Chapter 20
TAKING THINGS INTO MY OWN HANDS
SIMONE
Ishould be relaxing because finals are finally over.
It’s done. Andie and I wanted to party, but frankly were too exhausted, so we just went to bed after chowing down in the dorm cafeteria.
But now, it’s almost midnight when I realize I’m not going to sleep.
My brain has been running laps since finals ended—a weird, queasy freedom that makes me want to run until my legs give out, or else hide under the bed and not come out until next semester.
The dorm room is dark except for the single desk lamp, which projects a warped circle of light onto the carpet, its glow picking out all the unevenness and dust that daylight hides.
I hate the word surgery. I hate the word hospital even more.
The thought of walking into that building—letting them put me under, cut into me, root around for broken bits like I’m a salvage car—makes my mouth taste like copper.
I can already see the white tiles and smell the faint reek of disinfectant; I can already hear the mechanical beep of some distant monitor counting down the seconds of my life.
I want to puke, or run, or hit something.
Instead, I sit on the edge of my bed in my comfy flannel pajamas (the ones with cartoon whales), knees clamped up to my chest, and rock back and forth, phone jammed in my fist. The room is cold. My teeth chatter. Or maybe it’s just nerves.
I scroll my texts. There’s nothing from Liam, not since that stiff apology a week ago.
What the hell was that anyways? It didn’t even sound like him.
Maybe it was ChatGPT playing a trick on us all.
Nonetheless, I keep telling myself I’m over it, that I don’t care, but every time I try to close my eyes, I see him in the library aisle—his hair wild, his eyes stormy, the way his voice cracked when he said my name.
I want to hate him. I want to forget him.
But mostly I want him to come here and fix everything, even though that’s not how any of this works.
I stare at the phone until the screen times out, black as a threat.
Andie’s soft snores stutter in the background, and I envy her the ability to sleep without fear. I think about waking her up and making her talk me down, but something about the peace in her face stops me.
I turn the phone back on, stare at Liam’s contact. My finger hovers over the call button.
No. Don’t be pathetic.
But then a hot surge of anger bubbles up in my chest, and I jab at the screen, almost hard enough to crack it.
The phone rings twice before he picks up.
“Simone,” he says, and my name is a sigh, not a greeting.
For a second, neither of us talks. The silence is its own kind of comfort.
Finally, I say, “I can’t do this.”
He doesn’t pretend not to know what I mean. “You don’t have to.”
“I’m scared,” I whisper, and I hate the way my voice trembles. “I’m really fucking scared, Liam.”
He exhales, the sound tinny and far away. “Do you want me to come over?”
My breath hitches. I want to say no. I want to say I’ll be fine. But the word that comes out is, “Yes.”
“I’ll be there in twenty,” he says.
The line goes dead, and the world seems to freeze around me.
He shows up in less than twenty minutes, which means he broke at least four laws getting here. I hear the knock and then the scuffle of someone shushing himself in the hallway.
Andie wakes up, blearily, when I cross the room to the door. She sits up, rubs her eyes, and then clocks the dark shape of a man standing in the frame of our half-open door.
“Seriously?” she stage-whispers.
I shrug, not bothering to explain.
She slumps back on the pillow but doesn’t look away, eyes alert, arms crossed like a bouncer at a club.
I crack open the door a little more. Liam stands there, breathing hard, hair wild, wearing a battered gray hoodie and jeans that look like he’s been sleeping in them.
There’s stubble on his chin and bruises under his eyes, making him look haunted.
He appears ten years older than last week and also—somehow—like the only safe place in the world.
“Hi,” I say, and for a second I think I might actually cry.
He looks at me for a long moment, then steps inside, not touching me. He glances at Andie, who is full of dragon energy now, daring him to fuck up even once.
“Hi, Andie,” he says, quietly.
She gives him a look like she’d rather eat glass than say hi back, but she nods.
“Okay, okay,” she says, flinging off her blanket and collecting her pillows. “I’ll, um. Go sleep in the lounge. Or with the psych major across the hall, whatever. Just don’t kill each other.” Her voice is sharp, but I can see the worry in her eyes as she passes me on the way out.
She pauses, hand on the doorknob, and says, “If you need me, yell.” The door closes behind her with a hush.
Now it’s just the two of us, in the weird, still dark.
