Chapter 41
Forty-One
CHLOE
“Ready to get out of here?” I ask Graham, finding him in the lobby with Mr. Littrel and his freshly stitched hand.
“Waiting on a prescription at the pharmacy,” Graham says. “So, how’d that go?”
I glare at him. “How do you think?”
“Judging by your scowl and the lines between your eyebrows, I’d guess not well.”
“Good guess. So, how long is this going to take?” I tap my foot. The hands on the wall clock seem to have stopped moving.
“Not long,” Mr. Littrel says. He smiles sheepishly, the alcohol having worn off and his embarrassment shining through. “Thanks for this.”
I smile my best customer service smile, softening my face. He’s a client after all, and I’m still working. “It’s not a problem, Mr. L. Your heart was in the right place.”
Rhoads appears in the lobby, out of breath and carrying a small velvet bag in one hand.
Before I can speak, he thrusts it toward me.
“Just look at it, okay? I haven’t been completely honest with you, but not in the way you think.
I’m just asking for a chance to explain.
And if you still want to pretend I don’t exist, I’ll leave you alone.
” Sadness and hope swirl in his coffee-colored eyes.
Definitely French Roast, not Colombian. He’s gone the next minute, jogging toward the elevator.
“Well?” Graham says. “We are all on the edge of our seats, here. Are you going to open it or what?”
It can’t hurt to just see, though the smooth heaviness in my palms feels familiar. I know what it is before I even open it.
The clear glass glints in the harsh fluorescent lights. An orange Post-it note sticks to the outside.
Room 451, it says in Rhoads’s tidy handwriting.
I peel the sticky note off, biting my lip.
Three tiny bicycles sit inside. I recall the snow globe I saw the first time I visited Rhoads’s house.
Those bicycles, though, floated and flipped through the liquid, landing at different angles every time.
The ones in my hand now are glued to the bottom, and no matter how hard I shake the orb, none of them budge.
“Funny how things happen sometimes, huh?” Mr. Littrel says, admiring his bandage. “That we think we’re doing the right thing, and in the end, we hurt ourselves.”
I’m not sure if he knows how true his words ring at that moment or if it’s just the painkillers talking. But I can’t help but relate. I thought I did the right thing distancing myself from Rhoads to stop him from breaking my heart, but in the end, maybe I was the one who broke it after all.
Not all guys are Graham, Kyle said to me that night in the Tree House.
I want him to be right.
And maybe it’s stupid, and maybe it will turn out the same, and maybe my heart will still be broken at the end of the night. But this time, I decide, the truth is worth the risk. The only other choice is not knowing.
“Can you take Mr. Littrel back to his house?” I ask Graham, stepping closer to the window and holding up my phone. No bars. Rhoads wasn’t kidding.
“Sure thing.”
I go outside to the far corner of the sidewalk where I finally get service, wishing I could wrap my coat even tighter against the cold as I text my mom.
Graham’s on his way back with Mr. Littrel. I’ll be back soon. There’s something important I have to do.
I’m going to be grounded again, I just know it.
The three dots blink then disappear. My phone rings.
“Mom, I’m sorry. I know you’re going to be mad, and I committed—”
“What’s wrong, Chloe?”
“I need to fix something with someone I care about.”
My mom pauses. Sighs. I picture her smoothing that same spot of hair again. “Alright. How are you getting back?”
“I’ll call a ride share.” She’s really letting me do this? That tingly feeling caresses my face. This is either a Big Moment for us or my nose is frostbitten already.
“Stop and get a case of sparkling water on your way back.”
“Y-yeah. I can do that.”
“See you soon. And Chloe?”
“Yeah?”
My mom’s voice warms, softens, like brownies fresh out of the oven. “Good luck.”
* * *
I ride the elevator up to the fourth floor, wishing for Top-40 so I can let the flavor of the week pop star numb my senses. Instead, slow jazz seeps through the speakers. I’ve procrastinated this moment, delaying whatever comes next, but I can’t put it off any longer.
Stepping into the hall, I take a deep breath. It smells sterile, like bleach and sadness. It’s either the most perfect backdrop for a Big Moment or the worst.
Soft beeping leads me through a labyrinth of corridors, of blank walls and closed doors and hushed whispers.
Doctors and nurses pass in brightly colored scrubs, the only splash of color in a sea of sameness until I reach the area marked as “Acute Care.” I’ve never been to this part of the hospital before.
Rhoads sits on the floor outside room 451, his arms wrapped around his knees. He looks so small, so fragile. Two words, out of the hundreds I’ve studied over the past few months, I never would have associated with him.
“You came.” He stands.
Everything I’ve thought of saying dissolves on my tongue. I hug my arms around my stomach, suddenly self-conscious. “Yeah.”
“Come on. There’s someone I want you to meet.”
Most of the lights are off in the patient room, but the open blinds let the last bit of cloudy gray daylight seep inside. A petite figure hunches over in a chair next to the bed, murmuring. When we enter, the girl lifts her head. My mouth goes dry again.
Cinnamon Pop-Tart.
Candace.
She’s still here.
The air shifts in the moment I decide to follow Rhoads further into the room. To bite back my instinct to run. To trust him. And to find out whether this Big Moment will be the end of us before we even begin.
As we approach, the girl stands, making her way over to us.
“Chloe, Candace. Candace, Chloe,” Rhoads introduces us.
“It is so good to finally, officially, meet you,” Candace says.
Her dark eyeliner would look severe on anyone else, but somehow it complements her bubblegum pink lips.
“I’ve heard so much about you. An endless amount, basically.
We’ve had a lot of down time. I’m sorry about earlier with the vending machines.
