CAMRYN
37
“ANDREW?” I SAY, ROLLING over onto his side of the bed. Waking myself up further, I lift my head slowly to see that he isn’t there.
I smell bacon.
I think about the night we had and can’t wipe the obvious smile off my face. I untangle myself from the sheets and get out of bed and slip on my panties and t-shirt.
Andrew is standing at the stove when I walk into the kitchen.
“Baby, why are you up so early?”
I walk over to the fridge and open it, searching for anything to wet my mouth. I need to brush my teeth, but if he’s cooking breakfast I don’t want to make it taste funky mixed with toothpaste.
“Thought I’d bring you breakfast in bed.”
It took him a few seconds longer to answer than I feel like it should have and his voice sounded off. I look up from the fridge and over at him. He’s just standing there, staring into the grease.
“Baby, are you alright?”
I let the fridge door close without getting anything from it.
He barely lifts his head to glance at me.
“Andrew?”
My heart is beating faster and faster, though I’m not sure why.
I move over next to him and put my hand on his arm. He lifts his gaze from the grease and looks at me slowly.
“Andrew….”
In a sort of cruel slow motion, Andrew’s legs give way and his body crashes against the white tile floor, the spatula he had in his hand hits the floor with him, splattering hot grease. I reach out to grab him but I can’t keep him on his feet. Everything is still moving in slow motion: my scream, my hands as they grab at his shoulders, his head as it bounces against the tile. But then when his body begins to shake and convulse uncontrollably, slow motion becomes fast and terrifying.
“ANDREW! OH MY GOD, ANDREW!”
I want to help him up but his body won’t stop shaking. I see the whites of his eyes and his jaw clenched in a horrific display. His limbs have locked up stiffly.
I scream out again, tears barreling from my eyes. “Somebody help me!” And then I snap into my senses and run for the nearest phone. His cell phone is on the nearby counter. I dial 911 and in the two seconds it takes for them to answer, I’m turning the fire off from the stove.
“Please! He’s having a seizure! Please, someone help me!”
“Ma’am, the first thing you need to do is calm down. Is he still seizing?”
“Yes!”
I watch in horror as Andrew’s body shakes against the floor. I’m so scared I feel like throwing up.
“Ma’am, I want you to move anything nearby that could hurt him. Is he wearing glasses? Is his head in danger of hitting furniture or any other objects?”
“No! B-But he hit his head when he fell!”
“OK, now find something to put under his head, a pillow, something to protect it from hitting anything else.”
I look around the kitchen first but see nothing and then I run frantically into the living room and grab a small couch pillow and bring it back. I set the phone down long enough to slide the pillow underneath his jerking head.
Oh no….oh my God, what’s happening to him?!
I put the phone back to my ear.
“OK, I put the pillow under his head!”
“Alright ma’am,” the 911 operator says calmly, “how long has he been seizing? Does he have a known condition that causes seizures?”
“I-I d-don’t know, about…maybe two minutes, three at the most. And no, I’ve never seen him do this before. He’s never told me about any….” It starts to dawn on me: he never told me. All sorts of things start attacking my mind, only causing me to lose my calm again. “Please send an ambulance! Please! Hurry!” I’m choking on my own tears.
Andrew’s body stops jerking.
Before the 911 operator has a chance to respond, I say, “He’s stopped! W-What do I do?”
“OK, ma’am I need you to help roll him over onto his side—we’re going to send an ambulance. What is your address?”
While I’m rolling him onto his side, I freeze with her question.
I don’t…I don’t f*cking know! Goddammit!
“I-I don’t know the—.” I shoot up from the floor and rush over to the counter where a stack of mail has been sitting and I find the address on the top piece and read it off to her.
“An ambulance is on its way. Would you like to stay on the phone with me until it arrives?”
I’m not sure what she said, or if she ever really said anything at all and I’m just imagining it, but I don’t respond. I can’t tear my eyes away from Andrew, lying unconscious on the kitchen floor.
“He’s unconscious! Oh my God, why isn’t he waking up?!” My free hand lingers on my lips.
“It’s not uncommon,” she says and I finally snap back into her voice. “Would you like me to remain with you until the ambulance gets there?”
“…Yes, please don’t hang up. Please.”
“OK, I’m right here,” she says and her voice is my only comfort. I can’t breathe. I can’t think straight. I can’t speak. All I can do is watch him. I’m even too scared to sit on the floor next to him for fear of him seizing again and me being in the way.
Minutes later I hear sirens blaring up the street.
“I think they’re here,” I say into the phone distantly.
I still can’t look at anything but Andrew.
Why is this happening?
