Chapter 24
I’m not sure anything is quite as mortifying as making a dramatic fuck you exit, then showing up on that person’s doorstep a few hours later, but here I am, banging on Kevin’s door. I must have left my last shred of dignity somewhere in Ohio.
“Cubby?” Kevin rubs his eyes, voice froggy with sleep. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m not quite sure,” I garble. “But my cheeks are a bit swollen.”
Kevin blinks a few times, then his eyes shoot wide. “Oh shit.”
“Oh shit?” I repeat, hands fluttering in front of me. “Don’t say oh shit. Oh shit makes it sound really bad.”
“Cubby, it looks really bad. Your cheeks aren’t a bit swollen, they’re alarmingly, massively blown up.”
“Kevin, that is not at all helpful,” I cry, panic mounting.
“I don’t know how to be helpful, you look like a bullfrog!”
“You’re supposed to be my manager! Managers don’t panic and compare their clients to farm animals!”
“They do when said client looks like they took a hook to both sides … Also, what kind of farm has frogs as livestock?”
I let out a sharp whine, hot tears rolling down my inflamed cheeks. “What do we do? It feels like someone is twisting a knife into my jaw.”
Kevin looks to be on the verge of tears himself, shifting from foot to foot as he bites his nails. “Is it a tooth thing? Should we take you to a dentist? Could it be your wisdom teeth?”
“A dentist? Kevin, I can feel my heartbeat in my jawbone, this is far beyond a dentist.”
“They’re never helpful, anyway,” he mumbles, pulling out his phone. “Charge you for breathing. I got stuck with a five-hundred-dollar bill for my last cleaning. Can you believe that?”
“Can we talk about the inadequacies of American dental insurance later? It feels like my face is about to pop.”
“Sorry,” Kevin says, looking sheepish. “Give me a sec.” He ducks back into the room, closing the door behind him, and I’m left blinking in the hall.
“I’ll wait here, then,” I mumble, my anxious fingers clawing at the base of my throat like they’re desperate to rip out whatever is hurting me.
Kevin appears a minute later, pajama bottoms replaced with jeans, keys in hand. “Come on.”
I follow him down the hall, the pain growing sharper, even the feel of air across my cheeks is enough to rip at the nerve endings. I follow him to his car and collapse into the passenger seat. “Where are you taking me?”
“To the emergency room.” He revs up the car and pulls out of the extremely tight space. “There’s a university nearby, Callowhill, and they have a really good med school or whatever. They should be able to help.”
I nod, the pain turning to an echoing throb that travels down my neck and up to my temples.
The drive isn’t long, but every second is agony.
Kevin is frantic, shooting me panicked glances and placing his cold hand on my forehead every few seconds.
My mouth hurts so badly I can’t even verbalize how annoyed I am. A true medical emergency.
We wait for an hour in the dingy lobby, my head cradled in my hands as I beg any deity listening to make the pain stop. Finally, a nurse calls me back and I’m so delirious I consider worshiping at his feet for a moment.
He takes me to a small room, introducing himself as Dev while taking my blood pressure and temperature.
“One-oh-two,” he says, reading the thermometer, then touching around my jaw and neck. I hiss at a tender spot. “Running a bit of a fever. Your lymph nodes are swollen too.”
“Am I dying?” I ask hopefully as a fresh new throb shoots through me.
“Open, please,” Dev answers, flashing a light in my mouth as I do as he asks. He makes a humming sound. “Do you still have your wisdom teeth?”
I want to make a deprecating joke about not having an ounce of wisdom in my body, but the pain is so intense I give him a pitiful shrug instead. “I guess? I’ve never had them removed or whatever. Aren’t I kind of old for that to be an issue?”
Dev glances at my chart, then shakes his head. “Nah, plenty of twenty-three-years-olds deal with complications. You’d be surprised by how many people in their thirties and forties end up having some sort of problem pop up because they never got them out.”
“How comforting. I was worried I was somehow special or unique.”
“Nope. Nothing to worry about there. I’m gonna grab an X-ray, then see if the oral surgeon on call can take a look. I think that might be what’s causing this.”
Dev takes me to a tall X-ray machine at the end of the hall, then sends me back to the room to count each pulsating second as I wait for the doctor.
