Page 66 of When Love Gives You Lemons
The second I sat down, I noticed the date on the screen of my phone because Sienna texted. I wasn’t paying attention, and the blade of the saw snagged my thumb, and I blacked out.
I woke up a second later in a pool of my own sweat, lavender smelling salts held under my nostrils, my head cradled in Christian’s hand.
One of the other students handed me a cold bottle of water from a vending machine, and I could barely choke down a few sips.
“You might need stitches. Come on, I’ll take you to the emergency room,” Christian said. “Do you have somebody local you can call? Family? A friend?”
For months after I moved to Seattle, I had no friends. I largely kept to myself. After spending Thanksgiving at my parents’ new place in South Carolina, Sienna convinced me to get on the apps. That was how I met Cam Wallace, a freshman studying computer science at the University of Washington. He messaged me instantly. He was the only guy around my age wearing a shirtandshowing his faceandwilling to hold an actual conversationwithoutit getting sexual once, so I agreed to meet him at a coffee shop. So we built a solid friendship, and he helped me get through my heartache in being without Fielder.
Cam was the only person I thought to call. There was no use calling Mom and Dad because they were in South Carolina, and I didn’t want to bother Sienna and Topher in Los Angeles. There was nothing anyone could do for stitches. Besides, I was still reeling over the revelation that she was dating Fielder’s cousin, asecret she told me I had to keep from our parents because neither her nor Topher wanted the families finding out. Not that I could blame them. I didn’t want to know myself.
“Do you want to tell me what happened back there?” Christian asked, but as I waited with him for the doctor to see me, I had the overwhelming urge to call Fielder.
He was the only one I knew who would understand.
It was dark now, the harsh fluorescent lights contrasting the blackness outside. I scrolled through all the green bubble texts. I wasn’t texting Fielder every day anymore. I gave up on that after I met and started hanging out with Cam because I started feeling less alone. I had sent my last text to Fielder on Christmas Day, nearly two and a half weeks ago. Fielder still had me blocked.
But I had Matty’s number. I heard Nonno’s voice:Measure twice, cut once.
“Do you mind if I make a call?” I asked Christian, who nodded and excused himself. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and pressed the call button.
It rang once, twice, three times.
“H-hello?” Matty’s voice shook on the other end.
I nearly burst into tears. Not that Matty sounded at all like Fielder, but to be this close to him again felt like a fever dream. Maybe it was all the oxygen in the hospital. “Hey, Matty. It’s—”
“I know. What’s, um, up, Ma? I’m out with Fielder at the mall, remember?”
“Hey, Zia Rosa!” Fielder’s voice came through like a burst of sunshine, and I couldn’t speak. Then I heard him ask, “Everything okay?”
“Field, can you grab me a Mountain Dew? I can’t hear. I’m just gonna go over here for a sec.” Matty breathed into the receiver for a few paces. “What do you want, Ric?”
“I wanted to talk to Fielder.”
“No. Absolutely not,” Matty said. “He’s finally happy and stable and doing well.”
“Please—”
“Why?”
I couldn’t answer. I needed to talk to Fielder because he would understand why I was so distracted today of all days. Because I needed him. He was my support system, the voice I wanted to hear at the end of a hard day, and the one mistake I wished I could unmake. The only regret I’d ever had.
My breathing rapidly increased as one thought crossed my mind:I made a mistake.
“Please ask him, Matty.”
Matty didn’t say anything.
“You there?”
“Hold on.” Matty muttered a “fungool”—the bastardized version of “va funculo”—under his breath and muted me. A minute later, he came back. “He said, ‘No thanks.’ He’s got to film some content for this new vegan health bar that opened in the mall.” He lowered his voice. “I, um—sorry.”Click.
If I were hooked up to IVs and machines, this would be the part of the movie where I’d probably crash, and all the nurses and doctors would rush in with carts and bloodstained gowns trying to save me.
But life wasn’t a movie, and I didn’t die, though it felt like an emotional death all over again.
As I was reeling, Cam rushed into the ER from the rain.