There’s a knock at the door and finally I get up and run over to it to let the EMT’s in. I don’t even remember dropping Andrew’s phone on the floor with the 911 operator still on the other end. The next thing I know, Andrew is being lifted onto a stretcher and strapped down.
“What is his name?” a voice asks and I’m sure it’s one of the EMT’s, but I can’t see his face. All I see is Andrew’s as he’s being wheeled out the door.
“Andrew Parrish,” I answer quietly.
I vaguely hear the name of the hospital the EMT tells me they are taking him. And when they leave, I just stand here, staring at the door where I last saw him. It takes me several long minutes to get my head together and the first thing I do is grab his cell phone and search for his mother’s number. I hear her start to cry on the other end when I tell her what happened and I think she dropped her phone.
“Ms. Parrish?” I feel the tears stinging the back of my eyes. “Ms. Parrish?” But she’s gone.
Finally, I throw on some clothes—I have no idea what I’m even wearing—and grab Andrew’s car keys and my purse and rush out the door. I drive the Chevelle around for a few minutes until I realize I don’t know where I’m going or where I’m at. I find a gas station and stop to ask for directions to the hospital and they give them to me, but I still barely find my way there without getting lost. I can’t think straight.
I slam the car door and run into the emergency room with my purse sloppily over my shoulder. I could drop it and not know the difference. The nurse at the desk types on her keyboard for information and then points me in the right direction where I end up in a waiting room area. And I’m all alone.
I think an hour has gone by, but I could be wrong. One hour. Five minutes. A week. It doesn’t make any difference; it would all feel the same to me. My chest hurts, I’ve cried so much. I’ve paced the floor so hard that I’ve started counting the specks in the carpet on my way back and forth.
Another hour.
This waiting room is so incredibly insipid with brown walls and brown seats lined neatly in two rows down the center of the room. A clock high on the wall above the door ticks around and around and even though it’s too faint for me to hear, my mind believes that I can hear it. There’s a coffee pot and a sink nearby. A man—I think—just walked in through a side door and fills a small Styrofoam cup and then walks back out.
Another hour.
My head hurts. My lips are chapped and broken. I keep licking them, only making it worse. I haven’t seen a nurse walk by in a while and I’m starting to wish I would’ve stopped the last one I saw before she slipped down the long, sterile fluorescent lit hallway outside the waiting area.
What’s taking so long? What’s going on?
I hit my forehead in the palm of my hand and just as I go to reach for Andrew’s phone in my purse, I hear a familiar voice:
“Camryn?”
I turn swiftly at the waist.
Andrew’s younger brother, Asher, is walking into the room.
I want to be relieved that someone has finally come to talk to me, to lift this deep sense of painful nothingness, but I can’t be relieved because I only expect him to tell me something horrible about Andrew. Asher wasn’t even in Texas as far I know and if he’s here suddenly then that must mean he took the first flight out of wherever he was and people only do that when something bad has happened.
“Asher?” I say, tears straining my voice.
I don’t even hesitate and I run over into his arms. He hugs me tightly.
“Please tell me what’s going on?” I say, tears streaming from my eyes all over again. “Is Andrew alright?”
Asher takes my hand and leads me to a seat and I sit next to him, squeezing my purse in my lap just to have something to hold onto.
Asher looks so much like Andrew it hurts my heart.
He smiles gently at me.
“He’s fine right now,” he says and that small sentence is enough to fill my entire body with a surge of energy. “But he probably won’t stay that way.”
And just as quickly, that hopeful energy drains right back out of me, taking other parts of me with it: my heart, my soul, that tiny bit of hope that I had maintained all this time since this happened. What is Asher saying…what is he trying to tell me?
My chest shudders with tears.
“What do you mean?” I barely get the words out.
He takes a calm breath.
“About eight months ago,” he says carefully, “my brother found out he has a brain tumor—”
My heart is gone. My breath is gone.
My purse falls onto the floor, spilling everything with it, but I can’t move to pick it up. I can’t move…anything.
I feel Asher’s hand take up mine.
“Because of our father’s condition Andrew refused to get further tests. He was supposed to go back to see Dr. Marsters that same week, but he wouldn’t go. Our mom and our brother, Aidan, tried everything to get him to go. As far as I know, he agreed at one point, but he never went through with it because our father’s condition worsened.”
“No…,” I shake my head over and over again, not wanting to believe the things he’s telling me, “no….” I just want to force his words out of my head.
“It’s why Andrew and Aidan have been at each other’s throats,” Asher goes on. “Aidan just wanted him to do what he needed to do, and Andrew, as stubborn as he is, fought Aidan at every turn.”
I look toward the wall and say, “It’s why he never wanted to see his father in the hospital….” The realization numbs me further.
