Page 18 of Near Miss

I shake my head again. “I’m fine. I just need to catch my streetcar. I have—I forgot about an appointment.”

I don’t wait for his answer, and I think he says he’s going to text me, so I hold my hand up over my head in acknowledgement, and I keep walking down the sidewalk but it’s impossibly hard because the water seeps through my scrubs and it feels cold against my skin.

“The water isn’t real,” I whisper, and I focus on the things that are.

The sunset. A bird perched on the streetlight in front of me. The feel of my hand against my scrubs where it presses against my chest. They’re worn. I brought them from home.

I smell metal, but I know that’s not real either.

This sidewalk is real, and it leads me around the side of the hospital, down into the open shipping bay where deliveries are made. I press my back against the concrete wall.

“Please ... please be in here...” I rifle through my purse, fingers slipping on old receipts and the leather of my wallet. But then I feel it. Worn, creased paper smoothed down over a small plastic bottle.

My hand shakes, so I bring the bottle to my mouth and pull the cap off with my teeth.

Tiny pills, covered in dust and chalk from their time living in my purse, roll around the bottom. My fingers still shake, but I fish one out and place it under my tongue.

I drop my head against the wall and close my eyes while it dissolves. The sensation of water inching higher and higher on my legs fades away; I only feel the cotton of my scrubs.

My heart and my breathing slows, and I blink.

I’m here, and I’m not there.

I look back in the open pill bottle, clutched between my hands. There are only a few left, some broken off or chipped away because they’re so old and I haven’t bothered to keep on top of the prescription.

I always say my dad and my sister can’t leave his refills until the last minute, and they’re just tiny pills—1 mg of Lorazepam staring back up at me—but I think they tell me to extend the same courtesy to myself that I do for others.

Beckett

My parents have this beautiful suburban home. It’s nothing crazy—no sprawling mansion with rolling hills and a pool or anything like that.

Twenty minutes north of Toronto in a suburb that started to blend into the city, it was built before every house became a replica of the one next to it, so it has a bit of character—two-car garage, wraparound porch, and beautiful bay windows.

I offered to buy them something bigger—something better. But they wanted this one. They mortgaged it twice, and I guess the sentimental value won out.

It was where Sarah got sick and where she got better, where Nathaniel practiced equations and conducted fake experiments with a chemistry set in the basement, and where my dad first threw me a ball in the backyard.

Picture-perfect and beautiful, if it weren’t for all the memories of vomit, blood, hair fall, chemotherapy drugs being administered by IVs, and Nathaniel and me being left alone more often than not when we were both too young.

It’s picture-perfect right now. You’d never know anything bad ever happened—my mother and sister wrapped up in big, fluffy blankets sitting on the patio while my dad stands vigil over steaks he’s probably going to overcook anyway and my brother haphazardly tosses me a football in the backyard.

He can’t throw for shit, but I don’t catch for a living so it’s fine.

“How’s it going with the kids? I haven’t seen you around during visiting hours. Thought maybe you bailed.” Nathaniel pulls his arm back and releases the football. It wobbles horribly, and I lunge forward a few feet to catch it so it won’t hit the ground.

I palm the football and cock my arm back a few times before tossing it to my brother. He lurches forward, arms splayed wide, hands flexed entirely, his palms slapping it with no purchase, and he fumbles it.

“Don’t be so rigid. Your hands should be looser.” I tip my chin at the ball where it lies in the grass.

“I’m not trying to go pro here. And last time I checked, you’re not a wide receiver anymore.” Nathaniel rolls his eyes, but he bends to retrieve the ball anyway, his hair flopping over his forehead. He pushes it back with his elbow, palming the ball again and winding his arm back unnecessarily. “But seriously, where’ve you been? Did you give up on the publicity stunt?”

“It’s not a stunt,” I mutter, raising one hand and snatching his wobbly throw from the air. “I didn’t bail, I’ve been hanging out with the adults. Greer’s been taking me on rounds with her.”

“Greer?” Nathaniel blinks, before his face pales again. “You’re not talking about Dr. Roberts?”

I nod, tossing the ball up in the air and catching it on the inside of my foot. “Yeah. I ran into her in the elevator on the first day. She said she didn’t think children had any influence on public perception, so I went with her instead. We hung out a few nights ago after her shift.”

I texted her after she left the other night, looking half like she wanted to run away from me at top speed, to ask if she was okay, and all I got was a thumbs up. We don’t text—like she said, it’s strictly business—and I haven’t had a chance to go back to the hospital yet. Preseason starts tomorrow, and despite all the warnings, I don’t think I’ve ever come closer to ripping a hamstring or quadricep from overuse than I have this week.

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