Shift

NINETEEN.2

Celery and Fairden dropped them off in the hospital parking lot, and, after exchanging hasty goodbyes, Kayden and Blaze ran in through the emergency room entrance. Kayden lied to a nurse, telling the woman in purple scrubs that she and Blaze were Lexi's siblings, and they were escorted through the hospital to Lexi's room. It was just one of several small cubicles shielded off from the rest of the emergency ward by a grey curtain.

When Kayden stormed through the curtain, she saw Lexi sitting on top of the bed. She had expected to see her wearing a hospital gown or hooked up to tubes and bags of IV fluids, but she was still dressed in her normal clothes and looked perfectly fine. "What happened?" Kayden demanded.

Kayden's mother stood up from a chair. She smoothed her hands on her jeans. "Lexi wasn't feeling well. She started having chest pains and felt dizzy. She couldn't breathe—"

"What's wrong? What did the doctor say?" Kayden cut her off. Her heart hadn't stopped racing since she had received the phone call at the café.

Lexi couldn't look her in the eye. She played with the thin sheets and her cheeks flushed red, as if she had liberally applied blush to them. "I had a panic attack," she said softly.

Kayden blinked. "That's it? A panic attack?"

"It was scary," Mrs. Lee said, sending her daughter a stern look.

"But it's not that serious, right? Why did she have to go to the emergency room?"

"It lasted a while and the symptoms are very similar to a heart attack," her mother said. "The staff admitted us immediately, but after a few minutes, her heart rate slowed down. The doctor is going to give her an EKG just to make sure things are fine, and then they'll discharge her."

Lexi hung her head. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to scare everyone. It just caught me off guard." She looked between Blaze and Kayden. "And I'm sorry you had to leave breakfast early."

"It's fine," Blaze said. "It's good to know you're okay."

Kayden nodded with him, but her lips were pressed into a line. She had been terrified that something terrible had happened to her cousin. But now, instead of feeling relief, she felt drained. "Do you know what caused it?" she asked quietly.

Lexi looked down and shook her head, but Kayden didn't believe her; she had a feeling that Helio's absence was affecting her cousin more than they all thought.

Kayden did not want to be in the cubicle any longer.

"Do you mind if I sit out in the lobby?" she asked.

"Go ahead," Lexi murmured.

Kayden left without waiting for Blaze. In the waiting room, she found a green padded chair and spent a few minutes staring at a rack of magazines without picking one out to read. The other people in the room, people nursing wounds and breathing in through clenched teeth, swam past the corners of her vision, mere blurs of colors and shapes.

Blaze eventually materialized in a chair beside her. "You okay?" he whispered.

Kayden sighed, air hissing out through her teeth. She had been ignoring Blaze for five days now; she was used to deflecting his questions or dismissing them entirely. But now, with her cousin on her mind, her words slipped out without a second thought. "Why is he like this?"

"Who?"

"Helio!" she said, clenching her fist so hard that her nails dug into her palm. "He's such an ass, but he seemed to like Lexi... at least for a bit. I just can't figure him out."

Blaze looked down at his hands. He seemed to be thinking about something, chewing on his thoughts, before he finally said, "You have to understand that things haven't always been easy for Helio."