When Mary Met Halley

Nine

I went back to the hospital that night at eight. The nurse was still there and she shook her head sympathetically at me as I passed, then held up a finger while she found a generically decorated box of Kleenex. She held it out to me as I looked at her quizzically. "Compassion," she said enigmatically and waved me on. 

Apprehensive, I went to the doorway.

Halley was sitting in the chair by the window, crying into her sweatshirt. I hesitated but the floor squeaked and she looked up.

She hastily wiped her face, not that it did any good. The light hit her just right and I could see her aquamarine eyes. The way she rubbed them told me they probably weren't contacts. Of course not. 

"Sorry," she said, her ears turning red. Her hair was on top of her head, strands of it lifted up by the static electricity her hoodie had caused.

"I can . . . " I gestured behind me.

"No, I'll go." Her breath hitched as she looked at Caleb's still form. "I just, it's hard." Her eyes met mine, searching for understanding.

"I always told him it was way too dangerous to ride that stupid bike," I said, taking a few steps forward to stand at the railing. He looked like a bad drawing of himself. He looked like he was suffering. I reached to touch him but stopped short of actually doing so, afraid to hurt him any more. Despair squeezed the air from my lungs with an iron fist.

"Fucking Cale. Who rides a bicycle in the road like a car?" She wiped her eyes again but the tears were unstoppable. "Someone brave or stupid."

"Oh, here." I held out the Kleenex. "From the nurse."

"Tamara," she said, taking it and using some. "She's cool." She had tiny silver earrings in but I couldn't make out what they were.

I sat in the empty chair at the foot of the bed and sighed. "Only Caleb rides his bike in the road, like the spandex bikers, because he thinks he's invincible." I shook my head. "Jackass," I added, in case he was listening.

She snorted a little. "Seriously."

I took in his waxlike countenance. "Though we should probably be saying uplifting things, or some shit."

"Tamara said just hearing our voices is fine. Doesn't really matter what we say." But she shrugged. "You're probably right, though." She glanced at him too and her lip trembled. She sucked it in and bit it, which didn't seem to help as the tears continued rolling. "Sorry," she said again. Her earrings were tiny crescent moons.

"It's shitty," I said mildly, her tears waking mine, which I fought. I slipped my phone from my purse and pushed the purse to the floor, giving her a chance to get herself together without me watching. The antiseptic smell of the hospital turned my stomach and I took out some Juicy Fruit gum, which I loved. Even if it lost its taste after three seconds.

She blew her nose again and took a stick of gum when I offered it. "I fucking hate this," she said bitterly. "Seeing him like this, wanting to wring his neck, not knowing what's going to happen . . . " She sighed. "I'll probably get killed at my motel next." She half-laughed. "Not that I should be bitching to you," she continued, self-deprecatingly. "God."

I made a face like, Whatever. It was what it was. "Where is it?"

"The motel? On Corby."

Crap. "Jesus, you can't stay there. Caleb would have a fit." I realized what a dumb thing that was to say.

She smiled grimly. "You know a better place for less than a hundred bucks a night?"