Chapter Twenty-four
There are no secrets in the emergency department. If anything, the thin walls amplify sound by blocking out the visuals.
Lyle’s voice is calm. He’s not shouting, but neither is he quiet or deferential. He sounds like he’s taking up a lot of space at the triage desk, and I can’t help but feel a tiny thrill for him even as a bolt of terrified energy strikes the center of my being.
“She’s my fiancée ,” Lyle insists, again. “That means her next of kin is me .”
“He’s here.” I sound panicky. I want more time; I want him to burst in here and pull me into his arms.
Hearing him say fiancée tears my heart in two. I want it to be true so badly my throat squeezes. But it’s a lie—and now everybody knows it. As much as I want to believe in us , it’s not real.
And the moment I see him is the moment we have to stop pretending.
“Don’t look so surprised. He was always going to come for you, little star.”
I squeeze my eyes closed. “He left me, Sloane.”
“He freaked out,” Sloane says gently. “He needed to cool off. He couldn’t have known what would happen.”
“It doesn’t matter what he thought would happen! I asked him for one thing. I asked him to not let me go, and he did. Maybe we’re not right for each other. Maybe we should cut our losses and end things now.”
Sloane takes a measured breath like she’s fighting for patience. I open my eyes to find her massaging her temples.
“What the hell, Sloane?! Don’t tell me you’re on his side?”
She sets the jaw that’s so much like Dad’s.
So much like mine. “I’m not on his side!
Honestly, if you weren’t in the hospital, I would flick you right in the forehead for being stupid and stubborn.
” She waggles her flicking fingers at me.
“He screwed up, okay? Is that what you wanted to hear?
He screwed up, and you deserve to be mad at him and have him apologize and make amends to you.
“But you know what? Fuck you for never forgiving anyone. Not even McHuge, the world’s kindest human, who would die before he hurt you.
And especially not yourself. What’s going to happen when I screw up, huh?
You gonna drop me for another fifteen years and hate yourself just as long because you trusted someone who wasn’t perfect?
Or are you gonna grow up and give me another chance, even though your scoreboard says you shouldn’t? ”
She bursts out of the chair to stalk over to the supply cupboard behind my head.
“Let me ask you something, Doctor , since you’re so smart.
Why do you think everyone at the Love Boat helped you after you lied to them?
Willow drove you to the hospital. Mitch and Lori booked you a hotel room in case you and McHuge didn’t want to sleep in the same place tonight.
Brent took care of McHuge’s dog. Brent. They all could have told you to go fuck yourselves, but they stuck around and gave you a second chance, and they hardly know you.
” Boxes of gloves and alcohol wipes tumble to the counter with Sloane’s aggressive rummaging.
“W-what are you doing?” I ask, stuttering.
“Your fiancé’s going to be here in a second. We’re making you look good. Ha!” She brandishes a package labeled STERILE GAUZE . She tears it open, wets a corner under the tap, and dabs my face, coming away with streaks of red and brown.
“You should’ve used a paper towel. The sterile stuff is really expensive.”
“They can bill me,” she growls.
“It’s Canada. They don’t know how.” I liberate the expensive gauze from her grip and use it to blow my nose. She laughs so loudly I end up having to laugh, too.
At the nursing station, there’s an escalating chorus of, “Sir, you can’t do that. Sir. Sir!”
Sloane sighs, walks to the door, and sticks her head into the hall.
“She’s in here, McHuge.” She turns back to me, brows drawn together.
“You look kind of pathetic. I may be somewhat regretting that monologue. Do you want me to stay? I could take him in a fight. Not, like, a physical fight, but I can inflict emotional damage.”
My chest constricts with her love, her care, and the pain of all the years she and I missed out on, everything pulling into bittersweet equilibrium. If I hadn’t done everything that brought me here tonight, I wouldn’t be with my sister.
“I’ll be okay. And Sloane?”
“Yeah?” She crosses her arms grumpily.
“You’re my favorite sister.”
Her stance softens. She comes back to the stretcher to drop a kiss on my forehead, her voice a touch gravelly. “I know.”
One minute Lyle isn’t here, the next second he’s the only thing in the cubicle, breathing hard, face flushed, hair escaping from its tie.
An adhesive bandage covers his injured eyebrow, his face only partially cleaned up.
Everything is beautiful and terrible—loving him and wanting him and knowing I have to choose what to do, who to be.
And I don’t have a clue how to do it.
“How’s Babe?” I ask, groping for a place to start.
“Ate some waves, but she’ll recover. How are you?”
“I just came here for the snacks, honestly. Want some tea?” I gesture to the now cold remains in my cup.
“Damn it, Stellar.” He’s by my side, fingers hovering over the place where the bulky white bandage contrasts starkly with my T-shirt tan.
His green eyes are red rimmed and dull, shadowed from within.
He swallows, not quite able to mask a low-pitched sound of dismay, and then I’m gently, inevitably gathered against his chest, cradled there like I’m fragile and so, so precious.
It’s everything I want. Everything he could give to me, everything I’m afraid to take from him.
I hoped I was out of tears, but I feel them squeezing hot out of the corners of my eyes, dampening whatever dorky tree shirt is smashed beneath my face. If he’d asked me if I wanted a hug, I would’ve made myself say no. Now that I’m in his arms, I can’t bring myself to let this go.
“I should’ve listened to you when you were so worried about spying. Fuck the risk to the business,” he says with his whole chest. “You shouldn’t have had to keep yourself safe. I should have done that. I’ll make it up to you, I promise. I’ll make it even.”
I hear in his voice how long this night has been, how desperately he wanted to be everywhere at once for me and Babe.
