Say Something -In Progress Slow Updates

Take This Cup From Me

Dev, Some Months Later, in Switzerland

Lily stands before me with a cup of coffee in her hand, and I experience a disorienting wave of deja vu. Once again, I am in a hospital waiting room, and once again, I feel utterly desperate, and once again Lily is trying to fight my shock and trauma with hot caffeination.

This time is different, I tell myself. This time will not end in devastation. This time, Bridge will not wake from surgery into a nightmare, but into her dreams of motherhood.

If the transplant is successful. But right now, I feel much less than optimistic. I'm terrified something will go wrong. I'm terrified that Bridget will not wake up, not come back to me. Watching them wheel her away into surgery was the most difficult moment I've faced since my father died. No, since my mother died. I was prepared to lose my father. I am not prepared to lose Bridget.

"Dev, take this," Lily prompts, gesturing to me with coffee. I stare at her hand, at the heirloom wedding ring she's wearing, and note that her normally slim fingers are slightly swollen over the gold band. Then I look past her hand to the swollen belly, full of child nearly ready to be delivered, and I remember myself.

I rise swiftly, take the coffee from her, and guide her into my chair—the only empty one in this room, because the rest are taken up by all manner of Del Marcos. "Sit down, Lils. Christ, Asher will have my head you if deliver early here in Switzerland instead of home. I can't believe he even let you come."

Having given Lily my chair, I fold down onto the floor and prop my back against the chair leg. She leans forward, as much as she can over her baby belly, to speak to me privately. 

"How do the Americans say? My husband is not the boss of me," she smiles. She smooths her long hair to one side as she unconsciously rubs her belly. "We're a team, and we both agreed, you needed family here with you. Your family." She glances around the room at Bridget's.

Matt is pacing, and his heavy boots make a consistent tromp that is accompanied by the scrub of his leather jacket as he consistently shirks his shoulders and swings his arms. Marianne is watching him as she bounces a fussy Ozzie on her knee. Row is on her hands and knees, changing Lita's diaper on the floor, and Alley is loudly complaining how gross Row and her daughter's poop are. Row would be giving her the finger if she had a hand to spare, but both are currently occupied wrestling her demon-child, so she's simply mouthing "bitch" instead.  Riley, practically unflappable these days, appears to be having a heated whisper argument with Lane.

 I have no idea what that's about, nor do I want to, but if I had to guess, it's probably something to do with Lane carelessly  fucking a string of girls and leaving broken hearts bleeding all over Asheville, NC, where he's been visiting Row and Riley, so Bridge tells me.  Lane's man-whoring is surely related to the fact that Luis Lawson broke up with his boyfriend and has been in a bit of a man-whore stage himself. 

Apparently Lane has been  a  bystander to Luis' deep, drunken, dive into the LA scene, and it's been hard for him to watch. . Everyone knows Lane has feelings for Luis, except for Matt. And possibly  Luis himself. He's a bit older than Lane and openly gay while Lane doesn't know what the hell he is, apparently. My bet is, even if Luis is aware of Lane's crush, there's no way he wants to get into a thing with a guy who doesn't know where he falls on the sexuality spectrum and appears to be afraid to explore his own range. In LA, of all places.

Speaking of confusion, Lily is nudging me, her gaze fixedly on Alley. I refuse to join her and give Alley any indication that I'm talking about her with Lily.

"Will you do me a great big favor, dear Lily, and stop shooting my sister-in-law dirty looks?"

"I will if she will," Lily retorts. "Do I look that horrid pregnant? She's looking at me as if I am literally an elephant in the room."