Finding You

Chapter 23

September 2020

Senior year. The year where you're supposed to line a job up after college and finish strong by graduation, and have fun of course as it's our last year in college. After that, real adult life starts. Except we're only three weeks into the semester and I'm already stressed out over my head and I already have a fucking case file project due in two days.

Sebastian came over to study with Delia and me, while Henry joined in too to help me with my presentation next week. Kaia is here too, of course. It's almost ten o'clock, and I'm tired and desperately want to crawl into bed but I need to finish this project and prepare my presentation while Henry is here to critique it.

The front door creaks open, followed by the smell of fresh, rich coffee. Delia and Sebastian come back with a tray of five large coffees, I think we all need them. I know I do. We spend the next hour working, with constant music in the background. Henry and I run through my presentation four times, I think I've got it now. Hopefully.

My phone rings with a number displayed across the top that I don't recognize. With the loud laughter of everyone else, I walk into the kitchen to hear whoever was on the other end of this phone call.

A doctor. From the hospital back home in Grand Lake. That's who is on the other end of this phone call.

The sound of the glass I held in my other hand shattered as it hit the floor and suddenly everyone stopped laughing. Suddenly everything in my world stopped moving.

"Luna? What's wrong?" The voice sounded like Kaia, but my mind was racing so fast I couldn't process who was speaking.

And then all of a sudden it's like time snapped back into place.

"I have to go," I said scrambling for my car keys, "It's my Grams. She fell, something I—," I struggled getting the words out as tears pricked my eyes. "something about her heart. He— he said her heart has stopped twice and they don't know how much longer she can hold on. I have to go right now."

Next thing I know Sebastian is next to me, taking the car keys from my hand, "I'll drive."

"We'll all go. The rest of us will follow behind you," coming from Henry.

I cannot lose my Grams.

—

I live almost three hours from school, but Sebastian made it in less than two and a half hours. I didn't say a word on the way to the hospital. I couldn't. I couldn't think, I couldn't speak until we got there.

Sebastian pulled right up to the front doors of the hospital. Henry's car behind us. Jumping out, I ran inside and found out where she was. Second floor, down the hall to the left. So I ran up the stairs to the second floor, and I ran down the hall to the left. Sebastian was right behind me the whole time.

I stopped running. I felt like I could no longer move. Doctors and nurses stood outside the room my Grams was supposed to be in. Looking past them, I see Grams laying on the bed in the room they said she'd be in. I couldn't move, still. I was afraid if I took another step I'd have to find out if she was still breathing or if my Grams was gone. One of the doctors sees me and starts walking towards me, asking me if I'm Luna.

"I'm so sorry—," oh my God. No, "we did everything we could. When she fell, she suffered congestive heart failure once they got her here. Her heart stopped a third time after I spoke with you on the phone. Again, I'm so, deeply sorry."

No. Grams please no.

Don't leave me. Please.

"No. No no no."