Page 89 of Heart Strings
She taps on the cab’s steering wheel as we pull around the entrance of the hospital.
“You can thank me in the liner notes of your next record. Go get her!” she shouts after me as I bound out of the car.
Cielo still hasn’t returned my calls, but I’m determined to show up for her, to love her with my actions and not just my songs. My heart seizes at the thought of rejection. Maybe she doesn’t want me by her side and that’s the reason she hasn’t answered, the reason she didn’t tell me about the biopsy in the first place.
I’m more than familiar with the oncology department, and I follow the twisting halls until I reach the waiting area. Everywhere beyond this point requires a nurse to buzz you in. Saoirse couldn’t tell me exactly where to go, or which doctor Lo is seeing.
A few people flip through dated magazines while eightiespop filters in softly and a TV silently plays a daytime drama. Lo isn’t here. I turn back down the hall, looking for another waiting room, but there isn’t one.
“Excuse me.” Despite the adrenaline coursing through me, I approach the reception desk. “I’m here to meet a patient. Cielo Valdez? Has she checked in for her appointment yet?”
The young man frowns at my desperation. He’s probably not supposed to share such details.
“I don’t want her to have to do this alone,” I say. “Please.”
He shakes his head. “She’s late.”
What? Cielo is many things: empathetic, studious, competitive, independent.Punctual.One thing she is not, is late.
“She called to say she was running late or…?”
“Never showed up.”
Something’s wrong. Ithank the receptionist and stalk through the corridors with my mobile up to my ear and head to the A&E, hoping that Oisín knows where Cielo is, but he only knows that she took the afternoon off. All my calls go directly to voicemail.
I start to call Fionn to see if he can give me a lift to Lo’s flat, but something I can’t explain pulls me toward the hospital’s healing garden. Hedgerows curve inward, creating a meditative spiral out of the narrow corridor in between dense green walls. Immediately, the peace and seclusion make it feel separate from the clinical building. I swallow heavily as I follow the path of flat stones to the little garden at the center of the labyrinth.
My heart squeezes. There, in the clearing, Cielo sits on abench, head down. Her face is buried in her arms and her feet are tucked up under her body, but my soul would recognize hers anywhere. Since I learned about the test results, I’ve been wondering if Lo was hiding symptoms during the wedding. I’ve been wracking my brain thinking about what signs I missed. Minimizing her own needs for the comfort of others isn’t unheard of for Lo, but I worry that I was so caught up in wanting her, in the new material and Harvest in the Park, that I missed clues of something being wrong. She’s been going through this alone, even when I was right next to her.
“Lo?” I say, willing my voice not to crack under the weight of my worry.
Her head snaps up and my knees nearly buckle when her red eyes find mine. “Aidan?”
I stride toward her, scooping her into a tight embrace. She is here and she’s whole. And in my arms, she’s safe. Lo presses her face against my neck and sinks into me as a sob wracks her chest.
“I’m here, babe.”
Having tucked her hair gently behind her ears, I can see the tip of her nose is red and tears wet her cheeks. Every protective instinct in my body wants to build a fortress around her. Lo pulls a set of earbuds out. Faintly, I can make out the song flowing through them as she holds them in her palm. Of all the music in the world, it’s an acoustic version of “Heaven-Bound.”
“Wait—what are you doing here?” she asks, pulling back and searching my face. “You left a voicemail, but it was all static.”
“Saoirse told me about the biopsy, Lo.”
“So you’re here because she guilt-tripped you?”
“Of course not,” I start, but Lo steps backward out of my grasp. “No one had to talk me into—”
Her eyes widen in realization. “Please don’t say you threw away an opportunity to work with your hero because of a thirty-minute outpatient procedure.”
My silence says everything. Finally, I rub my hands together. “You told me I don’t need him.”
“How could you?!”
Indignation flashes through me and I step toward her. “How could you keep me in the dark about something this important? I’m doing everything I can to show you that I’m in it for real with you this time, but you’re still not letting me in.”
“This is why I didn’t tell you about the appointment.” Lo waves a hand as if resentful of my uninvited presence in her sanctuary. “We promised we’d never get in each other’s way. I don’t want to be the thing that holds you back and distracts you. I refuse to be anyone’s burden.”
I lower my voice so it doesn’t break. “I don’t understand how you’ve convinced yourself that you’re an anchor that drags me down. You’re not. You could never be that. You’re the stability that keeps me from getting tossed about in a storm. When we’re together I remember who I am, not just who everyone wants me to be.”