“He didn’t confirm you’re dying, so you probably aren’t dying,” Kevin says, pacing the tiny space in three strides. “I’m fairly sure you aren’t dying.”
“If you keep stomping like that, you might be the one to kill me. I feel the sound of your footsteps in my cheeks.”
He screeches to a halt, plopping down in the nearest chair. A firm rap on the door draws our attention as a woman in a white coat walks in.
“Hi,” she says in a calm, soothing voice. “I’m Dr. Harper Horowitz, one of the oral surgeons on staff here. I’ll be taking care of you today.”
Despite her petite stature and looking rather young, the doctor exudes a commanding presence like she’d love for someone to make her day by questioning her authority. But there’s also something inherently kind and warm about her, deep compassion in her alert eyes.
I decide I like her.
“Tell me a bit about what’s going on,” she says, rolling up her chair to where I’m perched on the table and giving me her full attention.
I launch into an abbreviated account of being in so much pain for the past few hours I simultaneously want to puke and die.
For some reason, I find myself crying at the end.
It’s not a dignified, quiet type of crying either.
It’s a sobbing, wracking type of crying that has snot pouring from my nose and tears trailing down my swollen cheeks to my neck.
Dr. Horowitz takes my hand in both of hers, holding tightly and drawing soothing circles on the back with her thumb.
I’m so mortified, I use my free hand to cover my face, unable to stop blubbering.
It isn’t just from the pain. The pain pushed me over the edge, beat me up on my way to rock bottom, but it’s everything.
It’s the stupid tabloids and the stupid band and stupid Harry and stupid Darcy and my stupid, confusing love for her. It’s my hate for Connor and my anger at the world and my silly, pathetic feelings being crushed over and over again.
It’s life hurting so badly I’ve forgotten what it’s like to feel good.
“I’m so sorry you’re in pain,” Dr. Horowitz says quietly. I know she means my teeth, but it soothes me like she means my everything.
“Thank you,” I mumble, wiping roughly at my eyes.
“Do you mind if I take a look? Try to figure out what’s going on?”
I nod, and she gets to work, repeating a lot of the same touches Dev did. She rolls over to her laptop on the counter, pulling up an X-ray of my mouth stretched like the grin of a scary clown.
“Pretty classic presentation of abscessed wisdom teeth,” she says, tilting the screen so Kevin and I can both see.
“Your lower third molars are partially impacted, and the overgrowth of gum tissue around them has led to a pretty bad infection on both sides of your mouth, hence the fever and swelling.”
“Can I take antibiotics?” I ask, pressing the backs of my hands to my hot cheeks.
“Definitely. But that isn’t a great long-term solution. You need these out. And soon.”
“How soon?” Kevin asks, biting his nails.
Dr. Horowitz glances at her watch. “As soon as you’re able.
I wouldn’t want to be walking around with an infection this bad in my mouth.
” I let out a little whimper of terror, and she has the decency to pretend she didn’t hear me.
She’s literally an angel. “Let me go check with the triage nurses to see if we have an emergency spot open.” She walks out of the room, clicking her pen as she goes.
It isn’t until Kevin is in front of me, shifting his weight from side to side as he looks at me with a panic-stricken expression that I realize I’m crying again. This overt display of emotion is more traumatizing than the literal trauma in my mouth.
“It’ll be okay, Cubby,” Kevin finally says, surprising us both and giving me a hug. It’s a bit awkward and stiff at first, but slowly, I soften into it, hugging him back.
I realize it’s the first meaningful touch I’ve had in quite some time, and I forgot how much I needed it. Harry’s kissed me and touched me onstage the past couple of weeks, but that’s more confusion than comfort, both of us actors in some awful play trying to decipher reality from fiction.
This hug from Kevin isn’t a Darcy hug—it isn’t like plugging my drained battery into a charging port, sighing in relief at the contact—but it at least reminds me I’m not alone.
“I have some good news,” Dr. Horowitz says, coming back into the room. Kevin pats my back, then steps away. “It’s been a pretty calm night, and we can do it in an hour if you’re okay with that.”
My heart races, and I blink at her. “An hour? Like … in the sixty minutes type of the word?”
Dr. Horowitz nods, pressing her lips together and schooling her features when I can tell she wants to laugh.
“Would you … What happens during the, um, procedure?” I ask, digging my nails into the skin at my collarbones like I can hold on for dear life.
