was hard leaving, but we knew we would return first thing in the morning. I sat quietly in the back of Lucien’s car with Má, Mercer and Jae following behind us in my car.
OLIVE
Coming home soon?
She had included a video of Felix stalking and pouncing on Lars’s man bun while he was lying unaware on the couch, but I still couldn’t summon a smile.
SUMMER
Results are in
He has AFib which means his heartbeat is irregular and too fast. He’ll undergo treatment over the next few days but the doctor said the condition is very manageable and he’s going to be fine.
He’s going to be fine .
The text distorted, merging with the sight of my parents staring blankly at the doctor in the emergency room.
LUCY
Oh thank god
IVY
I’m SO glad you got results so quickly to put your mind at ease
Sounds like he’s in good hands
OLIVE
We’ll check in with you tomorrow and bring coffee if that’s ok!
I suddenly remembered what Lucien said when they first arrived at the hospital.
SUMMER
By the way
Lucy Bluebell Andersson-Spring
LUCY
Uh oh
SUMMER
Did you send the guys here?
LUCY
AHHH
I waited a little. Watching the bouncing circles as she panic-typed an essay.
SUMMER
Thank you for doing that. They brought everything we needed and are driving us home now.
LUCY
You are the worst
Get home, eat/rest/all the things
BIG HUGS TOMORROW
I wished their relief transferred to me, too. When we arrived at my parents’ house, Má thanked Lucien profusely before heading inside. Then it was just the two of us and the crossroads of what I would do next.
“The nest is yours, Summer, if you want to come home with us.” Fragile stickers taped up every aspect of his careful tone. “But we will, of course, respect whatever you want to do.”
Is it really mine if you’re selling the house?
But I needed my nest. The safety, the privacy. Devastation was growing legs and crawling its way up my throat, and I couldn’t be around my family when it all came out.
“Take me to the pack house,” I croaked.
They didn’t press or crowd me when I arrived. A week’s absence had dulled the traces of us everywhere, the smell of wood varnish and paint more noticeable as I wandered in a daze down the corridor and pushed open the door to my nest.
I was expecting clean bedding at minimum and a good try at best at building it.
Not a perfect replica of exactly how I liked it.
Jae really had paid attention to everything, down to my pyramid arrangement of pillows, the forty-five-degree tilt of my croissant cushion, and the dimness of my twinkle lights. But not only that, there was a stack of all their clothes. Soft and worn and imbued with their wild, sunlit scents.
I kicked my horrible hospital-smelling clothes into the corner and pulled on one of the shirts. Mercer’s citrus and salt scent wrapped around me. I threw the others into my nest, and they landed like a big pile of unfolded laundry. Perfect. I collapsed on top of it.
There. Safe and sound. Finally alone.
No need to pretend anymore.
A hiccupping sob bubbled from my throat.
Once it started it was impossible to stop.
This wasn’t a dainty sniffle easily patted away with a lace handkerchief.
This was an ugly cry. Brutal squeezes of my chest forced air upward, my whole body jerking uncontrollably.
I curled up into a ball, trying to compress, contain, and hold the pain flooding out of me.
I gasped as a solid chest pressed up against my back.
Jae’s tattooed arm wound firmly around my waist and tugged me against him.
A sea wall for me to crash against. Mercer’s and Lucien’s comforting weights settled into the nest beside me.
My head was tucked beneath Mercer’s chin, and Lucien’s lips found my palm.
Kisses turned into the silky thrum of his alpha purr, and Jae joined him, too, their frequencies perfectly aligned to soothe me.
I hid my face and tried to wipe away my snotty tears with my sleeve.
“I—I don’t know why I can’t stop,” I said between ragged, staccatoed breaths.
Jae’s hold on me firmed. “You don’t have to.”
“I’m being so silly, though. I don’t know why I’m crying.
I mean, he’s going to be fine, right?” A wheezing gulp cut me off, and I had to find my voice all over again.
“Everyone is relieved and saying it’s good news, but I just feel awful.
I’m so glad it wasn’t a stroke or a heart attack.
But I still had to explain to them that they were testing for it because some of what the doctor said went over their heads.
Can you imagine making sure your mom understood they needed to hurry to make sure your dad wasn’t dying? ”
The remaining ugly shreds of my truth sat so toxic on my soul I needed to exorcise it.
“I wish I didn’t have to do it,” I whispered.
A little angry, a lot broken. “I wish that their English was better and they just understood like everyone else’s parents would’ve and then I feel even more horrible for thinking that. ”
I was grateful that my parents had bravely moved to this country to make a new life. I had come a long way from that thirteen-year-old girl packing sandwiches for lunch and scared to explain what pandan was. I was proud of who I was and where I came from.
But no matter how much Starlight Grove felt like home, no matter how seamlessly my family was embedded in its community, there were still moments when I couldn’t escape the fact that we were different.
“You are not horrible.” Lucien’s conviction was gentle and sure. “Your parents are human, trying their best with what they’ve been given. And so are you. The circumstances are horrible. Not you, never you.”
He began massaging my hand. Thumbs sweeping up the back, knuckles kneading pressured circles into the ball of my palm.
I closed my eyes and fell into the repetitive sensations and the tides of three steady breaths.
The kindred blend of their scents was so alive.
New green growth and rising swells, lending me strength when I had none.
My fractured sobs slowly subsided to the occasional hiccup.
“I haven’t forgotten what you said at the hospital about…being a pack,” I said weakly. “But I still can’t really process that right now or imagine how it would work with your jobs, this house, and everything.”
“We’re staying,” Jae murmured against the exposed round of my shoulder.
“But how?”
“You let us worry about that.”
There it was. A seedling. “Don’t let me hope and have it be for nothing,” I whispered.
“You can hope, Summer.” Optimism buoyed Lucien’s every word. “We promise.”
Mercer took my hand, clasping it in the small space between our bodies, right against his heart. “What’s the most important thing for you right now?”
“Making sure my dad’s treatment goes smoothly,” I said immediately.
“Then that’s what’s most important to us, too.”
I drifted away in their arms, hoping that the trust I placed in them wouldn’t be shattered.