Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 73240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
She shifted to the head of the gurney, adjusting it a bit before beginning to push it toward the door. Ash scrambled to keep up, holding on to Brand’s hand as long as he could.
“Brand,” he whispered, clutching on tight. “I’ll be waiting.”
Brand met his eyes with that quiet certainty that seemed to pin the world in its place and hold the stars in their configurations in the heavens, so long as Brand believed them to be there.
“I shan’t keep you waiting long.”
Then Ash had no choice but to let go, when there was no room for him through the narrow doorway. The nurse pushed Brand through, out into the hall, wheeling him away until he was just a distant figure vanishing through one set of double doors after another.
And leaving Ash alone.
ASH SHUFFLED INTO THE WAITING area and found a spot out of the way, curled in a chair with Brand’s glasses clutched in both hands, letting them go only to occasionally touch his fingertips to the throbbing mark on his throat, hidden beneath his collar. He watched people stream through the hospital, families clinging to each other anxiously, a few people alone like he was, with that pinched, drawn look on their faces that he understood far too well.
He didn’t know how to handle this alone. His mother had volunteered to come with him to wait, but he couldn’t pull her away from his father when he was so fragile and needed constant monitoring before he underwent intensive chemo. All of the people in Ash’s past—Andrew, so many others he couldn’t even name—were just cardboard cutouts of people pasted in his memories with no real permanence. They weren’t the kind of people he could call when he needed to say I’m afraid.
I’m afraid, and I can’t be alone right now.
After long, trembling minutes where every second screamed through him with agonizing awareness of the passing time, he pulled out his phone and tapped out a text to Vic.
you busy?
His phone buzzed back a few minutes later. just facilitating a hostile corporate takeover, bored off my bloody gourd really, what’s up
Ash bit his lip. brands in surgery
what? why? is he ok?
i think so, Ash texted back quickly. he’s donating bone marrow for my dad, its supposed to be routine, i’m just really scared for him
Vic’s answering text was just an emoji heart, at first, followed by, he’s gonna be okay – he’s got you, don’t he?
Ash smiled to himself. His heart shouldn’t be aching like this. yeah, he does
then everything’s gonna be okay
Over and over again, Ash reread that message. A reminder. A mantra. A hope to hold on to, for interminable hours on end.
That everything would be okay, in the end.
He distracted himself reading work emails on his phone, curling up in his chair with his legs tucked up. He read until his eyes ached, dry and sore and tired; read until it felt like weeks had passed, instead of just—fuck his life, three hours? That was it? He groaned and thumbed the screen to the next email.
Only for his blood to ice over at a commotion from down the very same hall where they’d wheeled Brand.
He shot upright, watching as shouting people went running down the hall, doctors and nurses and orderlies, calling something about codes and throwing medical terminology back and forth that he didn’t understand, but that sounded terrifying. He rocketed from the chair, calling after a nurse who went running past.
“What’s happening? What’s wrong?” he asked, then, “…Brand?”
But she barely glanced at him, not stopping, before she went thrusting past the swinging double doors and disappeared.
Leaving Ash standing there, trembling, Brand’s glasses clutched to his chest and the walls of his heart crumbling to pieces.
IT WAS OVER ANOTHER HOUR before a bulky man in scrubs and a lab coat emerged from behind the double doors, tired-looking with deep lines sunken into his face; he flipped through a clipboard with several sheets of paper, then lifted his head, gaze searching.
“Ashton Harrington?”
Ash froze in his pacing tracks; he’d been back and forth so many times his feet hurt, and it he’d practically worn a rut in the floor. Barely breathing, he whirled on the doctor, swallowing back the knot of tears in his throat.
“Is Brand all right?’ he demanded breathlessly.
“He’s fine. Resting,” the doctor reassured, only to erase the rush of joy, relief, by adding carefully, “There was a brief…incident.”
Ash stilled. “What kind of incident?”
“His heart stopped on the table.” It came out so easily, so nonchalantly, Ash could have strangled the man. “It happens, sometimes, and it just means being a bit more careful with him during recovery. Sometimes people have an adverse reaction to the anesthetic—”
“Wait. Wait. Back up.” Ash shook his head sharply. “What do you mean, his heart stopped?”
“It was only for a moment. We brought him back in less than sixty seconds. His heart function is fine. He’s fine.”