what now? | outerbanks

• one hundred twelve •

Pope

We don't know what we're rushing into, but we go anyway. All four of us—five, with Willa—run through the back gate and to John B.'s truck in the driveway. Cleo opens the side door, takes the baby, and practically shoves Sarah into the truck before handing Willa back again. She gets in behind her, and I slide into the front seat next to John B.
"Get her in the car seat, Sarah!" John B. shouts as he puts the truck in drive, more out of fear than aggression.
"Her car seat isn't in this car, John B!" She's even more panicked than he seems.
John B. stutters at the wheel. "Shit. Well, just—I don't—"
"Just go!" she shouts. "I'll just—I'll hold her. Babe, we have to go!"
    "That doesn't seem like—"
    "Go!" she screams, and this time, he listens.
    He slams on the gas, and the tires screech as we tear out of the driveway.
    Sarah twists in her seat, cradling Willa tight against her chest, one hand cupping the back of her tiny head like she can shield her from everything at once. Willa's crying, sharp and confused. Sarah's crying too, but she keeps trying to shush her between shaky breaths.
    "It's okay, baby, it's okay, it's okay—"
    "Mother of God," Cleo mutters under her breath from the backseat, bracing herself against the door as we fishtail onto the road.
    "JJ didn't say what happened?" John B. asks, eyes glued to the windshield.
    "No," Sarah chokes out. "He just said they were heading to the ER and he didn't know what was happening."
    Didn't know what was happening.
    That's the part I keep going over. If JJ didn't know what was happening, if that's all he was able to type, it had to have been something sudden. Something fast and awful.
   "Was she sick?" I ask.
    "No."
    "Did she get hurt today?"
    "No!" Sarah cries again. "We were just together this morning and she was fine!"
    The truck flies over a pothole and Sarah gasps, clutching Willa tighter. "Careful!" she snaps.
    "You told me to go!" John B. fires back, but he eases off the gas a fraction. His knuckles are white around the steering wheel. He looks like he's trying to outrun the cops or some dangerous enemy, but the road is empty beside us.
    "John B., breathe."
    "I'm trying."
    My brain keeps trying to fill in blanks.
   
Appendix?
    Internal bleeding?
    God. What if she fainted and hit her head?
  
    I hear Cleo's soft coos from the seat behind me.
    "Let me take her," she hums just above the baby's wails.
    "I got her," Sarah insists, turning more.
    "Sar, you're shaking. She's scared. Let me hold her, please."
    I catch a glimpse of Sarah's fiery red face and immediately turn back to face the windshield. That's not something I want to mess with.
    "I'm not shaking, she's just—"
    "Sarah," Cleo presses again.
    Sarah doesn't say anything else, but I hear a shuffle and know that Willa is now in Cleo's arms.
    "Hi, Miss Willa Ripley," she says sweetly despite the chaos of the car. "Yes, yes, I know sweetheart. I know you're angry. It's okay. You're okay."
"Just hold on," John B. strains. "We'll be there in ten minutes. Less if we're lucky."

    He's right. And we're not lucky. It takes us exactly ten minutes, and it's the most painful ten minutes of my life.
We pull into the ER entrance crooked, half in the loading zone. John B. doesn't even turn the engine off all the way before we're jumping out.
Cleo steps out as carefully as she can, still rocking Willa, who, now, is almost fully asleep.
The hospital doors slide open with that awful calm swish.
"Kiara Carrera," John B. says at the front desk. "She should've just been checked in."
The nurse types slowly.
"Could you type any slower?" John B. fusses. I kick him in the shin. The last thing we need is to get ourselves escorted out of the emergency room.
The nurse looks up and smiles, unfazed. It's almost mocking. "Please let me do my job, sir." She keeps typing. Then backspaces. Then types. Then backspaces again. One keyboard click before I think John B. might hop over the counter and type her name in himself, she finds something. "Ah, yes. She's in triage."
"What does that mean?" John B. demands.
"She's being evaluated."
"For what?" I push.
The nurse looks up. "I don't have those details."
Of course she doesn't.
"Well, can you let us see her, please?" I ask.
The nurse smiles. Again. Now, I need John B. to kick me in the shin.
"We're not allowing anyone to pass at this time. You all can wait in the waiting room until something changes."
I shake my head. "But her husband, he's back there. So either you're lying, or—"
    In perfect timing, I can't finish my sentence because the doors swing open and there's JJ, being escorted by a security guard.
    "You can't take me from my fucking wife!" he shouts in the guard's face.
    It takes one shout back from the guard for John B. and me to go running for intervention.
    "This your friend?" the guard asks, aggravated.
    "Unfortunately," I mutter, caught between anger toward JJ and the feeling of needing to protect him.
    The guard shoves him into our arms. "Tell him to calm down, or he'll have to leave the premises."
    JJ doesn't fight us when the guard lets go of him, but that's only because he's vibrating too hard to aim it anywhere. His eyes are wild and angry and confused.
    "JJ," John B. says low, gripping both his shoulders. "Calm down."
    "I am calm," JJ snaps, even though he's not.
    I slap his face lightly a few times to hopefully knock some sense into him. Clutching his jaw, I mutter, "This won't help. Breathe."
    We steer him toward the waiting room. Sarah's standing now, arms crossed tight over herself, Cleo still swaying with Willa tucked against her shoulder. Sarah searches JJ's face for answers, but he doesn't have any to give.
    We sit him down. He doesn't really sit so much as collapse.
    For a minute, no one talks. Of course, we all want to ask some version of the same question, but we're all too afraid to speak first.
    The fluorescent lights hum overhead. The nurse clicks at her keyboard, just as slowly as before. JJ starts bouncing his knee. Faster. Faster. His fingers tug at the ends of his hair.
    "They wouldn't tell me anything," he mutters. "They just kept saying triage. Like that's supposed to mean something."
    "It means they're looking at her," I say. "That's good. It's good."
    He looks at me like I've insulted him.
    Sarah's leaning over against her knees, head in her hands as if she's trying to conjure any memory of something being wrong when she last saw Kie. She picks her head up to speak.
    "Can you tell us anything? At all? I just don't understand—"
    JJ whips his head toward her. "I don't know, Sarah! One second we're lying in bed, and the next thing I know she's on the floor bleeding, crying that something's wrong. She could hardly walk she was bent over so bad."
    I try to put everything together, to make it make sense, but it all just feels like a puzzle full of the wrong-sized pieces. Nothing fits.
    "Bleeding?" I ask. "Just all of a sudden?"
    "Yes. It was all down her pants, but not, like— not like anything normal. She was so scared," he chokes.