Page 90 of Office Hours
“You good?” she asks.
I nod, the answer honest.
She bumps her knee against mine. “Good. Now put on real pants. We don’t want you dying in whale pajamas.”
We get ready together, the normalcy of it soothing. I pull on my oldest jeans and a hoodie, brush my teeth, and braid my hair the way my dad used to like.
When I look in the mirror, I almost recognize myself.
I gather my stuff. I look around the room—at the messy desk, the tangle of sheets, the single lamp still glowing in the corner. For the first time, it feels less like a prison and more like a home.
We step out into the hall. Liam waits at the far end, hands in pockets, his face as open and unguarded as I’ve ever seen it.
He smiles when he sees me. I smile back.
Maybe the world isn’t fixed. Maybe I’m not, either.
But for the first time in a long time, I believe I could be.
One step at a time.
One sunrise at a time.
Let’s go.
The car ride is a vacuum.None of us talk. Liam drives, knuckles white on the wheel. Andie sits behind me, knee bouncing, muttering to herself about traffic, the weather, the inequity of morning hours. I watch the city slide by, all the windows fogged and the sky a flat, metallic grey. I try not to think about where we’re going. I try not to think about the way my insides feel: tight and twisty and somehow hollow, like the walls of my stomach have sloughed off overnight.
We get there super early, and the hospital lobby is mostly empty. A single woman in scrubs sits behind the intake desk, clicking through a game of solitaire. The smell—antiseptic, lemon-pine, and something underneath—hits me like a flashback. I double over, clutch my arms to my ribs, and suck in a breath.
Andie is beside me in an instant. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I lie. “Just nerves.”
We check in. The woman in scrubs gives me a clipboard with six forms and a pen attached by a chewed plastic cord. I fill them out in silence, my handwriting so spidery it’s barely legible. Name. Date of birth. Next of kin. All the lies you tell hospitals to get what you need.
The waiting room is an aquarium, all glass walls and dead air. There’s a TV on mute, playing a loop of weather, headlines, and pharmaceutical ads. The chairs are bolted to the floor, barely padded, designed to keep you alert and anxious. The magazine rack is a graveyard ofPeopleandUs Weekly, all the covers dated from two years ago.
I sit between Andie and Liam, the three of us forming a tense, closed circuit. My phone vibrates every few minutes: campus emails, random notifications, a reminder about a paper I never turned in. I swipe them away, one by one.
My breathing gets shallow. I can hear my heartbeat in my ears. I twist the admission bracelet around my wrist until the skin goes red and raw.
Liam watches me, says nothing, but his hand rests close enough that our fingers almost touch. I keep waiting for him to say something meaningful—some last-minute reassurance, some line from a poem or a sitcom or even just his own battered heart. But he stays silent, jaw clenched, eyes fixed on a point just beyond the window.
Andie hums a tune under her breath, one I don’t recognize. It’s off-key and repetitive, but somehow it keeps me anchored.
When the nurse finally comes for me, I stand up and nearly drop to my knees. My legs are rubber. I cling to Andie and then to Liam, as if proximity alone could keep me safe.
The nurse is an older woman, tired but kind. She checks my name, my date of birth, and says, “Let’s get you prepped.” Her hands are warm and dry.
They walk me down a hall lined with soft yellow light. The world goes small and slow. My lungs won’t fill all the way. I taste old panic on my tongue.
We stop at a door marked PRE-OP.
Before the nurse can usher me inside, I turn to Liam and Andie, who’ve followed like shadows. The nurse hesitates, then lets me have a minute.
I face them. I can see the fear on both their faces—different, but the same core. Andie is holding back tears with all her might. Liam just looks stunned, as if he can’t believe any of this is happening.
I reach for Liam’s wrist, grip it tight. “Why did you come?” I ask, the words tearing out of me. “After everything?”