Liam sits on the chair, knees spread, hands dangling between them. He doesn’t speak at first. I sit on the bed, hugging my knees, and wait for the words to come.
When they don’t, he just looks at me with that soft, stricken expression I remember from the worst night of my life. The one after my father’s funeral, when I was thirteen and so numb I barely noticed my brother’s tears on my hand as we walked out of the chapel.
I start to shake. Not out of cold, but out of something deeper—a sense that I’m coming apart at every seam and nothing can hold me together. Liam must see it, because he gets up, crosses the distance, and sits beside me on the edge of the bed.
He doesn’t touch me right away. He just waits.
“Do you want to talk?” he says, so quietly I almost don’t hear it.
I want to laugh. “No,” I say. “But I will.”
And then I tell him. Not the story I give to friends, the one with the sanitized edges and the brave little jokes.
I tell him about the hospital nights—the months of my dad’s stomach cancer, the way the hospital always smelled like burned popcorn and Lysol, the way the nurses smiled at us like we were tiny bombs set to detonate.
I tell him how I started panicked at the sight of all the machines and tubes, how my dad shrank to nothing in the bed, how my brother wouldn’t come near the hospital after the first week, how I was the only one who stayed until the last hour.
I tell him about the sounds: the soft shush of slippers, the beeping of the monitors, the low groan my dad made when he tried to talk, the one I sometimes still hear in dreams. I tell him about the way the hospital light was always a little too blue, and how every time I see it now I want to scream.
I tell him about the funeral, and how the next morning, my brother and I woke up in a stranger’s house, because nobody else would take us in.
I tell him how I lied to every foster parent after that, how I pretended I was okay, how I built walls so thick I sometimes can’t even feel my own heart beating.
I tell him how my brother never recovered.
How Jimmy’s homeless now, and I haven’t heard from him in years.
My heart breaks at the telling because I wish I could see my brother just one more time.
Just once. But I have no idea where he is and tears begin to run down my face.
When I run out of words, there’s just the hum of the radiator and the sound of my own ragged breathing.
He takes my hand. It’s not a big gesture—just his palm on mine, warm and dry and grounding. His thumb traces slow circles on my skin.
“Simone,” he says, and that’s all, but it’s enough. It’s the first time I’ve ever told the whole story to anyone, and the relief is dizzying. The fear is still there, but it feels lighter.
I let myself lean against him. My head fits into the crook of his shoulder. He doesn’t try to kiss me, or pull me closer. He just holds my hand and lets me be.
We talk, in fits and starts, until the sky outside starts to change color.
He tells me about his own father, about the way he used to sneak out of his house to walk the old man’s beat with him after midnight, about how he learned to read poetry by reciting it to his dad in the dark, about how he’s never felt good enough for anything in his life, not teaching, not relationships, not even his own fucked-up dreams.
He tells me about the years after the divorce, the string of nothing nights, the way he sometimes wishes he could just disappear.
We talk about pain. We talk about wanting to be whole, and what it costs to get there.
At some point, I realize I’m not shaking anymore.
I realize, too, that I’m exhausted. The kind of tired that goes down to the bone. My eyes burn and my mouth feels dry and every muscle in my body aches.
He lies down on top of the blanket, fully clothed, and I curl up beside him, my head on his chest. His hand never leaves mine. He doesn’t say anything else, but I feel his breathing—slow, deliberate, even—and it’s enough to lull me into a gentler kind of darkness.
When I wake up, the sky is the color of peach sorbet and I feel something close to peace.
I look at Liam, sleeping hard, the lines on his face deep and unguarded.
I don’t know what will happen after today, or after the surgery, or after the next time I inevitably ruin everything. But for now, I just let myself be held. I let myself belong, if only for a single sunrise.
Andie returns around seven, bagel in hand, hair wild from wherever she’s been. She clocks the two of us on the bed, my face mashed against Liam’s chest, and grins.
“Guess we survived,” she says in a droll tone.
Liam sits up, blinking. He looks as stunned as I feel.
I stretch, my body sore and loose, and smile at Andie. “You didn’t have to leave all night.”
She shrugs. “Looked like you needed it more than I did. I slept fine. You know me. I’m like a cat. I can curl up anywhere.” She wiggles her eyebrows, and I almost laugh.
She tosses me the bagel. “Eat, or I’ll narc on you to the nurse.”