31. Alana
Everything wasfine until the morning before her surgery.
Alana woke up a few hours before she was supposed to, heart racing like she had been running a marathon in her sleep. She reached over to snuggle into Hudson, but he wasn’t there.
It had been six endless weeks, and she still hadn’t unlearned the habit of loving him yet.
She took a deep breath in and let it out slowly. It would be okay. Everything would be fine.
Except for the small part of her brain that suddenly, after all the fighting for this, after turning the world over so she could have this chance, was suddenly terrified at the thought of going under the knife again. She had been so desperate for relief the last times; she would have done anything to stop feeling the way she had been feeling. And hell, most of her still felt that way about this surgery, but this one? This one was bigger.
All of this was bigger than it had ever been before.
Should she text her parents to let them know that she was having surgery? She should, shouldn’t she.
That would be the Good Daughter thing to do, right? Or would texting them just open up Pandora’s box of questions she didn’t have time for?
She should ask Hudson. He’d know.
Even if he didn’t, he’d be able to lay out the options a lot more clearly than her very muddled brain could at the moment.
She pulled open their text chain, and reread the last messages they had sent each other the night before.
‘Of course I’m coming home tomorrow,’ Hudson had texted. ‘I had already told them I was leaving early when I agreed to go. You shouldn’t have to do hard things by yourself.’
‘You are my favorite husband,’ Alana had responded. It had taken her fifteen minutes before she could get herself together enough to answer him.
All of her feelings lived on the surface these days. Everything was a volcano, just waiting for the right moment before bubbling over and breaking down.
Big changes brought up big feelings, her therapist reminded her over and over for the past few weeks. It was normal.
Things were only going to get more after the surgery, because then she’d be menopausing.
In a different world, Alana would have talked to her mom about menopause symptoms, but in this one, she was just googling, and wishing she could text Hudson’s mom.
Shower. Brush teeth. Face mask. Eye mask. Hair mask. Get dressed. Repack hospital bag. Check texts again.
Hudson had promised that he would be here, and he would.
She wasn’t going to tell him how much it mattered to her.
Alana had just finished stress-cleaning the kitchen for the third time that week when the front door opened, and there was Hudson.
“There you are,” he breathed, and dropped his bags.
Alana flew into his arms, not caring about anything other than being as close to him as she could.
“Hi, baby,” Hudson murmured, wrapping himself around her. “I’m home.”
“Never go away again,” Alana replied, the sound muffled into his chest.
He laughed. “I’ll try my best.” He rocked her back and forth a little bit. “I missed you,” he said.
“Never go away again,” she repeated. She should let go of him, she should be normal about this. Maybe she would be in twenty minutes or so.
“Countdown clock on?” Hudson asked, maneuvering them a little so he could close the front door.
“Uh-huh. Less than twenty-four hours.” She looked up at him. “You didn’t have to come home early, Hudson.”
“I did,” he replied.
“We’ll argue about it later?” she said.
“Deal.”
“You smell like the forest,” Alana said. “Did you win any bear fights this time?”
“No, just fights with Mod Podge.”
“Ooh. Sounds exciting.”
“Mostly sticky.” Hudson rested his cheek on her hair. “You smell like the shower steamers.”
“I took a stress shower,” she admitted, extracting herself from his hold. She could be a normal roommate about this all.
(Who was she kidding, no she could not.)
“Did it work?”
“It summoned you home, so I guess so.”
“Didn’t realize that’s what made me avoid traffic.”
“Shower magic.”
“No, Alana, I’m still not having shower sex with you in our shower.”
“Damn,” she muttered.
“Also, aren’t you not supposed to be doing anything for the next twenty four hours anyway?”
“I don’t think there are any rules against an orgasm, just against foreign body parts entering mine.”
“Hmm.” Hudson pursed his lips. “Good to know.”
“But also I want you to tell me everything that happened, and about all the art you made. The only things I really know are that now you have a friend Nora, and that Marcus and Renee are, as far as we know, still having sex?”
“They’re probably defiling the couch now that I left,” Hudson replied. “Come sit with me while I unpack and you tell me everything I missed while I was gone.”
“I texted you all the things,” Alana argued.
“You had a whole period without me,” Hudson said.
“I had ones before,” she pointed out.
“But it was your last one.”
“Yeah, the girls sent me congratulatory balloons. They had them sent to the office.”
“Even though you weren’t there?”
“They had them delivered the day I went back in. And then one of my direct reports told me there was a rumor going around that I had gotten a promotion, which was why I had gotten balloons, which was possibly the dumbest rumor I’d heard about myself recently. But I did use that as an excuse to talk to Patrick about promotions and raises, and he said something’s on the table but didn’t want to bring it up until I came back to work, because he didn’t want me to have to worry about it while I was recuperating.”