I feel in the careful press of his arms how much he wants everything to be all right, and how afraid he is that none of it will be.
Even his sweat smells different, the sharp tang of stress cutting through his normal body chemistry.
I could be angry. I could demand anything from him right now, and he’d give it to me. But that’s not who I want to be.
My big sister was right. Fuck not forgiving him.
He won’t ask me for forgiveness, but I can give it to him anyway.
I can give it to us both, as a gift. We don’t have to keep punishing ourselves—not for what happened when we were seventeen, not for what happened tonight.
We can let the people who hurt us own their part.
We can have another chance.
I lay my good hand on the back of his neck.
“It’s nothing a few stitches couldn’t fix.
” Evan did good work. Underneath the bandage, his tidy sutures line up nicely along the curve of my biceps, cracked circuits welded together again.
They don’t look like new, but there is a beauty in something that has been broken and lovingly repaired.
“No one could have seen this coming, Lyle. Not even Fisher, that galactic fucknut. You can forgive yourself for not being perfect. Running away matters less than running back.”
“How do you do that? Forgive yourself, I mean?” he asks, lowering me to the stretcher. He straightens up, eyes fixed on the floor with its cracked linoleum tiles that haven’t come quite clean at the edges in a long time.
“I don’t know. I have no idea how to do any of this.” The same way I couldn’t figure out how to accept his love—that awkward half hug in the tent, my god—I have no clue about the mechanics of forgiveness.
My parents never gave me the chance to forgive them. They never even asked . After that, I tied myself in knots to make sure I never needed to forgive anyone who mattered. Love is the only problem I never learned how to work.
“You don’t know how to do any of what?” Lyle says, voice low, arms crossed. “You mean breaking up with me?” His left thumb worries at his ring, twisting the iron circle up over his first knuckle.
“No,” I say, testy with fatigue and pain and uncertainty.
“I don’t know how to tell you I forgive you and ask you to forgive me.
Do you just… say it? Is there some kind of preamble?
Do you extract concessions, like making the other person clean the gross stuff at camp for the rest of the summer? Like, what’s the procedure?”
He raises his eyes to me. “You just say it,” he says, his voice soft as dawn over water.
That seems fake, but what choice do I have?
“Then I’m sorry, Lyle. I let you down tonight.
I never should have suggested a fake engagement or tried to hide my connection to Sloane.
My actions put the Love Boat at risk, and I regret that so much.
So much, Lyle. I hope you can forgive me.
I hope we can forgive each other for not being perfect, and I want there to be a next time so I can do better. If that’s what you want, too.”
Deep breath. That wasn’t so bad. I continue, “We need to work together if we’re going to try to bail out the Love Boat. And if we’re going to make this relationship thing work.” With my good arm, I reach across the bed’s guardrail.
“Are we?” His arms don’t unfold, and the first slim needle of doubt pierces my heart.
I see a future where he stands there, and I lie here, aching for him and unable to do a damn thing about it.
Eventually, I’ll invent a reason to take my arm back—an itch under my bandage, a classic—but we’ll both know it’s a lie.
No. Fuck that future. I’m not letting go of the one I want.
“I hope we are,” I say, leaving my hand where it is, willing him to take it. “We can’t be engaged anymore, though. I’m not sorry we did it,” I add hurriedly. “But next time I get engaged, I don’t want to do it because I have to. I want to choose it for myself. And I want you to do the same thing.”
“Okay.” His smile is a little sad as he takes off the ring and drops it in my palm, but it’s a smile, at least.
I slip his ring over my thumb. It’s warm, its matte surface somehow soft. I’d swear it’s got a piece of his soul in it. Ah, don’t let me cry in front of him.
“Well?” I ask, my heart trying to climb out of my chest. It’s a good thing I’m not hooked up to a monitor right now, because my vital signs would tell him everything my words left out.
“Well, what?”
“Did it work? Are we… forgiving each other?”
He slides his hand over mine, covering the ring and clasping tight. “Yeah. We are. You want to come back to my place tonight?”
It’s not easy, this business of forgiving people, but it feels so good I can’t help laughing. “Have you gotten a decent TV since last time I was there?”
“No. Television interferes with my—”
“If you say vibes, I swear to—”
“—sleep,” he finishes, giving me an amused look. He leans down, coming in slow, giving me time to say whatever I need to.
His kiss is featherlight, but with a dig to it like a big cat pushing its face into your hand, seeking comfort, pleasure, relief.
Two sharp raps sound on the cubicle door.
“Sorry for the delay. I—Oh!” Evan blinks as Lyle and I pull apart. “I brought you that prescription,” he says. “And a scrub top, since we ruined your shirt. Bring it back when you decide to take us up on that job offer.”
Lyle pulls back at the mention of a job, wincing when he forgets not to raise his injured eyebrow.
“I will. Evan, do you have a second to look at my… um, my partner’s face?” Partner is an ambiguous word, but Lyle hears what I mean, because of course he does. His hand grips my shoulder, and I slide mine up to cover it, his ring loose on my thumb.
“Sure. Same dog?”
“Book to the eyebrow.”
Evan glances at me like he wants to ask and also does not want to ask. He gloves up, gets Lyle seated on the chair, and peels back the bandage on his eyebrow.
“Hmmm, yes. Little discomfort now,” he says, pressing the edges of Lyle’s crooked eyebrow together. “This one’s been split before. Don’t tell me—hockey? I can put it together a little straighter. More cosmetic,” he offers.
“No!” I blurt, before amending, “I mean, it’s up to Lyle.” One armed, I pull myself up to sitting so I can catch Lyle’s eyes through Evan’s hands. “But I liked it the way it was.”
Broken. Fixed. Still good.