Dr. Horowitz turns serious again, fixing me with a steady gaze.
“We’d put you under—you can be awake if you’d prefer, but I don’t recommend it—and we’ll extract the impacted wisdom teeth.
I personally think if we’re going in for these bottom two, we might as well extract the uppers as well before they cause problems.”
Okay, so I thought I liked this woman, but now she’s talking about ripping out four of my teeth and I’m far less comfortable in her presence.
“And … and … I feel like I should have questions. I feel like I should ask you a million questions if you are about to literally harvest my mouth bones from my body, but I can’t think of any.” I shoot a desperate glance at Kevin.
“She’s a singer in a band,” he says, slipping into his role as manager. “Will she be able to sing after the surgery?”
Dr. Horowitz purses her lips. “Technically speaking, the procedure doesn’t impact your vocal folds at all, so she could sing right after.
But there will likely be some discomfort and swelling, so I’d give it at least a week before really pushing it.
Resting goes a long way when it comes to healing. ”
My face twists in panic. We’re supposed to play four shows over the next week. I open my mouth to protest, but Kevin places his hand on my shoulder.
“Don’t worry about it, I’ll handle rescheduling,” he murmurs. “Let’s get you well.”
I think about arguing, but then I remember the fight with everyone earlier, and realize Kevin might not even have a band to manage at his point.
“Are you okay to move forward with the surgery?” Dr. Horowitz asks.
I glance at Kevin and he shrugs helplessly. With a sigh, I nod.
Things move quickly after that, filling out paperwork and signing consents. I text my family group chat with a very brief synopsis, and both my mums proceed to call me and, when I don’t pick up, send about five hundred worried texts. The one from Oliver really makes me laugh.
I’m sorry about your teeth and good luck with the surgery but please remove me from this group text because the excessive amount of notifications woke me up.
Love you too, Ol, I type back. He sends me a rainbow of hearts.
I think about messaging Darcy. Part of me desperately wants her here. I stare at her name on my screen until my eyes go fuzzy, but I can’t allow myself to be vulnerable. I can’t risk the embarrassment, no matter how much I need her.
Too soon, I’m escorted to a surgical room.
Kevin is supposed to wait in the check-in area, but I refuse to let go of his hand, and the exhausted nurses don’t put up much of a fight.
The rapid beep of my heart rate on the monitor does nothing to settle my nerves, and my eyes flick around the busy room, the nurses and Dr. Horowitz laying out terrifying forceps and medieval-looking metal tools.
My head starts spinning when they bring out the needle for my IV, hovering it over the crook of my elbow like a bee ready to sting.
I bite into my lip in anticipation, but commotion in the hall draws our attention.
Through the tiny window in the door, I see a messy bun of blond and pink hair, hear a voice I’d recognize anywhere traveling through the wood. “I need to be in there with her.”
“Ma’am, we’ve already told you, they’re about to start, and it’s family only to be in the actual room.”
“Bullshit. I’m more her family than Kevin in there.”
“Can someone get that handled?” the nurse holding the IV needle yells, then sticks me. I’m too confused to really register the bite of pain. I turn my wide-eyed gaze to Kevin.
“I texted her,” he says, placing his hand on my shoulder. “I figured you’d want her here. That she’d want to be here.”
Christ, I’m going to cry again, aren’t I?
“Here we go, dear,” Dr. Horowitz says, plugging a plastic tube holding a milky liquid into the open end of my IV. “Take a few deep breaths and count back from ten.”
She might as well ask me to recite the Iliad in ancient Greek for how jumbled my head is.
The door squeaks open. “Sir, we’re going to need you to exit the room and get this young woman under control. She claims she knows you.”
Kevin steps toward the exit, and I want to reach out to him, grab his hand and make him stay. Make him explain the confusion that’s filling my head like a swarm of hornets.
But my limbs are droopy and my eyelids heavy, vision swimming.
I force my lids open, trying to see through the haze.
I make out the pink hair again. Fighting against the drugs, her features fit into place like fuzzy puzzle pieces.
The last one to slot into focus is her mouth, those full lips dropping open. My name rolling off her tongue.
My body doesn’t belong to me anymore, but I feel myself smile all the same. I’ll always smile at Darcy.
Then everything goes black.