The Good Goodbye (29 page)

“What is that?” Aunt Gabrielle says. “I don’t understand any of this.”

“Of course, Mrs. Falcone. I realize I’m throwing a lot at you. A thromboembolism is a blood clot.”

“A blood clot? Is that dangerous?”

“Depending on size and location…”

“What you’re saying is it could kill her.”

Panic rears up and clamps down hard. I don’t want to die. Not like this. Not now. I want my mom. I want my dad. I want them in here, talking to the doctor and taking care of me.

“We’ll have her on heparin as a preventative measure. And thromboembolisms really are rarer in the form of ECMO that we’ll be putting her on.”

“We haven’t decided to go ahead with this,” Aunt Gabrielle says.

“I understand. I can give you some literature…”

“I’d like a second opinion.”

“I can arrange for that. But I do urge you to decide quickly. It’s your decision, of course, but I do believe the benefits greatly outweigh the risks.”

“Thank you, Dr. Morris,” Uncle Vince says.

“I’ll have my nurse get you some literature, and I’ll set up a consultation for you with another doctor.”

She’s leaving.
Please don’t go!
She looked right at me. Right at me and through me. I want her to look again, to tell Uncle Vince to look, too.
Get my mom and dad.
I don’t want Aunt Gabrielle making any decisions for me.

Quiet gathers around me. I don’t know where anyone is
.
Am I alone? Then I hear muffled weeping, and Uncle Vince saying, “It’s all right, sweetheart.”

“I don’t know what we should do.”

“I think we should go ahead with it. This procedure sounds like it might work.”

“They already tried to kill her once. Do we really trust them?”

“I don’t think we have a choice.”

“We do. Of course we do. Maybe we’re trying too hard. Maybe we should accept the facts.”

“The facts are this procedure may save her.”

“But you heard her. Rory’s lungs aren’t working.”

My lungs. It’s my lungs that aren’t working. Right? I want to put my hand on my chest and feel its reassuring rise and fall. I’m breathing, aren’t I?

“We can’t just give up. We can’t do that.” His voice is soft cotton, wrapping around.

“What kind of life is it to live attached to a machine?”

“It’s only temporary.”

“Until what? She’s
scarred,
inside and out.” Aunt Gabrielle’s crying. “Tell me you believe me. Tell me you understand. I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t.”

“You couldn’t help what, sweetheart?”

“Nothing. I’m just tired. I need to sleep.”

Yes.

Rory

CHELSEA JUST WON’T
let it go. “What does this say?”

The first time was when she handed me that book with the monk on the cover. Of course I’d figured it out by then. I didn’t even have to look.
The God in All of Us,
I’d told her, so casual. I thought she’d back off, but now it’s a thing. Every so often, she hands me something to read. I humor her. Sometimes words fit themselves together and sometimes they don’t. The more time I have, the better. So I pretend to be distracted by the long corkscrew of hair hanging over her bare shoulder, twisting it around my finger. “Stop it,” she says, lightly slapping my hand. She points to the page. “Right there.”

“The twin spires of Notre Dame…”

She tilts her head and looks at me. I nailed it, I know. Usually, this is enough, but she just turns a few pages. “How about this?”

Too many words and not enough white space. I’m tired. We’ve been up all night. She’d traced the tattoo on my forearm, making me shiver. “What—are you testing me?” I ask now.

“Yes, I am. What does this say?”

My kindergarten teacher looking at me with impatience. “I’m not five, you know.”

“Is that when you first noticed it?”

I don’t ask her what
it
is. I just gather my clothes from the chair and tug them on, keeping my back to her. I feel her gaze burning a line down my spine as I fumble with the clasp on my bra. I don’t say goodbye.

When I get back to the room, Arden’s there, on her bed with her laptop propped in front of her. She looks up at me and, I swear, the disapproval on her face makes her look just like my mom. “Where were you last night?” she demands.

“Out.” I drop my bag on my bed and reach for the towel hanging up in my closet. I sniff it, then fling it over my shoulder.

“You’re seriously not going to tell me?”

“I’m seriously not going to tell you.” I don’t know what I’m thinking. I don’t know how I’m feeling and I’m not going to talk about it with Arden. I’m not going to talk about it with anyone.

