Chapter 18

Andrew stared at the ceiling, just like he had the past two nights, unable to fall asleep even though it was nearing 2 a.m.

Monday morning coffee with Paul and Heather had been a chore. He didn’t tell them what happened with Mal. He didn’t intend to ever tell them what happened with Mal.

The buzz of his phone on the nightstand jolted him out of whatever trance the ceiling had captured him in. It kept buzzing — a phone call, not a text. He almost didn’t pick it up, assuming it was spam ... but what else was he doing. Definitely not sleeping.

He blinked and sat up when he saw the name.

Cameron.

“Hello?” he said, expecting to hear her steely, morose greeting on the other end. Hoping, even.

But it wasn’t her voice.

“Hey ... is this Henry?” said an unfamiliar woman. There was some kind of activity in the background, but he couldn’t tell what it was.

“Yeah...”

“Hey, this is Kendra, Cam’s friend? We, uh, sorta met a couple weeks ago.”

“Oh-oh yeah, right, sure,” he said. Must’ve been the roommate I waved to when Cameron was making coffee? That’s the only other person I remember being there. “Is, uh, everything okay?”

“Well ... no. I just thought you’d wanna know Cam’s — Cam’s okay, but ... she’s in the hospital.”

He swung his feet off the side of his bed, turning on the lamp as if that would somehow help him hear more clearly or understand better.

“What happened?” he asked, speaking quietly even though there was no one in the house to wake up.

Kendra sighed. “How ‘bout you just come down here and I’ll explain. We’re at St. Luke’s.”

“I’m ... not so—” but she’d hung up.

He stared at the phone in his hand, resenting it a little bit. He was pretty sure Cameron wouldn’t want to see him. She could’ve seen him anytime she felt like it, and she hadn’t, so she certainly wouldn’t now.

And frankly ... he didn’t much feel like seeing Cameron either, partly for the same reason. But also because he didn’t really want to see anyone.

Can’t I just wallow on my own in peace?

He snorted at his selfish, self-imposed misery, and rested his face in his hands.

It was his sister’s voice he heard in his head next, though, not his own. And he knew why, as much as he didn’t want to admit that he could be so easily manipulated by circumstances.

How come nobody puts on a lamp costume for me? How come when I feel like shit, apparently the solution is to go make somebody else not feel like shit? How’s that fair?

But he groaned, knowing full well he’d already made up his mind.

It’s not about you, asshole.

That was all it took for him to shake off his self-pity and instead send his mind racing by the time he got to his car.

What happened to Cameron? And why the hell would her roommate want me to go there? We barely know each other. What can I even do?

Twenty minutes later, he arrived at Cameron’s hospital room. It was open and he recognized Kendra sitting inside, looking exhausted and disheveled. Then he saw Cameron on the bed next to her.

A breathing tube was attached to a beeping machine by her side, feeding into her mouth, along with a few other tubes and wires stuck in and around her. Her eyes were closed.

Andrew’s heart started beating faster at the possibilities. What happened?

Kendra looked up when he came in and let go of Cameron’s hand to greet him. Her hair was pulled back into a tight bun, and she’d clearly shed more than a few tears already.

“She’s okay,” Kendra said again, drawing his eyes from Cameron back to her. Her gaze didn’t meet his though, not for what was next. “She ... took too many Xanax and washed it down with too much tequila.”

Tears started up in her eyes again and Andrew recognized the look on her face — one that was running through all the ways it was her fault.

“Hey,” he said, putting a hand gently on her arm, “I don’t know you, and honestly, I don’t know Cameron that well either. But ... I know her well enough that I’m pretty sure she was gonna do whatever she was gonna do — no matter what.”

Kendra looked up at him, her eyes flicking across his face like something was making sense for her now. She nodded. “Yeah. Maybe.”

They both turned to look at Cameron, even though there was nothing new to see.

“They think she’s gonna be okay,” Kendra said. “She ain’t woke up yet though. When she does, they’ll take out the tube.”

For a few minutes, they both just stared at Cameron in the bed, sharing an unspoken concern. Kendra turned to him again, speaking quietly, as if they were trying to not wake up the sleeping patient.

“It’s good you’re here,” she said. “She’s gonna wanna see you.”

Andrew cocked an eyebrow, but didn’t bother turning to Kendra.

“Yeah ... I wouldn’t be too sure about that.”

“Henry?” She put a hand on his arm, getting him to turn and look at her. She was young, around the same age as Cameron, but had a world-weary confidence that made it seem like she was a decade older than him instead of the opposite. “She wants you here. Trust me.”

She paused for a second, letting him know with her eyes that she knew better than Andrew did. “But if you don’t wanna be here, then you shouldn’t be here when she wakes up. Get me?”

Her expression wasn’t a warning, it was a request. He understood. That was the last thing Cameron would need.

He nodded. “I understand. I wanna be here.” And he was confident he was telling the truth.

She smiled at him and let go of his arm. “Good.”

But ... I want some pretty stupid things. So I still don’t know if that means it’s a good idea.

Kendra slumped into one of the two chairs next to the bed, looking even more exhausted. Andrew wondered if this was the first night she’d spent without sleep looking after Cameron. Is it even the first one spent next to her hospital bed?

He took a seat in the other chair, and they sat in silence for a while again, waiting. Intermittent beeps from the machinery connected to Cameron were the only sounds, save for some occasional bustle outside the closed door. One bank of lights above them was off — to help Kendra, or whoever, get some sleep, he imagined.

Xanax and tequila?

Andrew looked at Cameron more closely now. She did seem like the anxious type, from what little he knew. And the tequila didn’t surprise him one bit.

Under an ill-fitting hospital gown, she looked smaller, her skin even softer than usual. What he remembered as being pale now looked more like a sickly porcelain. All her piercings had been removed, leaving her face looking not quite right — naked without the silver rings and other jewelry that had lined her ears and dotted her brows.

There was no stud in her nose. That was the one that really made her look like she was some factory-reset version of Cameron — waiting for her personality to be uploaded.

For the past few days, he hadn’t really thought about Cameron. He’d been too fixated with everything that had gone on — and gone wrong — with Mal.

But he knew it was only a little over a week since it’d been the opposite, since Cameron had made him feel ... well, he wasn’t quite sure. He was sure it had been something new though, and that was a welcome feeling. Especially now.

His mind called up their morning together — the last time he’d seen her. She’d already been awake, watching him. And before that, when he was falling asleep on a mattress next to her in the pitch dark of her room, he’d felt her watching him then, too. It put him in mind of one of the wolves etched onto her body, keeping watch over her pack.