Page 69 of Loving Lauren
She rolled over, stared at the silent phone, and whispered to the ceiling, “Please call me if it gets worse.”
But the room stayed still. The cat stretched. The phone stayed dark.
And dread settled heavier and heavier in her chest, keeping her awake until the first light of morning.
Chapter 44
Monday dawned gray and brittle, rain streaking her windows in uneven lines. Sierra tried to focus on her lesson prep, pencil tapping against her sketchbook, but her eyes kept sliding to her phone. No new messages.
She gave in and typed:
Sierra:How are you feeling today?
Ten long minutes passed before the bubbles appeared.
Lauren:Rough. Not coming to class. Sorry.
Her stomach dropped. She hit call before she could talk herself out of it. Lauren picked up on the second ring, their voice thin and papery.
“Hey. You’re up early.”
“You sound awful.” Sierra tried to smooth the panic out of her tone. “Let me come over. I’ll make tea or soup. Class can wait.”
A small laugh that didn’t sound like them. “I’ll be fine. Just a bug. Please go to class. Promise me you won’t worry.”
“I am going to worry no matter what. If it doesn’t get better, you have to call me or at least get checked out at the clinic.”
“I will.”
The word landed flimsy, and then the line went quiet.
The day moved like wet concrete. Sierra taught on autopilot, corrected charcoal lines that didn’t need correcting, smiled at the right moments without feeling any of it. Every buzz of her phone hit like a jolt. Student questions. Thalia’s memes. Nothing from Lauren.
By late afternoon, she sat at her kitchen table with her sketchbook open and blank. The rain had thinned to a fine mist that turned the streetlights into halos. She stared at her phone until her eyes ached.
It rang with an unfamiliar number.
“Is this Sierra Turner?” a calm voice asked.
“Yes.”
“This is University Hospital. You are listed as the emergency contact for Lauren Reeves. I’m calling to let you know they have just come out of surgery. Their appendix ruptured. The procedure went well, and they are stable.”
The words made little sense at first. Then her pulse launched into her throat so fast she nearly dropped the phone. “I’m on my way.”
She was already jamming on shoes and snatching her keys from the bowl. “Please be okay,” she whispered to the emptyapartment, to Salem blinking slow from the couch, to anyone listening.
The hospital smelled of antiseptic and coffee. It was too bright and too quiet at the same time. Sierra nearly ran to the front desk, blurting out Lauren’s name before the receptionist even finished asking how she could help.
“They are in recovery,” the woman said gently, eyes kind. “Give us a few minutes. I’ll let the nurse know you’re here.”
Minutes stretched thin as wire. Sierra sat on a stiff plastic chair that dug into her spine, torn between pacing and staying perfectly still. Her leg bounced until the floor trembled. She pressed her palms together until they hurt, then forced them apart, then pressed them back together again.
Her phone lay heavy in her lap. She unlocked it and reread the last message Lauren had sent the night before. The words blurred from repetition. She locked the screen and set it face down, palm flattening over it like pressure might keep her from shattering.
The waiting room hummed faintly with vending machines and distant overhead announcements. A man in scrubs tapped on his tablet across from her. Someone coughed behind a partition. Sierra barely heard any of it. Her body sat in the chair, but her mind was unspooling everywhere else.
Memory offered itself in sharp fragments: Lauren in the park, black hair catching the sun while they laughed at something Sierra couldn’t hear. That cautious smile at the café, like a door cracking open. Salt wind in Hawaii, wish lanterns lifting over black water. The quiet of her living room when one hand found another with no words at all.