“Suit yourself.” She looks back to her laptop. “Hunter was looking for you.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.” He’s texted me a thousand times, the last one at two a.m.
U ok?
I’d propped myself up on one elbow to read it. If it had been me being stood up, my last text at two a.m. would have been more like
Fuck you asshat.
Hunter’s too nice. I don’t deserve him.

“Well? Aren’t you going to call him back?”

“How is that any of your business?”

“Hunter’s my friend, too, you know.”

“Uh-huh. Saying it doesn’t make it true.”

“What’s
that
supposed to mean?”

“It means, little cousin, back off. Anyone can see you’ve got a thing for him.”

“I don’t have a thing for him.” Red rises up her throat and stains her cheeks. “He’s just my friend. Believe it or not. We’re just friends.”

She’s so predictable. Why can’t she just stop? Bash the walls of the box she’s hiding inside and step out? I feel sorry for her. I really do. “You can’t be friends with guys, Arden. They only want one thing.”

“Hunter’s not like that!”

I want to laugh, but I can’t change it up. She needs to know that nothing’s happened. So I give her a stern look. “Don’t tell me what my boyfriend’s like.”

“The way you treat him, I bet he won’t be your boyfriend much longer.”

I fold my arms and look at her. She tries to look defiant, but it only comes out looking worried. “He’ll be my boyfriend as long as I want him to be.”

“What about what he wants?”

I laugh. “I know what he wants. I already told you.” I pick up my shower caddy and head for the bathroom. In the stall, I let hot water drum the backs of my shoulders. Steam rises.
The lucky girl,
Chelsea had called me. I draw a four-leaf clover with my fingertip on the tiles.

—

I end up sitting beside a player’s mom. Not my choice. She’s the one who walked down the long, empty bleacher and set her big knitting bag beside my feet. “Hi,” she said with a smile, like we knew each other. She sat, pulling out a fat bundle of yarn and a pair of pink aluminum needles. They reminded me of the ones Grandma Sugar tried to teach Arden and me how to use. We’d both sucked.

“You know, they only put in Michael because his dad’s the coach at College Park,” she confides, because it’s been half an hour and we’re now best buds. I don’t have a clue who Michael is. I’d had to stare long and hard to figure out which of the guys on the field was Hunter, only to realize he was the one coming up to bat. He’d glanced over in my direction and paused before going on.

Not Michael’s Mom clutches my arm. “How did number twenty-three make it to second? I totally wasn’t paying attention!”

“I missed it, too.” Like I even know what that means.
What do I do about Chelsea? What am I doing with her?
Not Michael’s Mom buys me a hot dog and I take a big bite. I don’t even like hot dogs.

“That was a ball! That was a ball! How can they call it a strike? Blind as hell.”

“For sure.” I wrap my arms around my bent knees. It’s lame how few people are here watching, even though these games don’t count. It’s nothing like football games, where the stadium is packed with thousands of people. If I were a guy, that’s the sport I’d play. Not this one, where no one’s there to watch you shine. Unless that’s the point.

After the two teams line up and slap one another’s hands, I climb down. Hunter glances over, claps some guy on the shoulder, and laughs. I stand there, feeling stupid. I deserve the silent treatment. I deserve to be ignored. But honestly? It’s never happened. Sure enough, Hunter turns and slowly walks over. “Hey,” he says.

“Great game.” I know where this is going, even if Hunter doesn’t. This is familiar terrain for me. I can walk it with my eyes closed. “Even though that was so definitely a strike.”

“You know what you’re talking about?”

“Umpire’s blind as hell.”

The corner of his mouth twitches. He takes off his cap and runs his fingers through his hair. “So, what is this, Rory? You want to tell me what’s going on?”

“I wish I knew.”

“What kind of answer is that?”

I shrug. “The truth.”

He looks away.

“I was thinking,” I begin, and when he glances back to me, I know. Nothing’s changed.

—

We end up going back to my room. His roommate’s got a study group and Arden’s at the art studio, working on her self-portrait.
I don’t know what to call it,
she’d said, propping the canvas on the classroom easel—a girl walking away and looking over her shoulder. Arden had smeared blossoms of red paint around the face and the girl’s eyes glittered like emeralds. Arden stood beside me, nervously wiping her brushes with a stinking rag that made my eyes burn.
It’s great,
I told her, meaning it. Only thing was, it was like looking in a mirror.