“Yeah,” Asher says quietly, “it’s also why he wouldn’t go to the funeral.”
I look right at Asher now, my eyes boring into his, my fingers dancing on my lips. “He’s afraid. He’s afraid the same thing is going to happen to him, that his tumor is inoperable.”
“Yes.”
I shoot up from the seat, a tube of lipstick cracks underneath my shoe.
“But what if it’s not as bad?” I say frantically. “He’s in the hospital now; they can do what they need to do.” I start to march toward the exit. “I’ll make him get the tests. I’ll force him! He’ll listen to me!”
Asher grabs my arm. I turn around.
“From what they can tell right now, his chances are very small, Camryn.”
I’m going to throw up. My cheeks feel like there are thousands of tiny pins prickling them as more tears push their way to the surface. My hands are shaking, too. My whole f*cking body is shaking!
Asher adds softly, “He let it go too long.”
Both of my hands come up and cover my face and I sob into them, my body trembling uncontrollably. I feel Asher’s arms wrap tightly around me.
“He wants to see you.”
His words cause me to look up.
“They’ve already got him in a room; I’ll take you to him. Just wait here for a few more minutes until my mom leaves his room and I’ll walk you back.”
I don’t say anything. I just stand here, wordless…dying inside, the worst pain I have ever felt.
Asher looks at me once more to be confident that I heard him clearly and then he says carefully, “I’ll be back shortly for you. Just wait here.”
Asher leaves and to keep from collapsing I grab the nearest chair and sit down. I can’t even see straight, the tears are burning my eyes, rushing down my cheeks. My chest feels like someone literally reached inside of it and ripped out my heart.
I don’t know if I’ll be able to see him without going completely out of my mind.
Why did he do this?!
Why is this happening?!
Before I go completely f*cking crazy and start breaking shit or hitting something and hurting myself, I crawl on my hands and knees to my purse on the floor. I didn’t even notice that Asher had picked everything up and put it back inside for me and then set my purse on the chair. I dig for my phone and call Natalie.
“Hello?”
“Natalie, I-I need you to do something for me.”
“Cam…are you crying?”
“Natalie, please listen to me.”
“OK, yes, I’m here. What’s wrong?”
“You’re my best friend,” I say, “and I need you to come to Galveston. As soon as possible. Will you come? I need you. Please.”
“Oh my God, Camryn, what the hell is going on? What happened? Are you alright?”
“Nothing happened to me, but I need you here. I need someone and you’re all I have. My mom won’t un—Natalie, please!”
“A-Alright,” she says with deep worry in her voice. “I’m on the first flight out. I’ll be there. Just keep your phone on you.”
I drop my hand to my side, my phone crushed in my fist and I stare at the wall for what seems like forever until Asher’s voice pulls me out of myself. I look up at him. He walks toward me and reaches out for my hand, knowing I’m going to need it. My legs feel fragile, like I’m walking on prosthetics and I don’t have full use of them. Asher holds my hand so tight. We step out into the brightly-lit hallway and head toward an elevator.
“I have to calm myself,” I say out loud, but more to me than Asher. I pull my hand from his and wipe my face and run my fingers through my hair, over the top of my head. “I can’t see him in hysterics. That’s the last thing he needs right now is to be trying to calm me down.”
Asher doesn’t say anything. I don’t look at him. I see our reflections in the elevator door, warped and discolored. I notice the number on the elevator moving up two floors and then the elevator stops. The door opens. I just stand here at first afraid to walk out, but then I take a very deep breath and wipe my eyes again.
We walk to the middle of the hall to a room with a large wooden door that has been left cracked open. Asher pushes the door open the rest of the way, but I look down at the floor and at the invisible line that separates me in the hallway from Andrew inside the room and I’m so scared to walk over it. I feel like once I do I will see that all of this is real and there really is no turning back. I squeeze my eyes shut and force back a new rush of tears, breathing deeply with my fists clenched around my purse.
And then I open my eyes when Andrew’s mom steps out.
Her soft face is exhausted by emotion, just as I know mine must be. Her hair is tangled. Her eyelids are enflamed. But she manages to smile lovingly at me, placing her gentle fingers on my shoulder.
“I’m glad you’re here, Camryn.”
And then she walks away from the room hand in hand with Asher.
I watch them for a brief moment as they slip farther down the hall, but their figures appear blurred into their surroundings.
I look into the room from the doorway and see the end of the bed where I know Andrew is lying.
I step inside.
“Baby, come here,” Andrew says when he sees me.
At first, I’m frozen here in this spot, but when I look into his eyes, those unforgettable green eyes that have such a hold on me, I drop my purse on the floor and rush over to his bed.