Chapter 15

Wes’s residency graduation was a week away.

I probably shouldn’t be dreading it—I should be happy for my boyfriend; he’d worked hard at this, had worked crazy hours in his residency to save small lives, but still, I couldn’t help being scared. The closer we came to his graduation, the closer we came to his fellowship, which he would find out about any day now. Would he go to Maryland? Would he stay here in Orange County? Or would he end up somewhere else entirely? I wasn’t sure and it scared the fuck out of me.

Janie, Wes’s seventeen-year-old sister, picked up on my mood when I went shopping with her and her mom, Elena. We’d made a day of it, hitting the Citadel Outlets to buy our summer clothes. It was going to be hot this summer, and Janie wanted strappy designer sandals and spaghetti-strap camisoles that her mother absolutely refused to buy her. We settled on one-inch strap tank tops, and to sweeten the deal, Elena let her pick them from places like Calvin Klein and Banana Republic, two of Janie’s favorite stores. We stopped by Fossil where I bought Wes a new watch, and Janie, with her allowance, bought her brother a new wallet, presents for his graduation. Elena picked him up a suit from Armani and planned to have it tailored immediately. Wes wasn’t going like being pinned and pricked, but he had to wear a nice suit for his graduation.

“When are you gonna marry my brother?” Janie asked as we walked out of Starbucks with some Frappuccinos. Elena was sipping her iced latte, while Janie and I had gone for the sweet stuff. Before I’d met Wes, I’d had no sweet tooth, but now I craved sugar like it was a drug, second only to caffeine. To have them both together ... now that was a luxury.

“He hasn’t asked me,” I said, which was the truth—he hadn’t.

“That dumbass,” Janie muttered.

“Janet, “ Elena said sharply.

“I’m sorry but he is! Like, Celine is such a freaking catch, Mom! Hell, I’d marry her,” Janie said passionately. She turned to me, grinning. “Will you, Celine Sofía Gutierrez, marry me?”

“I’m no pedophile.”

“I’m almost eighteen! Marry me then?”

“I’ll think about it.”

Elena looked amused but wary. I was clearly up to the challenge of dealing with her rowdy daughter, but at what cost? Janie was corrupting me, and she could see it happening right before her eyes.

“What will you do if he gets the Johns Hopkins fellowship?” Janie asked, suddenly sounding serious.

I shrugged. “FaceTime, I guess.”

“You won’t dump him?”

I tried not to look pained. It hurt. Of course I wouldn’t dump Wes.

“Janet,” Elena said with an even sharper tone than before. “Apologize to Celine. That was rude.”

“I’m sorry,” Janie said immediately. “I wasn’t saying that you’d leave him or anything. I’m just like, you think you could, like, make it work?”

“Like, I think, like, maybe, like, we’ll be fine,” I said, laughing at her annoyed expression.

“You’re a good girlfriend,” Janie said, and she reached out and took my hand. I squeezed her hand rather than pull away. I’d learned from Wes that contact was human, that we had to learn to accept it and share it.

“Thanks, kid.”

“I’m not a—”

“Yes, you are,” Elena and I said together.

“You two are horrible people,” Janie said, groaning. Elena and I did a fist bump, making Janie roll her eyes.

“Don’t do that, Janie,” Elena said. “Your eyes will get stuck like that one day.”

“Mom, seriously, that does not happen.”

“You never know.”

“Celine, back me up over here.”

I raised my hands and backed away. No way was I getting in the middle of those two.

We went and had lunch at Roll It, a sushi and teriyaki restaurant. Janie and I shared a few sushi rolls, some deep-fried with cream cheese, which are the best ones. Elena had a teriyaki chicken bowl. We chatted about the graduation, planned out another dinner with Wes (we’d already had five or six), and brainstormed what movie would be best for family movie night. Janie wanted to watch Avatar, the one with the blue alien people, and Elena thought Titanic would be a good nostalgic fit. I suggested the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which had Janie whispering, “Awesome,” and Elena looking worried. Ha, don’t ask the crazy girlfriend for suggestions if you don’t want crazy answers.