Arden’s left the door unlocked, with a note scrawled on the dry-erase board.
Back at 8.
I swipe two fingers across it and close the door behind us. “I should join a sorority next year. Get my own room.”

“I thought they didn’t have sororities at Harvard.”

“Figure of speech.” I kick Arden’s clothes out of the way and sink down on my bed. “Let’s get high.”

“Can’t. Not during the preseason.”

“You’re no fun.”

“I can be fun.”

“Show me.”

This is what I know. This is easy.

Later, he reaches up to push my hair back from my face. “Hey,” he says softly.

“Hey yourself.” I am mellow, lying on my back, staring up at the scarves stretched across the ceiling. Arden and I had tacked them up in a hurry before someone caught us, but the randomness turned out to be so pretty. There’s my navy-and-green Hermès print, my fuchsia Kate Spade, my black-and-white-and-tan Chanel, my tangerine Tory Burch. It’s not fair they’re my scarves and not Arden’s, but she didn’t have scarves. All she had was dirty laundry. The RA had come by and not noticed a thing. I turn onto my side and smile at Hunter. “Everything better now?”

“Look at me.”

“I am looking at you.”

“No, you’re not. Where are you, Rory? Where are you, really?”

I’m annoyed, my pop of happy glow punctured and deflating. “I’m right here.”

“You sure?” He gives me a long searching look, as if he’s trying to see inside me. Doesn’t he know? There’s nothing there to see. I push him away and sit up. “I’m starving. Let’s grab something to eat.”

It’s weird. I look everywhere, but I can’t find my key card.

Natalie

A NOISE STARTLES
me awake. I’ve fallen asleep in the chair beside Arden’s bed. I sit up, my neck stiff and sore, and glance around for the source of the noise. Is it one of the monitors? Alarmed, I straighten and look to the machines lining the walls of the room. No, it’s just Theo snoring in the chair by the door, his arms limp by his sides. He’s exhausted. He’s working hard to keep everything going. I look at Arden, lying peacefully in the bed beside me. I’d lowered the railing earlier in the night—it wasn’t serving a purpose, anyway—and now I reach for her hand, lying beneath the sheet. I’d had a nightmare: Arden had been arrested and given a life sentence. I’d talked to her through the bars of her prison cell, assured her that I would get her free. But she’d just looked at me and said she’d got what she deserved. What is my subconscious telling me? I rub my neck and push myself up.

Out at the round reception desk, two nurses sit entering information into computers. Denise looks up with a smile. “Hey. I’m glad you finally got some sleep.”

“I’m going to get some coffee. Can I get you anything?”

“Oh, no. I’m good.”

I’m in line balancing two cups and a plate when I see Arden’s face smiling down from the TV in the corner. It stops my heart with longing. It’s not a picture I’ve seen before and I wonder who took it and how this TV station got hold of it. Then, in quick succession, images of Rory and Hunter, followed by words in lurid yellow:
DEADLY LOVE TRIANGLE?
I pay for the coffee and pastry with trembling fingers.

Up in Arden’s room, I grasp Theo’s shoulder and he’s awake instantly. “What is it?” He comes to his feet, glances toward Arden’s bed.

“No, no.”

We talk in the family lounge and then he’s calling Hannah. How good a lawyer can she be, that she takes our calls so quickly? But she comes highly recommended by my father-in-law’s golf buddy, who says she was at the top of her class at Georgetown. That’s what impresses Theo, but I’m more comforted by her confidence, the way she drills down to the marrow: “I’ll call the station. Which one was it; do you know?” She’s a take-no-prisoners girl. She’ll demand the story be pulled; she’ll try to find out where they got the information. She doesn’t want us talking to reporters. Any media contact should be handled with
No comment
or, better yet, not answered at all. “Has she heard from Detective Gallagher?” I want to know. Theo shakes his head. “It’s only been a day,” he reminds me.

He’s been getting emails from Karen. Parents have been calling, wanting information.
Is it true Arden Falcone was about to be expelled? Is there a cover-up going on at Bishop?

Terrible things, defeating things. I want to protest. I want to insist it’s all a lie. Arden’s a smart girl. She earned her grades. But aren’t parents always the last to know?

“I’d better go in,” Theo says, and I nod. But as he stands, I stop him. “Theo? Do you think we pushed her too hard?”