I patted her hand and mustered a smile. "Don't worry, Mama. I get lung infections all the time."
"This time your liver and pancreas are affected, too." Millie licked her lips, blinking fast. Daddy walked over to the window and pressed his forehead against the glass. Rain pounded on the other side of it, and maybe he did it because he didn't want us to see him cry.
"We told you the boy was trouble." Daddy sighed. He wasn't angry anymore. Exasperated, maybe. Drained, mostly.
"Now's not the time," Millie scolded him.
"You should've just come back to Todos Santos." Mama wiped the tears from her face, and it occurred to me that maybe my biggest problem wasn't that I didn't know where Dean was. Because Mama rarely cried, and my father never did. And Millie … ? I chanced another glance at her. She nibbled on the dead skin around her finger, fighting tears, too.
"Can someone turn off that machine?" I changed the subject, trying to lighten the mood. "You know? The one that sounds like it's about to explode in a second," I barked out an awkward laugh.
Millie looked up from her round belly and inhaled before she opened her mouth. "That's your lungs, Rosie."
I clamped my mouth shut and listened carefully. Crap. It was my lungs. They wheezed every time I drew a tender breath.
Phhhssssstttt. Phhhhsssstttt. Phhhssstttt.
"I don't get it," I muttered. "I'm fine. Really."
Was I? I tried to sit up in bed, but my back ached and my lungs burned. Millie darted up and helped me, rearranging the pillows behind my back as Mama held me by the shoulders so I wouldn't fall backwards. My eyes zoomed to my feet, and I swallowed, thinking back to what Dr. Hasting told me in one of our very first meetings.
"You can live a fulfilled, happy life, Rosie. If you play your cards right and take care of yourself. Most cystic fibrosis patients die of long-term lung complications and become disabled as time goes by, but if you do your exercise, intensive physiotherapy, and take your medicine, you should be fine."
Was my health taking a wrong turn? Riding the road to lung complications, taking a curve in the direction of disability? I definitely didn't feel like I held the power over my body. That scared me, even more than the idea of death.
When Mama released me to sit on the bed with my back against the pillows, my eyes darkened. I no longer tried to pacify them. It was time for them to pacify me.
"Can we get you anything, Rosie-bug? Maybe chocolate?" Mama's contrived smile felt like an insult. It was painful to see her try so hard. No wonder they begged me to move back to Todos Santos. It took me exactly four short months to let myself deteriorate since Dean and I happened and find myself pounding on locked doors in the middle of the pouring rain, waiting on Ruckus to open up his heart.
Stupid girl. The words floated in my mind, just like they did all those months ago, after we had sex for the first time. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
"I'm good, thanks," I said, just as Vicious swaggered into the room. The fact that he was there in the first place took me by surprise. My health really was in the shitter if Vicious dropped by to say goodbye. He tucked his phone into his dress pants and leaned down, kissing Millie on the forehead. My heart squeezed.
"Dr. Hasting is on her way. She's cutting her vacation short," he said to no one in particular, but we all mumbled our thanks. I thought she was out of town on a family emergency, but maybe the emergency was taking a break from people like me.
Vicious looked up and asked, "How are you doing, Rose?"
"I'll live." I laughed bitterly. "I mean, you know. Or not."
"Dean's MIA," he admitted, raising one eyebrow and looking at Emilia, as if asking for her permission to continue. She gave him a faint nod.
"You can tell me. I'm a big girl."
Even if I don't look like one. Even if I didn't act like one by recklessly standing in the rain waiting on Dean.
Vicious rubbed the back of his neck and blew out air. "No one's heard from him since Friday morning. So, a little over twenty-four hours."
Good. I hoped he was dead.
No. No, I did not.
Worry gnawed at my gut. What happened with his father? What happened with Nina? Why did he slip under the radar, and at what point was I going to shake myself off of the loyalty I had for him and focus on myself?
"No one cares about Dean." Millie bared her teeth, standing up and holding the back of her chair. "And if he shows up here, I will give him a piece of my mind."
"Dude." I coughed, and everyone stopped and looked at me, waiting for me to finish. My whole face reddened before I managed to stop the flow of dry barks. "Make sure he's okay first. Find out that he is healthy, and then give him a piece of your mind."