“Well, damn, Alana, that’s great!”
“The girls have decided they manifested it with the balloon sending. They’re all extremely smug about it.”
“Can’t say I’m surprised.” Hudson unzipped his suitcase on the floor of his bedroom.
“Also, can I say, this is serial killer behavior to me,” Alana said as she curled up on his bed.
“What is?”
“Unpacking a suitcase? You haven’t even sat down yet!”
“They had washing machines and stuff up there, but everything kind of just smells like a camp,” Hudson said. “And it’s not like I’m going to have a lot of time to do laundry soon.”
“Ugh, now I feel bad.”
“Don’t,” Hudson replied. “I do this regardless of where I’m coming back from, and what I’m doing after.”
“Okay, then I go back to my original statement. Serial killer behavior.”
“And what sort of research have they done on the topic?” Hudson asked as he dumped a pile of his clothing from his suitcase directly into his laundry basket.
“I think there’s some sort of survey for all the maximum security prisoners to fill out,” Alana said. “It’s very scientific. Hit all the standards and everything.”
“I’m sure.” Hudson quickly and methodically unpacked his suitcase, and then, pulled open the window, and stuck it onto the fire escape.
“Now I can sit,” he said, and toed his shoes off.
“Serial. Killer,” Alana repeated as he all but pounced on her.
“How many terrible sex jokes can I make where I somehow tie in murder?” Hudson wondered as he brushed kisses all over her face.
“Son of a bitch, Hudson, if you plan on edging me for fun the day before my surgery, I will personally have Dr. Flua castrate you tomorrow.”
“We can still have sex if I’m castrated,” Hudson said. “I do remember making you cum repeatedly without the use of any of my genitalia.”
“Ugh, why do you have to make them sound so unsexy?”
“Talent,” he replied. “And nefarious reasons.”
“What part of no edging the day before my surgery please did you miss?”
Hudson grinned. “We’re just going to have to be a little creative here today, firefly.”
“Firefly?”
“One of the days that I was despairing and wondering if I should call the board members and tell them they’d made a mistake, I remembered that Dr. Tatiana had made all the couples in her cult class or whatever figure out what insect their significant other was.”
“That’s random.”
“I was running out of ways to try to think of ideas, so I was willing to go with just about anything.”
“Anyway, I decided that you were a firefly.”
“Why?”
“Closest insect I could think of to a disco ball,” Hudson said. “And you’re my favorite disco ball.”
His ability to have a full, coherent conversation while making her lose her mind with lust continued to be infuriating. “One day,” she said, “when I’m all healed from my surgery, I’m gonna tie you up and I’m going to torture you until your balls explode.”
“We really should get a mattress cover, then,” Hudson replied. “Today’s about you. Being away for six weeks was enough ball torture for me for now, thanks.”
“Phone sex wasn’t enough?”
“Phone sex did nothing but give me ideas.” He grinned down at her. “Some very good ideas.”
“Are you gonna share them with the class?” Alana asked, squirming as he teased her.
“It’s going to be a hands-on presentation,” Hudson replied.
There was no way he was going to make her cum without any friction of any variety to her pussy.
There was no…
Well, Alana thought in a haze. Apparently there was.
On that Connecticut camping trip, before they had some of the world’s greatest, most earth-shattering sex, they had spent hours in an empty field near the campsite, lying on an unzipped sleeping bag, looking up at the stars and watching the light show of dozens of fireflies. ‘It’s like when you ask your mom for fireworks and she tells you that you have fireworks at home,’ Alana had said.
Hudson had laughed. ‘They’re my favorite. And maybe it is because my mom did actually tell me that actual thing when I was a kid.’
‘Oh noooo,’ Alana had groaned.
‘And then when I was a little older, I learned that sometimes, female fireflies pick their mate based on the light patterns they emit.’
‘Oooh. The original flirt by flashlight.’
‘Wouldn’t that be Morse code?’ Hudson had countered. ‘I have a flashlight here. We can try that way and see if it works, too.’
If you had asked Alana at the time why she had agreed to have sex with Hudson, even though they had practically just met, she would have said something about his physical attractiveness, something about the quiet confidence and charisma, something about her being extremely horny and just sitting in the back seat of Jamie’s car next to him had been enough to make her rethink her life for the short-term.
But now? Now it was the firefly conversation. Equally willing to be honest, slightly vulnerable, and also not pass up the chance to try something ridiculous with her for the sake of making her smile.
And all this time later, here he was. Sleeping quietly, arms banded around her. Having come home early so he could be with her.