On the drive back to Orange County, Elena in the front passenger seat of my Tesla and Janie dozing off in the back, I wondered how I’d gotten here; a year ago I was a bitch on the call center Floor, and today, I was having family outings. It was almost too much for me. I switched over to autonomous driving on the freeway and blinked back the tears. Elena seemed to sense that something was off. She patted my arm.

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you...”

I turned to her, a tear falling down my cheek. I brushed it away hastily. “Yes?”

“I was wondering, Celine, if you wouldn’t mind calling me Mom?”

I burst into tears.

The day before Wes’s graduation, I got sick, and I mean sick. I threw up at work and had to lay down on the floor, my heart beating fast. I was nauseous and my skin was burning. It had come out of nowhere, and immediately I knew that the universe was fucking me over, that it didn’t want me to go to Wes’s graduation. I tried to take deep gulps of air, but I still felt sick to my stomach.

“Celine, what are you doing?”

I looked up, squinting. Bethany, one of the supervisors, was looking down at me, deep concern in her eyes.

“Dying,” I responded.

“You don’t look so good,” she said, bending down beside me. She pressed the back of her hand to my forehead. “You definitely have a fever, Celine. What happened?”

“Fuck, I don’t even know.”

“It stinks in here.”

“I threw up.”

“Celine, you gotta go see a doctor. You look like shit.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m serious, Celine. You have to go see Wes.”

“He’s a surgeon, Beth. He has better things to do. Plus, he specializes in children. Last time I checked, I just turned twenty-nine.”

“I’m getting Addie. She’ll know what to do.”

“Beth...” I tried stopping her, but she was already gone, my office door clattering closed. I felt another wave of nausea and barely made it to the trash can. I was throwing up into it when Addie walked in.

“Oh, sweetie,” she gasped, running over. “Bethany said you weren’t feeling well. This is so much worse than I was expecting. I’m calling Wes.”

“No, don’t.”

“Don’t be stupid, Celine. You’re sick as a dog.”

I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “Please don’t call him. He’s in the middle of a thirty-hour shift. You’ll just worry him.”

“What about his friend, the one at UCI Medical Center? You could see him.”

“James?”

“Yes, that guy! James, good ol’ James. C’mon, I’ll drive you there.”

“Really, Addie, I’ll be fine. I just need some medicine.”

“You don’t even know what kind of medicine you need,” Addie said, crossing her arms.

This much was true.

“Come on,” Addie said, helping me to my feet. Bethany brought me a bottle of water and I tried to gulp some of it down, counting backward from one hundred to keep from throwing up. The fever burned so hotly that tears fell from my eyes. Addie passed me a tissue and I dabbed at the corners of my eyes. My head throbbed.

“We gotta hurry. I don’t want to hit the afternoon traffic,” Addie said, gathering my purse and coat.

We left my car at work, taking Addie’s little red Mini Cooper onto the freeway, taking the 405, then the 55, then the 5, and finally got off at State College Blvd. Addie drove with her hands clenching the wheel, glancing at me constantly until I had to bark at her to pay attention to the road. I had a paper bag in hand, just in case I would need to throw up again. Luckily, the water I’d sipped had helped and my stomach stayed calm ... for now.

Addie used valet to park in front of the ER, and passed her keys off to a parking attendant. She came around and helped me out of my seat, grabbing my purse as she did so. She led me up the steps, into the hospital and up to reception.

“Hi, we need to see Dr ... uh, James,” Addie said at the reception.

“Dr. James,” the receptionist said, unimpressed. “We don’t have a Dr. James.”

“That’s his first name,” she said. “James ... uh...”

“Rowland,” I said. “Dr. James Abel Rowland.” How did I know his full name? He insured his car with us and I’d helped him personally with a claim before.

The receptionist stared at us, and just then I felt like throwing up again. “Fuck,” I said just before I threw up violently into the paper bag.