Page 58 of A Not-So Holiday Paradise

“It’s fine,” I say with a laugh. What is it about her that makes me feel so light, so buoyant? “Rest. Close your eyes.”

The smile she gives me is nothing short of blinding. “That would be nice. Thanks.”

She turns so that her back is to me and moves to lie down, but I stop her.

“Wait,” I say. “Your hair.” I reach for her braid, hesitantly at first, before removing the hair tie from the end. I comb my fingers through the braid, loosening it and marveling at the feeling of her curls. Her hair is softer than it looks—something I noticed when I kissed her—and I fight the bizarre urge to rub it against my cheek. She lays her head gently on my legs, draping her own legs over the arm of the loveseat. Then she looks up at me, her mint hot chocolate eyes sleepy. I think I could spend the rest of the day and into the night exactly like this—with Molly, soft and warm, her hair spilling into my lap.

“Sleep,” I say, my hand moving of its own accord to stroke her hair.

“I don’t want to,” she murmurs with a little smile. “I want to stare at you.”

I shake my head, smiling back as her lids flutter in an effort to stay open. She’s so tired, and that makes me nervous. The best thing she can do now for her health is to rest. “Close your eyes, sweetheart.”

“Mmm,” she hums. Her eyes finally close, light lashes fanned over pale skin, perfectly lovely. “I like when you call me that. What should I call you? Babe? Honey buns? Sexy pants?”

“Don’t call me anything right now,” I say softly. “Just sleep.”

She nods, sighing happily.

“Good girl,” I whisper.

“Thought you weren’t going to say that anymore,” she says in a dreamy, vague voice that tells me she’s already half-asleep.

“You’re right,” I say. “I’ll do better. Sleep now.”

“Bossy,” she mumbles, but she falls silent after that. Her breathing slowly evens out as her face and body relax, until she’s fast asleep in my lap.

I let my head rest against the back of the couch. It’s not very comfortable; I’m too tall, which puts my neck at a bad angle, my chin jutting toward the ceiling. I close my eyes anyway, letting my body chase the sleep it couldn’t find last night. Because it was a lie when I told Molly this morning that I slept fine—I did not sleep fine. I didn’t sleep evensort offine. I tossed and turned and had weird snippets of dreams that left me with a vaguely ominous sense of anxiety.

So despite the awkward angle of my neck, I drift off almost immediately. Molly is warmer than any blanket, and something about having her right here is calming.

I enter dreams filled with her—dreams of soft skin and warm lips and things I can never, ever tell Wes. I’m pulled from these blissful moments, though, by an odd sound. I jerk awake, and for one wild moment I think there’s an animal in my house before I realize that’s not possible. But it’s a keening, groaning sound that humans don’t typically make—

Except they do. Because when I look down at Molly’s head in my lap, I realize that sound is coming from Molly, from her pale, parted lips.

And something is wrong. Something is very wrong. Her body moves, her arms and legs straightening—and then the seizing starts—

And everything turns to ice.

Ice in my veins, the frosty grip of panic curling my insides, my head spinning frantically as bizarrely, insanely, I’m yanked back to a moment from years ago.

I played intramural soccer in college, and there was one game where a guy on the opposite team twisted on his leg wrong and ended up breaking it when another guy then landed on top of him. A compound fracture, his shin bone sticking right out of his skin. I’m not ashamed to say that when I clapped eyes on that protruding bone, I dropped like a bag of rocks and started shaking so hard my teeth chattered. The goalie doubled over and vomited; more than one guy started crying.

The brainknows.It knows when it’s seeing something so horrible, so unnatural, and it rebels.

And that’s what it feels like to be watching this seizure. Molly’s skin is gray and clammy, her lips turning rapidly blue, and for a second all I can do is stare, completely in shock. I know, without knowing how I know, that I will remember this moment forever; the press of her head still in my lap, the soft fabric of her Virgin Islands shirt brushing against my fingertips, the faint scent of tomato soup in the air.

Because this is Molly,myMolly, and it’s wrong, it’s all wrong—her limbs, locked and jerky, her eyes rolled back in her head, her teeth gnashing wildly. This is wrong, so wrong—

I shake my head violently, because I’m spiraling, and there’s no time for that. Why,why, did I not think to ask her what I should do if she had a seizure? Isn’t that the first thing I should have done? What was I thinking?

With trembling arms, I lift Molly off my lap and lay her gently on the floor. She’s not easy to move—her body is rigid and seizing rhythmically—but I manage. Then I grab the phone and dial Wes’s number, the only one in his family I know off the top of my head. I misdial the first time because my fingers are shaking, but I get it the second time around, punching the keys with more force than normal, worrying the whole time.

What if he doesn’t answer because he’s mad about our conversation earlier? What if he doesn’t hear his phone ringing? What if—

But the phone clicks as he picks up. He begins to speak, but his first word doesn’t even make it out of his mouth before I interrupt.

“Molly’s having a seizure,” I blurt out. “She doesn’t have her medicine. What do I do? Tell me what to do. Should I call 911?”

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