Page 39 of Love and the Laws of Motion
“Did you get the bid for the new monitors?”
“Yes, I did.Let me find it in my email.”
Livie scrolled through her email looking for the bid she’d received the day before.
“Livie...”
“One second.Oh, here it is.Okay, I’m forwarding it to you.”
Then Janet made a noise.All the little hairs on the back of Livie’s neck stood up.That was not a noise people were supposed to make...ever.
She looked up just as Janet crumpled slowly to the floor.
“Janet!”
Panic flooded her body as she rushed to Janet.She was curled into an awkward heap on her side.Livie gently rolled her onto her back.She felt so small, so fragile.Her color was bad.Very bad.The last time she’d seen someone this washed out and gray—no, she wasn’t going there.
Her heart hammering, she sought out Janet’s pulse in her thin, bony wrist with one hand, as she frantically dialed 9-1-1 on her cell with the other hand.When she finally found Janet’s pulse, it was hardly even there, nothing more than a barely perceptible flutter under her fingers.
The whole time, as she breathlessly explained everything to the dispatcher, she prayed.She hadn’t prayed since she was eleven.It hadn’t worked then, so she’d given it up.But now she prayed to anyone who might be listening that that fragile little flutter would keep going until help arrived.
Chapter Fifteen
Livie hadn’t stepped foot in a hospital since she was eleven.That hadn’t struck her as particularly odd—she hadn’t felt as if she’d been purposefully avoiding them—until the ambulance had taken Janet away and Livie, faced with the prospect of following them to the hospital on her own, went weak-kneed with fear.
She had to go.In the chaos of the ambulance arrival, as the paramedics had worked to stabilize Janet and secure her on the gurney, she’d learned from Anita that Janet’s husband was out of the country, and her son was in Chicago this week for work.She hadn’t even known Janet had a family, but according to Anita, her husband, a classics professor at NYU, was at a conference in Vancouver.Someone had to go to the hospital, and Livie quickly realized, her heart sinking, that there was only her.
The thing was, shewantedto be there.Janet shouldn’t be alone.And sure, their relationship thus far had been purely student/teacher, but she liked Janet and wanted to be with her in this crisis.But when she pulled out her phone intending to call for a Lyft, she froze.She couldn’t face walking into that hospital, at least, not alone.
She typed out a text in the family group chat.
Finch just taken to the hospital.I need to go sit with her.Can’t go alone.
Moments later, there was a reply, but it wasn’t from Jess or Gemma.It was from Nick.
Oh no.She’d had the wrong group chat open, the one she’d started a few days ago, to make sure Nick had everyone’s contact info.
Which hospital?Meet you there.
Oh, God, how embarrassing.Frantically, she typed out a response.
Sorry, typed in the wrong chat.Meant for Gemma and Jess.Don’t worry about it.
A moment after she hit Send, her phone vibrated with an incoming call.It was Nick.He started talking the instant she accepted the call.
“Just tell me which hospital.I’m on my way.”
“Really, Nick, you don’t have to—”
He bulldozed right over her protests.“Livie.Which hospital?”
“Maimonides.It’s at—”
“I know where it is.Wait for me outside the ER entrance.”
“Okay.And thanks.”
At Maimonides, facing the ER entrance, once again she froze.She should just walk in.Stop being a coward and go.Then she could text Nick and tell him she was fine.Nothing to worry about.
