God, I hate hospitals. 

I hate how they smell and I hate the bizarre attempts at decorating and I loathe the inane and colorfully cheerful posters blithely spilling out information on AIDS and spousal abuse and the dangers of IV drug use and Hepatitis C.  It’s as if they think if they make it cute and appealing enough someone will actually be inclined to practice safe sex, marriage counseling in lieu of fists and insist on clean needles every time. 

It’s after eleven p.m. now and very dark outside.  It’s fucking bright in here though which is another thing to add to my list of why I hate hospitals; abnormal lighting. 

The only good thing about this is at least Jinny and I are alone.  Well, alone except for the  other, rather large family sharing the same waiting room, gazing at the pale yellow walls whose cracks zig zag off sharply and erratically as a roadmap, outlining some journey we’re all on, and all of us wearing the same exhausted and vacant stares.

Jinny and I have a whole couch to ourselves.  We’d shared it with a very curious four year old for the first several hours but he’s decided we’re boring now and has curled up on the lap of his Tia Ampara and is bordering on sleep.  Tia Ampara is cradling him as if he were dynamite, obviously fearful he’ll wake and dance off on another manic spree of leap frog and spinning which is what has fatigued him in the first place. 

“How you doing?” Jinny asks me, voice slow and more than a little sleepy. 

I’ve been better and the light is too bright and the day’s been too long and having to do CPR on Sylvie Chandler definitely ranks high on my list of Shit I’d Rather Not Do and there’s a tenderness behind my ears warning me I’m gearing up for a fucking awesome migraine.  But Jinny doesn’t need to hear any of that.  She’s watched someone she loved and obviously still cares about seize and crash and seen Legaspi swing into action; with the wrist cast she could hardly do chest compressions so I at least lucked out there.  I can’t conceive of a universe where I am required to put my mouth over Sylvie’s.   Not even to save my own life. 

“I’m okay,” I say and honestly mean it.   “You?”

She sighs, long and hard and the hand which has been gently threading itself in and out of my hair pauses. 

“I’m better,” she says finally, but she doesn’t sound convinced. 

I sit up and blink at her through the dazzling fluorescent light.  I wonder if hospitals all have the same theory; don’t let them sleep as they wait and they’ll be too groggy and brain dead to examine the bill closely. 

“Your turn,” I pat my lap and she gives me a small half smile before swinging her legs over the arm of the plastic covered sofa and thunking both boots down on the pitiful excuse for a table lamp positioned at the end. 
She sighs in pleasure and lets her eyes close as I begin threading the shiny dark hair through my fingers, gently rubbing her scalp with my mostly non-existent nails. 

I risk a peak at Tia Ampara and family and marvel again at something I’ve had revealed to me: they don’t care.  Jinny and I could sit and clutch one each other, hold and snuggle and console and they’d never bat a single thickly lashed eye.  It doesn’t matter.  Out here, at least, it doesn’t matter. 

I try to imagine performing the same non-sexual yet-oh-so-intimate physical act in Texas and my lurid imagination fizzles out short.  It would be not only unwise but actually dangerous. 

“Good?” 

As if I have to ask.  She’s practically purring under my hands, eyes half closed and the rest of her limp as a dish towel. 

She replies with some garbled sequence of syllables and I gently prod at my Jase ache to see what kind of shape it’s in and feel oddly desolate to realize that it’s scabbed over. 

“How many times have you been in love?”

I don’t know I’m going to ask it until it’s out;  I’ll rack my lack of control and discipline up to exhaustion and stress and the millions of invisible hurdles I’ve leapt lately. 

One eye opens and she gazes up at me silent. 

I’m just to the point of trying to salvage the question with a sweep of sarcasm when she clears her throat to speak. 

“I don’t know.  I don’t think that I actually knew what love was maybe until after Rehab.  I mean I thought I was in love plenty of times but now, looking back…  I don’t know.” 

I nod.  Her hair has a definite deep burgundy tinge to it in the light and I pull a strand through my fingers and loop it around my forefinger trying to ignore the worm of panic that just wriggled itself beneath my skin. 

“And you?” she asks and I look at the foot swinging idly back and forth where it’s propped on the chipped, scarred end table and shrug without replying. 

One side of her mouth lifts in a grin. 

“That’s not fair.  I answered.” 

