Jane seems to respond to that.
Sulli keeps flipping her new 3-month sobriety coin over in her palm. She’s muttering I’m sorry. I’m so sorry under her breath. I put a hand on her head to try to comfort her, but she winces. Like she’s underserving of the solace. And I get that pain. It lances me everywhere, but neither of us shift away.
Sulli is safe. The only relief I have is knowing she is safe and healthy. Baby’s fine. A nurse did an ultrasound.
“Banks.”
I swing my head to the doorway.
Other heads swing to the doorway.
My dad—he stands there. Stoic. Unblinking.
He’s about to lose another son, is all I think. But he lost us years ago. So why does he care?
He gestures his head towards the hallway. Like, let’s talk for a sec, you and me. I feel like a ghost already. Drifting. I rise. Follow him out into the empty hallway. Further. To the vending machines. He punches a button for a coffee.
Some nurses pass by and he waits until they’re gone to speak again.
“Are you okay?” he asks me.
My throat swells closed. I’ve been asked that about a thousand times tonight. Truth: I think I should be sedated. I don’t feel right in the head. I just want to be under during this part. Wake me up if he’s alive. Kill me if he’s dead.
My eyes cloud and I stare hard at the floor, trying to get them to stop.
He tries to touch my shoulder. I jerk away, arms staying crossed, and I breathe hard through my nose. Jaw clenching.
“Okay,” he says, looking me up, down. “I talked to Akara. He said the police report has been filed. Everything has been taken care of.”
“My brother has one foot in the fuckin’ grave—everything’s not taken care of.”
He stands more stoically. “I meant the threat is neutralized. Thatcher did exactly what he’s called to do. The target was aiming for Sulli—”
“I know,” I snap back. “You don’t think I fuckin’ know this?” Anger overrides whatever fucked emotions have been eviscerating me. “You don’t think I keep replaying what I heard? Some demented, obsessive guy wrote that he wanted to ‘eliminate’ Sulli from this fuckin’ earth.”
My dad stands so still.
It enrages me more. “You hear about that from police? He hopped the fence to VIP without anyone noticing. He managed to find her.” I grow hotter, hotter. “You hear what Thatcher said on comms tonight? How he saw this motherfucking shitbag’s gun already pointed at my girlfriend.” My eyes sear. “Thatcher drew his gun and shot to kill. He killed the target, but not before taking a fucking bullet to his body, and that should’ve been me.” Tears spill through my rage. Rage that bleeds into visceral pain.
I point at my chest. “That should’ve been me! I should’ve been with her—I should be the one on the fuckin’ operating table. I should be the one who’s dead—not him. It should’ve been me. It should’ve always been me.” Voice broken, I’m so far gone—I can barely see.
He grabs onto me. Pulls me into his body. I don’t remember ever being hugged by my dad like this. But he’s hugging me. “You’re wrong.”
I shudder into a ragged breath.
“It shouldn’t have been you,” he breathes into my hair. My head bowed to his shoulder. “It should have never been you. You hear me?”
I clutch onto him, dying inside.
“You are meant to be here, okay?” Emotion cracks his voice. He holds tighter, like I’m twelve again. Like we’re back to the worst night of our lives. And it’s the other brother we’re grieving. “You’re going to pull through this, Banks—we’re all going to pull through this. I know it hurts, son…I know it hurts.”
I try to breathe. I take big, exhausted breaths.
“I love you,” he chokes. “I know it hurts.”
I shut my eyes. Hatred leaving me as I grip onto my dad, his words so different now than from back then. I would’ve given anything to hear him say I’m worth the air I breathe. I’m worth this earth under my feet. I should be alive.
Not dead.
It shouldn’t have been me.
It should have never been me.
He’s saying them now. That means something to me. Can’t process how long we stay like that, but as we pull back, his hand is on my shoulder, and he asks me, “What do you need?”
“A sedative,” I say the only thing that makes sense.
He turns around and waves down a nurse.
56
SULLIVAN MEADOWS
Banks sleeps on the waiting room chair at Philly General, head on Akara’s shoulder. I keep staring at the coin that I pass between my palms.
It calms me.
Settles me.
But I know what I have to do.
Pocketing the coin, I rise to my feet. Akara reaches for my wrist, his concern drilling into me.
“I’m okay,” I whisper to him.
He doesn’t say anything.
I glance to Banks. “Stay with him.”
He nods and then drops my wrist.
Each step is pain. But I take each one. I should have done this a long time ago—and I hate that it’s taken me until now, until this fucking moment. I come to a stop in front of my blue-eyed, splotchy-cheeked cousin.
Jane.
Six months pregnant, her belly swells in a pastel-blue tulle skirt. Her T-shirt says Caturday—something I know Thatcher bought her out of the blue.
She stands by a poster of a foaming teal sea. I think it’s here to calm people, but she’s gripping onto a cup of coffee with enough anxiety to put half-moon dents into the Styrofoam. Her five brothers and little sister stare up at us from chairs, like we’ve taken the center stage of a play.
Even the Morettis watch us.
Jane and I—we’re in relationships with brothers. And all this time I wasted running from Jane, I could’ve become closer to her. We could’ve shared in the fucking fact that we’re with the Moretti brothers. Joked about how low they need to duck on airplanes. Talked fondly about their love of pizzelles and whiskey and porters. Confided in how good they are—how sweet, how much we really fucking love them.
And it’s too late.
Even if I start now, I’m too late, aren’t I?
I open my mouth to speak, but words don’t form.
Your husband might die because of me. Guilt is a parasite that has infected every cell in my body.
Jane reaches for my hand. I let her take it. She gives her coffee to Audrey. And to my surprise, Jane silently leads me out of the waiting room. I think she means for us to go to the hallway, but she keeps walking.
I barely notice how Oscar and Donnelly have followed like shadows behind us. Here to protect us. Like Thatcher protected me.
We continue onward. Until we stop in a long, random hallway. Art decorates the walls. Each painting is a scene from a classic fairytale. Little Red Riding Hood. Sleeping Beauty. Cinderella.
Only these aren’t highbrow works of art. Watercolors and crayons are smeared and smudged and poorly drawn like a child’s doing. I glance over my shoulder. Oscar and Donnelly stand far off by a vending machine, pretending to give us privacy.
“Farrow showed me this last time,” Jane says softly.