Page 87 of It's Always Sonny

“Is that Parker?” her mom says in the background. “Let me talk to her.”

“No, I don’t have time for you to tell me all the ways I’ve failed you both! I need your help, Dad!”

“Well, I don’t know—”

“Don’t you dare shut me out! Don’t you dare tell me some kid needs surgery tomorrow and she’s more important than my ‘feelings’!” she screams. “Sonny is hypothermic and I need to save him, and if you don’t help me, I will never talk to you again!”

“Uh—” he stammers, and I want to laugh, because he’s not such a hotshot now, is he? But also, I’m hypothermic?

“Did she say she’s with Sonny?” her mom asks.

“NOT NOW, MOM! Dad, help me!”

“Where are you?”

“In the middle of the stupid polar vortex that came down from the Northeast! He’s wet. We were out looking for his cousin who got lost, and the storm turned on us. We’re twenty yards from a tent, and there’s a sleeping bag and water, but nothing else.”

“What are his symptoms?”

“His face is blue. He was shivering badly but now he’s stopped. He’s a bit loopy and unsteady on his feet.”

“But he’s talking?”

“That I am, sir,” I joke, because I’m hilarious.

“Kind of,” PJ says.

“That’s a good sign. It’s mild to moderate, not severe. If you can get him into the tent and get skin-to-skin contact as soon as possible, he should be fine. It will take a couple of hours for his body to return to temperature though, so stay vigilant.”

“Thanks,” she says. “I have to go!”

“I have cancer,” her dad blurts.

No, he can’t have said that. I’m hearing things. I’m hypothermic, after all.

“I’m sorry. I gotta go.”

PJ hangs up, and any front she was putting up of having it together vanishes. She starts sobbing a few feet from the tent.

Feet? “Why can’t I feel my feet?”

“Get in!” she cries, opening the flap to a small, thick canvas tent. Her beautiful face is scrunched up in a way I’ve never seen before. She’s so tiny and breakable, and I’m the one breaking her. Or is it her dad?

I stop outside the tent and look at her. “I’m sorry about your dad.”

“I can’t care about that right now. I care about you.”

“Then why did you break my heart? I love you so much.”

“I love you, too,” she says, tears spilling down her face. “I’ll tell you all about it when you get in the tent, okay? Please, please get in, Sonny.”

I nod and duck to get in, but I fall hard to the ground.

I’m never this clumsy.

And it’s the fall more than anything that makes me realize something is terribly wrong.

“PJ, I don’t feel good.”

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