Chapter 20 #2
Not the comforting, lazy Sunday type of coffee though. This coffee was burnt, like it had been sitting on a hot plate since dawn, growing more bitter by the minute. It was the kind no one actually drank, but they kept making anyway because it was routine.
My knee was bouncing so hard the plastic chair squeaked beneath me. I clamped my hands together in my lap, fingers twisting, untwisting, twisting again. I told myself to breathe. In through my nose. Out through my mouth.
It didn’t help.
The TV mounted in the corner was playing some daytime talk show featuring a woman crying about her cheating husband.
The audience gasped on cue. I wondered, distantly, how anyone could cry about infidelity when there were far worse things in the world.
Then I instantly felt guilty for thinking that.
It must have been my nerves, because I knew firsthand that pain was pain.
A voice echoed faintly through the room, but I didn’t register it. I was too busy staring at the floor tiles, counting the little blue flecks trapped in the off-white linoleum. One, two, three. They formed shapes if I looked long enough—a flower, a constellation, some kind of dinosaur.
Eventually, a shadow fell across my shoes.
“Cara Samuel?” the voice said again, closer this time.
I jerked my head up to find a phlebotomist smiling at me. She was probably around my mom’s age, with soft brown eyes and Polka dot scrubs that looked deliberately non-threatening.
“Sorry,” I said quickly, scrambling to my feet. My legs felt rubbery, like they might buckle at any second. “That’s me.”
“Hi, Cara. I’m Denise,” she said. “I’ll be doing your draw today. Take your time. We’re not in a rush.”
“Thanks, I’m ready,” I said, even though I wasn’t.
I’d barely slept the night before, nerves keeping me awake as the hours crawled toward morning.
My mind kept looping through worst-case scenarios as I tossed and turned.
In the end, I gave up on falling asleep and dragged myself out of bed before my alarm had the chance to go off.
Denise led me through a door that separated the waiting room from the lab, past the nurse station, and down a hallway lit by fluorescent panels that hummed softly overhead.
Exam room doors lined both sides, evenly spaced and identical, each with a small rectangular window at eye level.
Some were closed, others stood ajar, revealing glimpses of vinyl exam tables, rolling stools, and white counters arranged with medical supplies.
Stopping midway down the hall, Denise opened one of the doors and ushered me inside.
Everything was white and clean and far too familiar.
“All right,” she said, washing her hands.
“Before we get started, I need you to double-check something for me.” Once her hands were dry, she showed me a sheet of white rectangular stickers.
There were rows of them, each with my name and date of birth printed in black ink. “Is this information correct?”
I leaned forward and read it twice. “Cara Caroline Samuel, July fourth,” I said quietly. “Yeah, that’s right.”
She nodded. “Perfect. Thanks for checking.”
Next, Denise wrapped an elastic tourniquet around my upper arm, snug but not painful.
The pressure made everything feel more real, and my hands started to shake.
I tried to still them, pressing my fingers into the vinyl of the padded arm supports, but it was no use.
The tremor ran straight through me, from my fingertips all the way up to my shoulder.
“This might feel cold,” Denise warned, swabbing my skin with a wipe.
I inhaled the faint scent of alcohol, and then my breath caught.
The room felt too small, the air too thin.
My pulse spiked, hammering against my throat.
I couldn’t do this. I’d done this a thousand times before, but that was then.
That was when I was sick for sure, when there was no choice.
This was different. Now, this scan felt like a verdict waiting to be handed down.
My hands shook harder, and my vision tunneled.
“Hey,” Denise said softly, pausing mid-motion. “It’s okay. We can take a minute if you need one.”
“I’m fine,” I lied, because that was what I’d always done in these situations. Pretend and push through.
Denise didn’t move. She just waited.
I tried to laugh, but it sounded like it got lost on the way out. “I promise I’m not usually like this.”
She gave me a look that said she’d seen this kind of fear before and wasn’t going to judge me. “You don’t have to be anything,” she told me. “You just have to breathe. Can you do that for me?”
Even though my chest felt tight, I nodded and closed my eyes.
In. Out.
Again.
I thought about how Trixy held herself together despite everything her body had been through, stubborn and unflinching in the aftermath of the accident. Then my thoughts shifted to JJ and how he’d helped his sister turn fear into an obstacle to outsmart. This is a quest, I told myself.
“Okay, I’m ready,” I said, opening my eyes.
Denise smiled. “Good job.”
