Page 70 of You're So Vine

Page List

Font Size:

“Ava?”

And there she is. Walking slowly down the stairs. With the exact same grim expression I just saw on her brother.

Anxiety kicks me in the guts. What’s happened since this morning? Has Doc Wilson had a second look at the bloodwork?

Ava walks up to me and leans her head on my chest. “Fuck,” she says. “I don’t want to do this.”

Relief. But also a mental slap across the head. Stop making it all about you, Hollander. It’s Ava you need to focus on.

“It’ll be over soon,” I say. “And then I’ll buy you a beer.”

“And curly fries?” Her voice is muffled by my shirt.

“Double helping.”

Ava raises her head and breathes in deep.

“Okay, let’s go,” she says. “But set the child locks in case I decide to make a barrel roll for freedom halfway.”

We make it to Martinburg without incident. Also without conversation, no doubt because both of us are concentrating on keeping our breathing regular. And I’m winning right up until we pull into the hospital grounds. Then I feel my heart start to race, and my hands shake a little on the wheel.

“How you doing, big guy?” says Ava.

“I’m good,” I manage.

She lightly punches my shoulder.

“It’ll be over soon,” she says. “Then beer and fries. Double helping.”

I give myself another mental head slap. If she can do this, so can I. We can do this together.

Ava and I lock gazes and nod, like we’re about to jump out of a plane. Outside the Dodge, she takes hold of my hand, and we both know it’s for my comfort as well as hers. We set out for the hospital doors.

The next however-many minutes happen in a blur. It’s like I’ve been sucked into a tornado and all I can see are specks whirling in a black mist. After they take Ava away, I manage to find the waiting room, but I can’t look at my phone or skim an out-of-date magazine. All I can do is sit and try not to pass out or throw up.

It’s been ten years since my time in the army hospital, but I guess the triggers never really lose their power.Or, says a voice that sounds a lot like Lee’s,it could be that you’ve never properly faced the trauma. You’ve buried it in a hole, and now it’s climbing out of the earth like a zombie intent on snacking on your brain.

Okay, so that last part sounded more like Ava. But at different times, she and Lee have both given me the same message: if you don’t deal with it, the pain will never go away.

I can hear Lee’s voice telling me how trauma affects more than our mental state. You hold it in your body, she’d say. You need to find ways to release it, gently and slowly. You need to get in touch with your whole self if you want to be fully well.

“Well, well…”

Wait. Icanhear Lee’s voice. What the—

“How are you, friend Cam?”

Not Lee. Debra. The secret sister. Sitting in the chair beside mine. No longer wrapped up in a blanket but still wearing a lot of clothes: big wool sweater, scarf, and hat, and what look like ski pants. It’s got to be eighty degrees in the waiting room. I’m sweating in my flannel shirt and only part of that’s nerves. This woman really feels the cold.

“Uh, I’m…”

Nope, I’ve got nothing. My brain is fried.

“The hospital not your favorite place,” she says. “Mine neither.”

Somehow, her presence is pulling me out of my funk. Maybe she’s having the same effect on me that Lee always did—calming, regulating. Or maybe it’s just the shock of an unexpectedly weird coincidence. Whatever it is, my mouth opens and words start coming out.

“Why’re you here?” I say, and then scramble to add, “If you don’t mind me asking?”