I shrug again and use the time to overcome the unnerving sense of forlorn abandonment.  There’s no sense in it; there’s no real reason for it; which means there’s no point in pursuing it.  No sense chasing something that cannot be caught. 

“Jase.  I guess he’s it. “  I drop the strand of hair I’m holding and take up another and will myself somewhere safer mentally. 

She nods, slowly.  The hand that reaches for mine is hesitant and I make it easy and meet it halfway. 

Our fingers skim over one another as they slide and grasp loosely.  There’s a thin, very worn band of pale gold on the hand I hold and I turn it in the ensuing silence. 

“My mom’s,” she says after a few moments.  Her voice breaks towards the end and she blinks rapidly, then darts a look at me to see if I am mustering up some sort of sympathy or pity or any other dangerous emotion she can’t handle. 

I’m not.   I don’t have it in me dreading too much those looks from others.  She sees this and relaxes, melting more snugly into me. 

There’s another long silence broken only by the squeak of the plastic as Tia Ampara rocks Alonzo and he whimpers in his sleep and I’m lulled by her gentle shushing noises as much as the child and am startled when Jinny speaks again.

“Do we need to talk maybe?”

“About what?” 

I know the answer to this but I’m greedy and I want to hear it.  No; more than that; I want to hear it and watch her face as she answers. 

“About us.  About this.” 

The thousand things she’s left unsaid in those four words show clearly in her eyes and I am astonished at the consistent, incredible bravery of the human race in general. 

We just never give up.

Before I can reply she clears her throat and in a much stronger voice asks, “There is an us now, right?  I mean, it feels like there’s an us.” 

There are at least a dozen things I can reply to her at that moment; at least eight of them containing more truth than either of us are ready to deal with and all of them far too complicated for a mere sentence or two. 

But I mercifully decide to be kind to us both and can feel the bemused and abashed grin of shy delight spreading itself across my face and see the answering one on hers. 

“There’s an us if you feel like you’re ready for there to be an us.” 

She snorts and lifts one brow at me. 

“If I’m ready?” 

I nod and turn the gold band on her finger silently. 

“Coop, I’m not the one with a Jase in my past.” 

There’s too much truth in that for me to dodge it.  Her face tells me that if I even so much as attempt to duck it she will mark it on some internal mental slab and it won’t be erased because she, like me, keeps score for life. 

So I return the look in kind; level and solemn and I try to make certain there is no more in my voice or face or eyes than I intend when I speak. 

“No.  And I’m not the one with a Sylvie in my present.” 

She blinks and for the first time glances at the other family who are settled into the sofa and chairs across the small room from us. 

When she speaks her voice is low and earnest.  “There’s no Sylvie in my present.  That’s the thing; there is no Sylvie in my present.  I’m not even really sure there was a Sylvie in my past, not the person I thought there was.  But there’s always going to be a Jase, Coop.  Always.” 

There’s no point in even trying to duck that. 

So I nod and because I see she isn’t done I wait and try to regulate the expression on my face into something expectant and open. 

“It’s just that I can’t compete with him.  I met him…I know.  He was amazing and beautiful and just so… good.  I can never be that person.  I can’t compete with that.” 

“He’s dead,” I whisper, feeling the realization of that impact my brain with the brilliant force of a meteor’s suicidal plunge through Earth’s atmosphere.   I can feel my soul limned with the heat and intensity of it.  He’s dead.  I could love him with all my heart for the rest of my life and he will still be dead.  It’s too much to ask of anyone, much less someone as emotionally crippled and lame as myself to accept that I can love and love and love more; and he will still never be there when I wake up.

“Is he?” her voice is soft, no more than a feather’s brush stirring sound waves.  “Is he really dead?”

I nod and am bewildered to find I’m looking down at her through a blur of tears that I had no idea were coming and I am so tired of this; this constant sneaking and shuffling of emotions I have no idea how to deal with and life just marches inexorably onward. 

“Sorry,” I manage when I see the look of dismay and consternation traverse her features and she sits up, swinging her legs over and down, then puts an arm around me and tugs me in close. 

“Your turn,” she says and I let her ease me down and gratefully close my eyes as she gently tugs and strokes her fingers over my scalp. 

I try to say more but she lays a finger over my lips to silence me. 

“Shhhh.  No.  I don’t want you to be sorry.  You don’t have to be.”


END OF THIRTY SIX