Page 63 of The Beautiful Collision
Except I’m not at work anymore. I’m home. Whatever the fuck that means when home is a place I share with someone I can’t even tell I’m in love with, in an apartment I have to struggle and scratch for because my parents cut me off, studying for a career they think is beneath me.
No, my mind wraps me in a mental hug.Beneath them.
I drop my bag by the door, and it lands with a thud that seems to echo forever. The sound of Ethan’s breathing—that horrible, rattling wheeze—is still playing on a loop in my head. I can still feel the cold of his fingers going slack in mine and still see Rebecca’s face crumpling as she realized her baby was gone.
The family needs professionals right now, not more mourners.
My legs carry me toward the kitchen on autopilot. I need water. Or wine. Or something stronger. Something to wash the taste of death out of my mouth, to burn away the image of a seven-year-old’s stuffed dinosaur tucked under his still arm.
But a shot of Maine’s cheap-ass bourbon does nothing for me.
Maybe support is what I need. A hug and a shoulder to cry on. So I pull out my phone, my thumb hovering over Sophie’s contact details. She’d come over, hold me while I cry, and tell me Harrison is a heartless prick and that feeling things makes me human.
But then I picture it: Sophie rushing over, probably dragging Mike with her because they’re joined at the hip now, Mike texting Maine, and Maine cutting his shift or his practice short and then coming home with that look of concern that’s been creeping into his eyes lately when he looks at me.
No, I can’t.
My thumb slides up to my family’s group chat instead. The last message is still mine, sitting there like a monument to my stupidity:
Thinking of you guys.
Read-receipts on.
No response.
A bitter laugh escapes me. What would I even say?
Hey Mom, hey Dad, a child died today, and I held his hand, and now my supervisor thinks I’m too emotional for this job, just like you always said I was too messy for our family. I hope you had a great time at the wedding you didn’t want me to come to!
They’d probably agree with Harrison, and tell me this is what I get for choosing such an undignified profession. For throwingaway my Hayes legacy to wipe noses and hold hands. For hanging out in the dirt and the mess with real people, rather than playing god as a surgeon or a trial lawyer.
Fuck them.
The thought comes sharp and violent, cutting through the grief. They don’t get to judge me anymore. They don’t get to make me feel small for caring, for feeling, for being human. They made their choice when they cut me off and when they decided I wasn’t worth their love.
With Ethan’s death, it feels like something else died: any last hope I had of reconciling with them. Because I realize now that I don’t want their love if it comes with conditions. I don’t want their approval if it means killing the parts of me that feel too much, care too hard, love too deeply.
The realization should be freeing.
Instead, it’s the thing that finally breaks me.
My knees hit the kitchen floor hard enough to bruise. The cabinet is cold against my back as I slide down it, my scrubs catching on the handle of the lower drawer. The first sob rips out of me like something being torn from my chest—ugly, raw, animal.
I press my palms against my eyes, but it doesn’t stop the tears. They come in waves, for Ethan, who wanted to be a paleontologist. For Rebecca and Marcus, who will never be OK again. For all the children Harrison doesn’t want me to comfort because apparently it makes me unprofessional.
I curl into myself, arms wrapped around my knees, making myself as small as possible. Like if I compress enough, I might disappear entirely. Just cease to exist. No more Maya the disappointment. No more Maya the failure. No more Maya who feels too much and shows it all wrong.
The sobs shake my whole body, violent and uncontrolled. This isn’t pretty crying. This isn’t a single tear sliding gracefullydown my cheek. This is ugly, messy, broken crying. The kind that makes your face swell and your nose run and your chest heave with the effort of breathing through it.
But there’s no one here to see it.
twenty-two
The key turningin the lock feels like a small victory tonight.
For once, my wallet isn’t crying, and the shared tips pool from Pizza Plus actually made the shift worth the grease burns. Hell, I might even be able to buy name-brand cereal next week instead of the knockoff shit that tastes like cardboard soaked in sugar water.
But my positive mood dies instantly when I hear it.
