In The Blood

A Waiting Game

(Kevin)

By the time Adam finally joined us, most of us were already done with our lunches. Scott, Kirstie, Avi, Jessica, Chris, Matt, Casey and I were long done, Taylor was playing with his dessert while Dena watched him just shaking her head. The Kaplans and security were kind of keeping to themselves. Chance was taking giant bites of his sandwich (I was half afraid he'd choke on that thing and would be the next one needing emergency treatment), Mitch was eating extremely slowly (judging by that salad bowl, he had to be eating leaf by leaf, vegetable by vegetable), and Austin just kept picking at his food. I swear that chicken had made more circles around that plate than the number of bites that had made it into his mouth. And no matter how we urged, it just was hardly going anywhere. Austin might take a bite or two when we encouraged him along, but the bottom line was even if he was hungry, he was too worried to eat. I didn't even enjoy my food. It had very little flavor. All it was, was a fuel, a necessity for my body to function. I hated having to be the one to deliver all sorts of bad news and watching us all break down. Kirstie had been the first to lose it; granted, she'd tried to inhale her wrap instead of swallowing when I'd broken the news of Tim's being unresponsive. She was able to cough up the tomato on her own, but still. Every little thing was throwing us off kilter. I understood now why the Rupps had sworn me to silence about a possible recurrence of leukemia. No one could handle it right now. These nine would never hear it from me. Sometimes it's better to just hold one's tongue for a while. Eventually, if it had come back, they'd all have to be told, but for goodness sake, not now. The Rupps and Fousts came back to the table with Sawyer and Adam lagging behind. Adam sat with a bit of a thud and began working methodically on his lunch. Bite, chew, chew, chew, chew, swallow. Three fries at once. Drink. Bite, chew, chew, chew, chew, swallow. Three fries at once. Drink. Bite, chew, chew, chew, chew, swallow. Three fries at once. Drink. Almost like he was just going through the motions. His eyes looked pained and troubled. To everyone else it appeared as though he was sad and anxious about Tim's and Rob's conditions, but I knew that all else paled in comparison to Chris' situation. And understandable so. Rob was stable in the ICU. Tim was stable in the ICU even though he was a giant question mark. Chris was none of the above. Stable? We didn't know. Walking around but we didn't know what was wrong with him. And honest to goodness, I was pulling at straws earlier. I wanted to believe Chris had a vitamin deficiency and just needed to eat some nutrient-rich veggies, but the threat of recurrence of the leukemia hung heavily in the air. I was scared, and I could only imagine how they felt. I closed my eyes for a quick prayer. It was all I knew to do.

Austin finally just flipped the chicken plum off the plate, clearly tired of it. "So what do we do now? What can we do?"

"I'm sorry, guys," Adam apologized in his chewing. "I made everything worse."

"Hey." Chance slid an arm around him. "It's not your fault. Do not blame yourself, OK?"

"Well—"

"Agree with Chance," I said softly, watching him carefully.

He threw a frustrated hand up. "Well, it's all screwy and I played a role."

"Just don't start with the blame game," Scott said tiredly. "Don't matter whose fault it is. It is what it is. And now we have Rob and Tim in the ICU. This is crazy. This is beyond crazy."

Austin started tossing silverware and trash onto his mostly-full plate. "ICU. I wanna go to the ICU now. I'm done."

"Adam's still eating," Chris observed, a fork in his mouth even though he'd had a burger.

He threw a couple of fries down. "Not no more."

"We all do need to eat," Sawyer advised, spearing a broccoli floret. "Before we start getting people passing out because they haven't eaten."