“You still have your job,” I say. “And I’ll head back tomorrow, make sure you don’t lose it.”
I don’t mention the fact that I need to find a job to live on myself. She doesn’t need to know.
I can do this.
“That won’t be enough.” She puts her hands down, shoots me a bleak look. “What I make is barely enough to cover the rent of my apartment, and I have a loan that I need to pay back. I’m screwed.”
Words don’t come. What could I say? Leave him to fend for himself? You’re not sure he wants to be with you anyway, so skip town?
“What about his family?” I finally ask.
“His parents… they’re estranged, as far as I know. They disowned him.”
Awesome.
If our parents could help… But Dad is in his artists’ colony in Nashville, penniless and happy to be in his own world, and Mom… Mom has a new rich boyfriend. The only times I talked to her, she complained about him, about Dad, about me and Soph and everything in the world from the asshole who keeps parking his car outside her new house to the lady who does her nails.
But the point is… Mom can help. She has access to money now. Soph is her daughter, Griffin is the man Soph loves.
That has to count for something, right?
Time passes sluggishly, minutes dragging like hours. Nurses and doctors bustle back and forth, but it seems there’s no update yet on Griffin’s results. A doctor stops when she starts after him but then explains he isn’t the right person to talk to—and besides, is Sophie family?
It’s like a vicious blow, even if he doesn’t realize it. I can see it on her face. She is his family. Nobody else has come to be with him, nobody else seems to have shed tears and spent sleepless nights in a hard hospital chair for him.
Doesn’t it make Sophie his family?
“I’m going back inside to sit with him,” she says, face pale, eyes reddened, grabbing her purse from her seat. “I’ve had enough of waiting for someone to talk to me.”
“You’re family.” Merc’s words echo again in my ears.
How strange that family isn’t a synonym of a bloodline but a connection you form and build with someone you like, someone you care about.
Someone you decide to entrust your heart with.
Still trying to wrap my head around this thought, I grab my backpack and follow her down echoing hallways. We hurry past half-open doors from which murmuring voices waft together with the stomach-turning hospital smells I’m getting familiar with—antiseptic, chlorine, and a deeper layer of sickness and pain.
I’m so glad we’ve all been relatively healthy in my family. Can’t imagine the soul-crushing toll it would take to see a loved-one hurt and losing hope in a battle against death. Losing my parents, strange birds as they are, or worse, Sophie, or Merc…
There it is again. That feeling that grips my chest, my thoughts, a feeling that I need him, that I’d be shattered if I lost him.
“You’re family…”
A doctor walks by before we reach Griffin’s room, and my sister stops him to ask. And Bingo. This one seems to be the right person to talk to.
Griffin is feeling better, he tells us as he leads us down the corridor. His reaction to the drugs is uncommon, but sometimes that can happen.
There’s some good news, too. The tumors have shrunk a lot, and that means he may have the surgery to remove them soon.
The odds are good, the doc says carefully.
I can’t bear to look at my sister’s face with the words still hovering in the air.
Griffin is in a room with several other beds. I bet he’s the guy in the farthest bed, the youngest in the room, and the handsomest, and if I had any doubts as to which one is him, they’re dispelled when my sister makes a beeline for him.
Yep, that’s the one. My sis has good taste, I think as I wander more slowly after her, giving them a minute. Guy’s dark, tall and handsome—at least from what I see of him under the covers. His arms, lying over the blue hospital blanket, are covered in tattoos, there’s a bandage around his neck, and despite the dark scruff, he looks boyishly innocent as he lies there asleep.
Oh, Soph… Yeah, he’s handsome, and she’s so in love with him. Does he feel the same way? Does he feel anything at all for her? Did he, before? Will he fall back with her once more? Will he treat her right?