One Life ✓

Chapter 18: The Blowup Shift

Jordan—What's left of that banquet hall, San Antonio, TX

The smoke clogs my airway. I choke on my breath. I can barely breathe even if I tried. I almost laugh in shock when I think to myself, things explode here an awful lot.

Natalie is slumped over a toppled chair, an angry gash slashing across her forehead. I rush over and tap her shoulder. "Nat. Nat!"

She doesn't respond. I glance over at Shannon, who has begun crawling on her hands and knees to look for the rest of our crowd. Her face says pure distress and fear, like mine. I waver her over. "Natalie's unresponsive. Slow pulse."

Shannon gestures to the Closest Friends table, or what remains. "So's he."

Grace sobs into an unconscious TC's shoulder, tears building roads in the layer of ash over her cheeks. It must be hard for her, everything deciding to blow up the day of her picture-perfect engagement and finding her fiancé limp next to her. I imagine that all the time, you know. What if TC was in my place the day I nearly died, when I refused his proposal?

He would be worse off than I was.

"Jordan, go. I can take care of Dr. Manning." Shannon gets up on shaky feet.

I slowly navigate towards TC and Grace. She looks up at me. Her dress is shredded up like it was processed but didn't quite fit in the machine. Her very appearance actually gives me depression to look at.

"I don't know what to do," cries Grace. "I forgot everything."

I give her a begrudging hug, patting her back in rueful mom fashion. When I glance at her face, I see a wrecked Tee, broken from traumatic memories. I blink, and there's Grace again.

A few others are up. Kenny, Will, April, and Jocelyn stumble over to the hurt while Ethan and Drew head for us. Bri, the new Oklahoma doctor at SAM, and Connor set a beeline for Shannon and Natalie.

Grace is still in helplessness mode. Drew attempts to comfort her, trying to tell her that everything will be okay, while Ethan jumps in and checks on TC.

All of a sudden, two other people join us. An older man and woman bearing vague traces of Grace's looks.

"Papa?" Grace says in disbelief through tears. "I thought you didn't come."

"I hate the decision you made." He nods toward Tee. "But I wouldn't miss today. Anyway, I wouldn't be sorry if the unthinkable happened. You had it coming. It was God's will, Grace. This...wasn't to be."

The woman, presumable Grace's mom, looks furious. "What kind of way is that to speak to your daughter? Look at her, will you? Don't listen, pyaari." She gets on her knees next to Grace, holding her daughter close to her. She says something I can't make out.

Grace shrugs her mother away. I know the reason her and TC clicked, and it's because they fight their own battles.

"How dare you, Papa?" Grace stands up to look her dad in the eyes. I feel like I'm encroaching on their privacy by being here, because it's definitely an old family issue I'm viewing, but I can't help looking on and rooting for Grace.

"How dare I what? Know what's best for you?" Grace's dad countered.

I swear her eyes were flaming red. "I apologize for what I'm about to say, but what's best for me is up to me. My life isn't going to be what you want it to be. I'm not going to be an...an item you can sell, no longer have to worry about providing for and watch as I have to live under a stranger's roof, so I can do nothing except cook and make babies for the rest of my life. You don't know that pain. You don't know about worrying for that day to come when your parents send you away in a way that it feels like your freedom was chained away. And just because the man I love isn't the stranger you want me to share a bed with doesn't mean I can't love him anyways. Papa, you just heard something I've hidden away ever since I met him. Over ten years I've hated the concept of unconsented marriage, and yet I didn't say a word. It's not just that. It's everything. You yelled at me and Mami for spending my brothers' money on feeding the poor. You wanted to get me engaged when I was sixteen. Sixteen! And then you falsified my consent of marriage! Luckily the groom noticed. Do you know the things I could've done with my life if you didn't? Mami did. You complain about why I chose to be Keshdhari Sikh and not Hindu like you? Why I'm just like Mami? She was always with me. She is the only reason I'm not being whipped to death and taking care of five kids right now. That is cruel. You were so cruel to me. You don't write my destiny. I do. Had you asked me to kill myself, I would have done it with a smile on my face. But it's not just me. It's us. If you don't know yet, it's one, two, and three of us. I'm having our baby. That's my choice, not someone else's. I don't regret this. So, you can try, but you can't kill us. This is a package deal."