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59. Safekeeping

Nurse Hunt from my visit to the hospital is patting my back lightly as I try to compose myself again. David told me that Paige was in surgery and that they have strong hopes for her to pull through. Strong hopes my ass. Paige needs to pull through. She needs to survive because I won't if she doesn't.

"Want some water?" Nurse Hunt says quietly, her voice low- as if she were approaching a wild animal.

"Please," I croak out. My throat was dry and my cheeks were hot.

My beard crunched under my hand as I dragged it across my face. Young kids with broken arms are brought in and out of the emergency room. David made me stay here so that the nurses could keep an eye on me. I know it.

Nurse Hunt returns with a Styrofoam cup of water. I chugged it back in an instant. Vaguely, I rocked myself back and forth on the chair I was planted in. I tried to imagine Paige with her arm wrapped around my shoulders, comforting me as I panicked.

"Paige is in the hands of the best doctors around, don't you worry." Nurse Hunt cooed into my ear.

Don't I worry? I almost snorted. There is nobody else to worry about Paige if I don't worry about her. She cares so deeply for everybody else around her and pays no attention to herself, there has to be somebody to worry about her. I know damn well her parents don't.

"Shit," I mutter, my hands dropping to my pockets to pat around for my phone, "Diane. Shit."

The only other person I know who needs to be here. I scroll quickly through my contacts and land on her name. I can't believe I hadn't called her sooner.

"Hello?" She speaks in a chirpy voice and it rings in my pounding head.

"Diane? It's Landon. Something has happened." I pinch the bridge of my nose and watch Nurse Hunt as she walks away.

"What? What do you mean?" Diane gasps into the phone and I think that I hear her picking up a set of keys in the background.

"At the office, there was an incident. Can you come to the hospital?"

"Oh my God, yes, I'll be there in just a few minutes." Diane says quickly and then the line goes dead.

As I look back up from my black phone screen, David appears above me with a large, clear plastic bag in his hands.

I quickly shoot up from the chair and fire tons of questions at him.

"Paige is stable, but she's still in surgery. There were a few complications, but we think she's going to pull through." David looks tired and worried as he says this to me.

I let out a massive sigh of relief. She is still alive and that is all that matters. But David still looks weary, so my surge of relief dissipates in an instant.

"Here's her personal effects," I hear David's gulp as he hands me the large bag.

All I see is the green dress balled up at the bottom. Why the hell would they give this back to me? It's torn at the side and bloody.

I snatch the bag from him and rip it open, not bothering to see if I broke the bag.

"Her phone was in her bra, strange place to keep it." David half chuckles and I roll my eyes.

She always puts her phone in her bra when she wears a dress. She says it's the best place to keep it if she doesn't have pockets. I feel myself yearning to hear her voice again- making a joke or telling me how Catcher in the Rye is a ridiculous exaggeration of a coming of age novel. Something, anything. It's better than nothing. Better than the silence that deafens me.