And that night at Peggy’s. Apparently, I have bad timing. ”
I let out a nervous laugh, not sure what to say to this girl I’ve demonized in my mind.
Candace blinks at me a few times, the light bouncing off her blue eyes.
She purses her lips, turning to Rhoads. “Simpson, you haven’t told her anything, have you?
” She smacks him on the arm, a decidedly unromantic gesture.
More like a sibling chastising her brother.
“No wonder everything’s gone to crap. You’re an idiot sometimes.
A real big idiot.” She makes her way back to the bedside chair.
It squeaks when she flops into it, leaning over to address the person lying down.
“Are you hearing any of this? I cannot believe you’re friends with this clown. ”
The person in the bed makes no movements, no indication he heard or saw anything. The only clue he’s alive is the rhythmic rising and falling of his chest.
Rhoads grimaces. “I’ve been trying. But I didn’t want to leave it all in my messages or via text. It’s too important.” He says all of this to me, his face pleading. “Not that it would have changed anything.”
“Will someone tell me what’s going on, please?” I ask, my voice pinching in my throat.
“This,” Candace says, her voice gentle, her head leaning ever so slightly toward the still figure wrapped in blankets, tubes and wires connecting him to screens and beeping machines, “is Jenson. My little brother.” She shoots Rhoads a look that clearly means “take it from here.”
Rhoads takes a deep breath. “He was in a coma for a few days at the beginning of the semester. He’s been recovering here since.”
“I’m going to go…get snacks,” Candace announces, popping up and clapping her hands once. A large pile of unopened bags of chips and cookies teeters on the side table. It looks like they’ve already emptied an entire machine. “Anyone want anything?”
“No, thanks,” Rhoads says.
“I’m fine,” I say, still trying to process.
When Candace has shut the door behind her, I finally met Rhoads’s eyes.
He continues, “The day we were studying, and I got those texts from Candace, she was asking if I wanted to meet her here to visit Jenson or if you and I were having too much fun. Then things got weird with us when you left my house, but I didn’t know why.
I was worried Jenson was taking a bad turn, and that you hated me and my brain just said, ‘Get breakfast,’ and my body drove me and Candace to Peggy’s.
I remembered feeling safe there. I wanted that feeling. Needed it.”
He sighs. Blue light from the muted TV flashes across his face.
“But I didn’t get any kind of relief until I saw you, and the moment you looked at me, it disappeared.
I realized then it wasn’t the pancakes or the hash browns that gave me comfort.
” A sad smile turns the corners of his lips.
“Candace isn’t the only one with bad timing, I guess.
There hasn’t ever been anything romantic between me and her.
I need you to know that. She’s got a very cool girlfriend she met at college, and even if she didn’t, it’s never been like that with us. I should have told you that sooner.”
I shake my head, fighting the tears again. His best friend is recovering from a traumatic injury, and I’ve been complaining that he might like another girl. Way to go and make everything about you, Chloe.
“Why didn’t you?” I whisper.
“I wasn’t sure if it mattered or not. And I was afraid.
I kept hoping and wishing that everything would go back to normal.
That I could introduce you to my best friend over pizza and bad jokes.
Not like this. Not with stale vending machine chips and ‘90s sitcom reruns. He’s getting better, but it’s a long, slow road. ”
“How did it happen?” My voice cracks under the weight of the words. “Jenson, I mean.”
Rhoads sinks onto the sofa. He swallows hard. “Bike accident right before school started. He got hit by a drunk driver.”
My mind flashes to the Halloween party and Rhoads’s serious insistence that he’d never drive under the influence.
And Piper mentioned he took one of the football player’s keys at the bonfire.
Bike accident.
Another memory.
Three small bikes suspended in clear liquid, floating. With each new shake, the possibility they’ll all land upright, like a kid shaking a Magic 8 ball until she gets the result she wants.
Cheating the system, sort of.
Or just refusing to give up hope that things might turn out okay in the end after all.
“Was that the first snow globe you made? The one with the bikes?”
Rhoads nods. “I think my therapist was afraid I might punch someone if my hands were idle. I wouldn’t have, but I was angry.”
He bumps my shoulder with his. “Candace and I were both there when it happened. We’d ridden ahead, racing. Just this stupid game the three of us always played on that country road. Jenson’s bike wheel got tripped up by a rock, so he fell behind, and then...
“I had to fight with the paramedics to convince them not to cut off his jacket. He loves it more than anything. I’ve had it ever since. Keeping it safe.”
“I’m so sorry.” About your friend. For not being here. For being shallow and selfish.
He looks at his hands and shakes his head. “I should have stopped it somehow, protected him.”
“Rhoads, it wasn’t your fault.”
“If I’d been back there with him, maybe I would have seen the car in time. Maybe I could have, I don’t know, pushed him out of the way or something.”
“You probably would be in a bed next to him right now.” The thought sends a shiver up my spine. I’ve never seen him like this, so unsure of himself.
“Maybe.”
I wish that I could shake this moment like a snow globe and make the pieces land differently, make him understand this is in no way his fault.
“I’m sorry if you got the wrong idea about me and Candace.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me.”
I fold his hand into mine, surprised at how warm it is in the chill of the hospital room.
He sighs again. “I’ve been living my life in this room and sleepwalking through the rest. Except when I’m with you.”
I let his words hang in the air. Because, for once, I realize this moment isn’t about me or what we are or aren’t to each other. It’s about being here for him when he needs someone. Everything else can wait.
I squeeze his hand.
He leans over, resting his head on my shoulder. The smooth leather of his—Jenson’s—leather jacket brushes against my collarbone.
Maybe I’ve had it wrong all this time. Maybe it’s not the Big Moments I should be chasing.
Maybe the small moments, like this, are the ones that matter most.