The needle went in. A sharp pinch, then pressure. I focused on the ceiling tile directly above me and counted each breath until the sting dulled.
One vial filled. Then another. Finally, a third.
“All done,” she said at last, removing the needle and pressing gauze to my arm. “You did great.”
My shoulders dropped, the worst of the panic releasing its hold.
As Denise taped the gauze in place, I looked down at the three vials lined up on the counter.
They were full of answers I didn’t want to hear but would no longer run from.
For the first time in a long while, I didn’t feel like bolting.
I sat there, heart still racing, arm aching dully, and let myself exist in the aftermath.
I’d shown up, and for now, that was enough.
* * *
A week later, I found myself standing on the front step of Oliver and JJ’s place.
The mid-century house was tucked into the hills above Silver Lake, clean-lined but softened by warm wood, its wide windows glowing in the late-afternoon light.
Bougainvillea draped over the low retaining wall, its petals scattered across the concrete like drops of pink paint.
This wasn’t what I’d pictured. My imagination had supplied something much flashier, but I liked what stood in front of me better.
It felt like somewhere people actually lived.
People like JJ.
Before I could overthink that little detail, the front door flew open.
“Thank God you’re here,” Oliver said, grabbing my carry-on and hauling it inside like I might vanish if he didn’t act fast. “He’s driving me up the wall.”
“That bad?” I asked as I stepped over the threshold.
The inside of the house smelled like coffee and lemon cleaner.
Sunlight poured through floor-to-ceiling windows, illuminating a long, open living space that flowed straight into the kitchen.
A pile of shoes cluttered the entryway rug, mail sat unopened on a coffee table, and the fridge was plastered with mismatched magnets holding up takeout menus, a half-finished grocery list, and pictures of friends and family.
A sharp ding echoed down the hallway.
“Oliver!” JJ’s voice rang out. “I need my drink refilled. And maybe a snack. Do we have any of those mini corn dogs left?”
My eyes widened. “Was that…a bell? Like you’re his footman or valet or something?”
Oliver closed his eyes. He looked like he was summoning patience from another dimension. “Now do you see why I insisted on buying your plane ticket?” he replied. “His surgery went perfectly fine, but he’s acting like a frail Victorian child who had his legs amputated.”
“I thought it was just his wrist?”
“It is,” Oliver grumbled. “One wrist. Singular.”
Another ding.
I bit my lip, fighting a laugh. “Is there nobody else who can help you?”
“Nope. Courtney said she doesn’t get paid enough to deal with his bullshit, and Xander booked a last-minute trip to Portland the second he heard the phrase ‘recovery period.’”
“What about Alec?”
“He moved in with Felicity, remember?” Oliver gestured vaguely toward the ceiling, like Alec might materialize out of guilt if he kept complaining. “They’re in their own little love bubble, and honestly? I don’t blame them. JJ’s been...difficult.”
I winced. Difficult because of the surgery or what happened between us?
Oliver glanced back at me, expression softening just enough to remind me of my old crush. “He’s been like this ever since you two stopped talking.”
The confirmation made my stomach sink. Maybe flying to LA had been a mistake. “Should I have told him I was coming?” I asked. “I don’t want to make things worse.”
“No!” Oliver blurted, already shaking his head. “Absolutely not. I’m hoping the shock of seeing you will finally snap him out of it.”
Ding.
“I’m assuming you’re here to make up with him?” he continued. “Stella didn’t give me details, but she sounded hopeful.”
“I am,” I said, even though my chest felt tight. All I could do was cross my fingers and pray that he would hear me out.
“Okay, good.” Oliver exhaled like I’d just passed some kind of test. “If you hadn’t shown up, I was five minutes away from faking an emergency and driving to the beach.”
He pulled a U of O lanyard from his pocket.
“Wait,” I said, eyeing the keys. “What are you doing with those?”
“I need a break from his dramatics before I commit a felony. Can you help him with whatever he’s whining about?” He offered me an apologetic smile as he stepped away, but not even the sight of his dimples could distract me from the sudden nerves buzzing under my skin.
“You can’t just abandon me!” I exclaimed. What if JJ didn’t want to talk or kicked me out or refused to even look at me?
Ding. Ding. Ding. “The bell is not decorative, Oliver. If I die of thirst back here, it’ll be on you.”
“You’ll be fine,” he said as he eased the door open.
My gaze flicked around the unfamiliar space. “I don’t even know where I’m going.”