Page 24 of The Voice We Find

He might have been able to deflect his escalating pain on the drive over with sarcastic jabs about my vehicle, but there is only so long a person can keep up the all-is-well ruse while infection invades their body. Outside of the one-word answers he gave me for the questionnaire, his brand of quiet is the kind rooted in deepconcentration. Even now, as the nurse calls him back, he struggles to stand from the waiting room chair. His jaw is clenched so tightly I worry his molars might fuse together.

“Mr. Tate?” The young nurse calls out again as she lifts up on her tiptoes to sweep the continent of people between her and the empty corner where we’ve set up camp. I wave at her to catch her eye. The last thing August needs is to be marked as a no-show and passed up for a runny nose and cough combination.

Once he finally gets upright, August sways on his feet, and I quickly grab his right elbow to stabilize him.

“I got you,” I say, gripping a forearm that is no stranger to a weight set. “We’re almost there.”

He blinks down at me. “We haven’t moved.”

“Quite astute of you, yes.” I smile up at him. “Just a second.”

He grunts as I reach behind us with lightning-quick reflexes for the sweatshirt he shrugged off earlier along with the backpack that holds his wallet and the majority of my earthly possessions. And then I re-hook my arm through his and lead the way toward a nurse that looks like she’s young enough to be here on a high school field trip.

August’s breathing is labored as we trek across a room that might as well be the Great Valley inThe Land Before Time. When we finally reach our destination, I’ve prepped my face with a reassuring smile in order to minimize whatever awkwardness August might feel when I say good-bye and pass him off to the nurse. According to the cheap clock over the doorway, I have little more than an hour before it’s time to jump on my first girls-night-in video chat with Dana. We’ve finally found a time that works for us both to streamGilmore Girlsand spend the evening pretending we don’t live three thousand miles away from one another. I’ve missed those nights beyond what I knew was even possible.

Only, when August’s gaze skips back to mine, it’s not embarrassment that pinches the corners of his eyes. It’s something else. Something I can feel more than I can name—because I’ve been where he is now. Not in an ER with an infected cut on my hand, but havingto face something hard and uncertain all on my own. Before I met Dana. Before I understood what a gift it is to have a true friend.

My chest pulls taut at the sobering realization that he’ll be alone for whatever’s going to happen to him beyond these doors.

“Are you August Tate?” the young woman in powder-pink nursing scrubs asks as she glances up from her clipboard.

He gives a short verbal confirmation.

“Alright,” she says, before a distinct look of alarm crosses her features as she takes him in. “Actually, let me call Bruce for a—”

She’s mid-sentence when a man in navy scrubs appears with a wheelchair. An obvious pro at his job, he has August squared away in the seat in record time. And before I can think to utter a word, the brakes are released and August is being wheeled through the automatic doors that lead into the part of the hospital reserved for patients and their loved ones.

I don’t know what I was expecting to happen at this point—a good-bye hug? A three-point wish-you-well speech? A tip for being his rideshare driver? But as the double doors swish closed behind him, I remember his sweatshirt draped over my arm, which suddenly feels like the most critical thing in the world to return to him. I stride ahead for the doors where Nurse Hadley is still posted with her clipboard. With any luck, she’ll be able to get it to him. Instead, she simply waves her badge over the security box on the wall. The doors swoosh open.

“You change your mind?” She smiles. “Go on ahead. Bruce will get you a family pass so you can stay as long as you want.” She doesn’t bother to wait for a response before she announces the next name on her list.

A thousand thoughts ping against my skull, most of which are a variation ofYou are a stranger. Don’t you dare try to pass as his family when you’ve only known him for—

And then I’m racing to catch them.

Bruce, a nurse of maybe forty with dark skin and even darker eyes, barely twists his neck in the direction of my pattering feet, as if he was expecting me. Perhaps my I-could-be-family vibes arestronger than I thought. I glance at August, who looks as if he’s losing a battle against consciousness. The groan that passes through his lips as the wheelchair jostles his body is unlike any sound I’ve heard him make so far. My empathy twists into a knot.

“Will he be okay?” I whisper to Bruce, who drives the wheelchair with impressive speed. But Bruce has other questions on his mind.

“Do you know when he last ate or drank something?”

We take a sharp left, where Bruce flashes his badge at another automatic door and our surroundings instantly change to the fast-paced environment of an emergency room. Nurses and doctors cross paths, and machines beep and whiz from every direction.

Bruce rotates enough to hike an eyebrow, and it’s only then that I remember he’s still waiting for my answer.

“Oh, um...” I think back to our car ride, and then before that to the recording studio. There was an open energy drink on his desk when I arrived at nine, but I don’t remember him taking a sip of anything after my first break. And there was no sign of food to be found. But I don’t want to guess wrong and put August at risk. “I don’t think he’s had anything since around ten this morning.”

“Any allergies?”

“None that he knows of.” It’s the same answer August gave me in the waiting room an hour ago. “And he’s only had one surgery—a tonsillectomy when he was eleven. No complications to anesthesia.”

“What about pain medication? When did he last take something today?”

I recall what August told the first triage nurse at the check-in desk. “He had a dose of Tylenol when he woke around six this morning. But nothing since.”

Bruce nods as if we’re equals in this real-life episode ofGrey’s Anatomywhen the real truth is that only one of us is authorized to discuss August’s medical history. The other is a big fat fraud.

As soon as Bruce throws back the curtain of a tiny exam room with space enough for one bed and one chair, all five of my senses slap me in the face at once.What am I doing back here? I barely even know this guy.

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