I’m a little kid again, and I’m chasing Jules through the park near our house. We’ve given Eddie the slip and we can hear him yelling our names to come back. We don’t listen. Now I’m eighteen again, and I’ve just stepped out of the doctor’s office after being diagnosed. I’m alone. All alone.
And then she’s there, and I don’t want her to see me like this. I don’t want her to see me go to pieces.
“Hunter? It’s Sera, remember?”
Her beautiful features get blurred out by my weakening vision. That’s what happens from all the sugar spikes. It fucks up your eyes, enough that I could be blind by the time I’m forty or fifty. I think of Sera holding my hand as I stumble in the perpetual darkness that’ll become my life. I reach for her hand, and hold it in both of mine.
And I can’t keep it together. I let her see what it’s doing to me, this disease, if only for a split second. I’m hoping I don’t remember any of this.
“Hunter, look at me. Do you need an ambulance?” Her voice is melodic, like a song. Soothing, calming. I like it. I want to tell her to keep talking to me, to tell me anything she wants because it feels like it’s the only thing that’s real right now.
“I’m calling an ambulance, you need help.”
“No ambulances,” I mutter, unable to push more sound into my voice. “You can take me to the hospital.” I will her to understand, to get what I mean even if I can’t say it.
I watch her green eyes flash with something like worry and pain. “Where are your keys?”
S’ all I needed to hear. The world has faded out, and I’ve gone somewhere else.
Chapter 7
I have the dizzying moment where my eyes pop open and I recognize nothing. Am I dead? Is this heaven or hell? An obnoxious beeping sound comes from my left, but I’m too tired to move. Bed. I’m on a bed. Motherfucker, I’m attached to something. Looking down at my left arm, yeah, I got an IV stuck up my veins. Shit. I’m at the hospital.
Jesus Christ. How long have I been out?
My mind blanks as I try to dig up some sort of memory of the last few... hours? Minutes? Seconds? A face swims up out of the dregs, blurry around the edges but there’s no mistaking her.
Fucking shit, Sera saw me. She saw me?
Matty? Where’s the kid?!
“Nurse!” I yell, trying to sit up, but my body’s stonewalling me, refusing to move when I try to make it move. Fucking shit, really?
“NURSE!” I holler again, managing to get myself somewhat seated upright, yanking hard on my arms to try and support my weight.
Oh, Christ, she’s here, Sera’s here, coming towards my bed, ignoring all the other patients. And thank Christ, she has the kid, and I’m hollering like a goddamn animal. I stare at her, wishing she didn’t have to see me like this, so weak and helpless, completely battered after such a horrible low. And there goes the I.V., snaking its way front, back, spitting at everyone around me.
“Matty!” I yell. I feel like my bones have been pulverized, and I’m breathing fast like I’ve sprinted up ten flights of stairs. Thank God he’s here, thank Christ Sera looked after him.
I wind my hand around his little body, my palm settling over his ribcage until the steady thump, thump, thump of his heart loosens my muscles enough that I can relax a little into the joke of a bed.
I can’t help the sound of my voice, how utterly defeated and terrified I sound when I tell Matty that he scared me. Jules’ kid just giggles and smiles like I’ve gone and made a farting joke.
I don’t understand how he can smile and joke around.
I let the nurse try to put in my I.V. again, barely glancing at her, acutely aware that Sera is standing by my hospital bedside and that is not the place I want her to be.
A girl like that doesn’t deserve a man who’s lying down on a hospital bed, while she looks after his nephew. A woman like that needs to be wined and dined, to be given diamonds and jewels. A woman like Sera needs to be rewarded for even the sliver of kindness she’s shown my nephew. I’m sure he wasn’t the best of company, but I didn’t miss the little guy holding her hand as he walked closer to my bedside.
Shit, she’s stolen his heart
“I scared you?” Matty says, that fucking smile on his face. It feels like a slap since I’m not the one that put it there. “I think you scared Sera! She’s super strong, Daddy. I’ve never seen anyone able to hold you up before!”
Oh, man. I get a vision, please don’t let it be a memory, of Sera somehow managing to carry me in her arms like you would a baby. I’d snap her spine in two if she ever tried that. Maybe the kid doesn’t know what he’s talking about.