Page 150 of The Rom-Commers

“Your mom would love her.”

My eyes sprung with tears.

Then he added, “And Kenji, too. He’s a great kid. He wants to be a magician.”

“She would love them both,” I said. “And she’d be happy for you.”

“I think so, too,” my dad said, nodding like he’d given it some thought. “Good people have to stick together.”

IT’S HARD TOmaintain the silent treatment with your sister when you’re the joint guardians of a parent in the ICU, but I was up to the challenge.

I directed all my questions to Salvador, like he was my translator, and whenever Sylvie was in the room, I averted my eyes. Through Salvador, we agreed to trade off nights at the hospital until our dad was ready to transfer to rehab. I insisted on taking the first shift that first night—still unshowered, and still in myWRITERS DO IT ON THE PAGEensemble, which allowed me to extend the enjoyable feeling of havingbeen wronged. Not only was Sylvie guilty of attempted patricideandsaying the meanest-thing-ever to me, shealsowouldn’t let me go home to take a shower.

What a monster.

The next day, after Sylvie relieved me of my shift, I was heading home to change clothes after more hours than I cared to count, when I arrived at our apartment door to see someone sitting beside it, elbows resting on knees, head bent, like he’d been there a while.

Charlie.

As soon as he saw me, he scrambled to his feet and came as close to me as he dared, an intense, just-flew-to-Texas-without-telling-you-and-showed-up-on-your-doorstep expression on his face.

My first horrified thought was that I was still wearing his ridiculous sweatshirt. And I hadn’t showered. And I still had no underwear on. And my hair probably looked like I’d been electrocuted.

How humiliating.

But my second, more forceful thought was:Wait a minute. Who cares?

“Hey,” Charlie said then, with a little wave like he was striking up a conversation.

We werenotstriking up a conversation. “What are you doing here, Charlie?”

He looked at me like there were a hundred things he desperately wanted to say—but he couldn’t say any of them. He hadn’t shaved. His hair was mussed at its maximum level. He was also—I now realized—still wearing his same sweats from the last time we saw each other.

It was a basic question, but he couldn’t answer.

It’s kind of excruciating to watch words fail a writer.

But I let it play out.

Finally, Charlie bent down to unzip the backpack by his feet. He rifled through it, pulling out my strawberry hoodie. Then he stood and stepped closer.

“You forgot this,” he said, handing it to me.

Why was the sight of that red, fuzzy old friend so comforting? I took it, of course. But I said, “You came here to bring me my lucky hoodie?”

“I thought you might want it.”

He thought I might want it? So he flew halfway across the country? Wasn’t that why they invented FedEx?

“Why are you really here, Charlie?” I asked.

“When I woke up and found the house empty, I thought you’d left.Leftleft—for real. But then I heard from Logan about your dad.”

“I meant to text you,” I said—trying to stay explanatory instead of apologetic—“but things have been really crazy.”

“Of course—of course,” Charlie said. “I get it. I was just worried about you.”

“You were worried about me, so you flew to Texas?”

---