Page 105 of You Spin Me

Before I push through the doors, I turn back to make my position clear. “When she wakes up, tell her I love her.” Swallowing past the boulder in my throat, I add, “And that I’m sorry I couldn’t save her.”

When I droveJess to Mass General I don’t know how many hours ago, I was worried that I literally wouldn’t be able to walk through the hospital doors.

Now I can’t seem to leave.

Instead, I wander the hospital basement. Memories lodged down here aren’t quite as painful as those up in the burn unit. The main hospital is connected to the Shriners’ wing through these shadowy underground hallways. The most rebellious of us used it as our personal playground. Challenging each other to explore its darker corners, we thought it was the height of adventure. It seems strange to me now that nobody ever chased us out of here. Maybe they felt that sorry for us. Or were happy to have us out of their hair. Probably both.

Esther’s words chase each other around in my head as I pace the length of the building and back again.She’s practically skin and bones.Jess is thin and she does forget to eat sometimes, but she seems so on top of everything and sure of herself that…

Fuck. Did I notwantto see?

The thought stops me in my tracks. She’s helped me through so much, challenged me to stretch my wings. What have I fucking done for her? Sucked her dry, apparently. She gave in to my demands that she come to my place night after night, even though it meant she never got a full night’s sleep. I thought I was helping by building her a barre at my place, but maybe she took that as a signal that I thought she needed to exercise more.

She won’t survive.

Obviously, I have no fucking idea how to watch out for Jess, even though I tried every which way I know how. Seems I’m only capable of taking care of a three-legged cat and a one-eyed dog. A two-legged princess? I not only don’t deserve her, I’m a danger to her.

If I tell her that, she’ll deny it.

When I was fifteen, I told my parents that I would rather kill myself than go through another surgery. I meant it. I thought about suicide a lot then. The look on my mother’s face when I said it aloud—I couldn’t do that to her. I couldn’t leave my family with that kind of guilt.

I’ve moved on from that level of pain, but maybe I haven’t moved far. I’ve let Jessica prop me up these past few months, and it almost killed her. If we’re to have any chance of survival as a couple, I have to be enough of a man to stand on my own two feet.

Maybe it’s time I faced my own demons. If I can conquer them, I can help Jess conquer hers.

First stop: facing my nightmares. Which happen to live right here in this building.

It’safter two in the morning when I make it back up to the burn unit. The atmosphere is hushed and the overhead lights are off, but a hospital never completely shuts down. When I knock softly on the break room door, a nurse opens it with a frown, but when she sees it’s me, she pulls me inside.

“He’s back,” she announces to the group sitting around a coffee table playing cards and drinking coffee.

“This is what you do in here?” Shoving my hands in my pockets, I suddenly feel like a little kid again.

Angie gets up and ushers me to a spot on the couch beside her. “Have to stay awake somehow so we can answer the damn bells when the little brats need something.” Angie always had a backhanded sense of humor. I was kind of scared of her until I was old enough to get it.

“So how’s your girlfriend?”

The word pricks my heart, but I’m not here for comfort. I’m here for information. “She has a pretty bad kidney infection, but her sister—who’s a doctor—told me she’s going to be okay.”As long as she stays away from me, I remind myself.

Pushing self-pity aside, I press ahead. “Listen, I want to know some things, and I think you’re the only people who can tell me.”

Angie’s brows come together, but she nods. “What do you want to know?”

“Do you think it’s right? That you save kids in this place by torturing their bodies, only to have those same kids end up living a life that’s tortured up here?” I finish, tapping my temple.

The room is silent. Maybe I’m out of line. But after a tense few moments, Angie places a hand on my shoulder. “He’s right. When Cal was here, the treatment was torture. There’s no other word for it.” She clears her throat. “We take an oath to save lives?—”

“But is it right to do that, when you know you’re sentencing us to a life of pain? Inside and out?”

She lifts her chin. “It’s all I know how to do, Cal. We didn’t know better then. We know a little more now.”

“So we’re lab mice in some experiment you’re running here?”

Angie gives me thelook. The one that says,I don’t like this any more than you do, but we’ve got to get through it. When I don’t back down, she pats my shoulder before getting up to pull something from a bookshelf.

Sitting next to me again, she opens what appears to be a scrapbook.

The pages are filled with Polaroids and newspaper clippings. She flips through quickly until she gets to a section filled with photos of me, age four to age fifteen.

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