She didn’t know what delusional alternate universe she’d fallen into, but she’d be happy staying here forever if she could.
She closed her eyes, leaned back into his hold, and tried to match her breathing to his.
Everything would be okay, she told herself. Hudson was here. Everything would be okay.
She’d worry about after after.
Ten minutes of deep breathing later, and she drifted off to sleep, too.
“Is it normal to want to barf?” Alana asked Hudson the next morning, as she lay in his bed, not wanting to get up.
“Yup.” He tucked her into his arms. “All feelings are normal now.”
“I want to crawl out of my own skin,” she said, reaching over and tracing his scars, trying to center herself. “My heart is beating at like, eleventy million miles an hour, which cannot possibly be normal or healthy.” She looked up at him. “They’re probably going to cancel my surgery.”
“They’re not gonna cancel your surgery.”
Alana took Hudson’s hand, and placed it over her heart. “Yes, they will.”
He centered his hand between her breasts, and held it there. “Alana.”
“Hmm?”
“Are you freaking out?”
“Yes.”
“We should sing a song,” Hudson said.
“Are you…well? Why would we sing a song now?”
“Pick a song.”
“I can’t think of any!” she wailed.
“Let’s go back,” Hudson began.
“Hillary Duff?”
“Any better options?”
“No, I like this song,” Alana said.
Hudson reached for his phone, and in moments, the opening bars of Coming Clean were playing. “Karaoke time,” he said.
“For real?”
“For real.” He hadn’t moved the hand that was resting on her sternum.
They bumbled through Coming Clean, and then, because apparently Hudson had turned on a Disney Channel Star Nostalgia playlist, the next song was Best of Both Worlds.
Alana was laughing as the big fake Miley laugh played at the end of the song.
“Does that work the way the eyeliner of truth works?” she asked Hudson.
“No, it’s vagus nerve stimulation.”
“I have no idea what those words mean, but I’m glad you knew them.”
He kissed her quickly. “So am I.”
Everything at the hospital was bigger and more sterile than Alana remembered, and the grip she had on Hudson’s hand tightened as she checked in.
“Is your mom here today?” Alana finally asked.
“She is. She promised she’d come check on you later.”
“And you?”
“And me,” Hudson agreed.
“Hudson?”
“Hmm?”
“Is it okay if I’m scared?”
“Of course.”
“Doesn”t that make me a bad person? That I’m scared of the thing I wanted most?”
“God, no. Sometimes the things we want the most are the scariest.”
Alana played with Hudson’s fingers. “Promise me that nobody records me when I’m in the recovery room, okay? And don’t let me call or text anyone.”
Hudson laughed. “Promise.”
“No, really. I don’t know what I said last time after surgery, but Shannon told me that the nurses told her that I was their favorite patient of the week.” Alana shuddered. “And those surgeries were shorter.”
“I’m sure you won’t say anything ridiculous,” Hudson said. “But I will make sure there is no record of it.”
“Even if you have to steal the nursing reports.”
“Are you asking me to possibly break the law for you, Alana Rose?”
“...Maybe?”
“Already probably broken a few,” Hudson said cheerfully. “What’s one more?”
There was a faint knock on the door, and a nurse stepped in. “We’re ready, Ms. Bruckner.”
Alana looked up at Hudson. “I’ll see you soon.”
“See you soon,” Hudson replied.
He hugged her tightly, and then walked toward the door, with Alana sitting there, on the examination table.
“Hudson!” she called, and, even though she was in nothing but a hospital gown, dashed across the room and threw herself into his arms.
She looked up at him.
“Kiss for good luck?” she asked, her voice wobbly.
“Always,” he replied, and kissed her as if his life depended on it.
She didn’t want to admit it, but fuck, if pre-surgery wasn’t the time to, when was?
She kissed him back because her life did depend on it.
I love you, she almost said.
Slowly, Alana unwrapped her arms from Hudson, and backed up slowly, so as not to flash the nurse.
Hudson smiled, and walked out of the room.
“You’re going to take some breaths in,” the anesthesiologist said. “Nice and easy. And if all goes to plan, the next conversation you’ll be having is with the nurses in the recovery room.”
“What music are they going to play in the operating room?” Alana asked, fitting the mask onto her face.
“Do you have any requests?” the anesthesiologist asked.
“I won’t hear it, will I?”
“Somewhere you will.”
“Dr. Flua’s favorite surgery playlist is full of pop songs from the late 2000’s,” one of the nurses said. “Lots of middle school dance songs. The horror of reliving having to slow dance with Peter Bailey to “Kiss Me Thru The Phone” keeps me sharp.”
Alana started to ask what would possess her to slow dance to “Kiss Me Thru The Phone”, but then she was out.