Page 63 of This Life and All the Rest
Lennon’s face is one of complete surprise, and I almost want to laugh. The idea of me being anything other than a complete disaster is such a shock to her, and I fucking hate it.
She’s always going to think I’m a loser. She’s never going to trust me.
“See, Len?” I say. “Not quite a fuck-up all the time, yeah?”
For a minute, the whole house is in awkward silence, and then Mom’s phone rings. She grabs it from the counter and gasps when she sees the Caller ID on the screen.
“It’s the hospital,” she says quickly, putting her phone to her ear.
The tension in the room switches to something entirely different as we watch my mom talk.
“Hello? Yes, this is she. Yes. Really? Okay, thank you. I’ll be there right away.”
She looks to us with tears in her eyes.
“He’s awake,” she says. “Trent’s awake.”
“They saidthat confusion is normal. Expect him to seem kind of disoriented and foggy,” my mom explains to us in the waiting room. “The doctor said he might sound funny, too. Scratchy voice or slurred speech. Just act normal, okay? We don’t want to upset him.”
“Okay,” Lennon says, her head nodding. “Okay. Can we see him now?”
“They said two at a time,” Mom says, then fidgets with her hands glancing between us.
They won’t let Eric in because he’s not family, so he’s staying in the lobby with Evie, which leaves me, Claire, Lennon, and Mom to pair off.
“Lennon can go first with you, Mom,” I say softly, and I don’t miss Lennon’s grateful glance. Claire doesn’t argue, thank god, and Lennon and Mom disappear behind the ICU doors.
“I’m scared,” Claire whispers. Masters puts his hand on her shoulder, but she looks at me. “I don’t know why, but I am.”
Moments like this, where Claire lets herself be vulnerable and doesn’t feel the need to hide behind her spikes, I’m reminded of how she used to be before everything went down with our dad.
She’s tiny little Claire Bear again. My baby sister. She’s hiding in my bedroom closet to make sure I’m okay after a fight with our dad. She’s slipping me water and fruit snack packets when dear old dad sent me to bed without dinner. She’s begging me to tell mom the truth about my broken wrist.
She used to love me. We used to get along. It fucking sucks that it takes a tragedy for us to be kind to each other.
I pull her in for a hug, and she hugs me back.
“He’s okay, Claire,” I say to her. “He’s awake. That’s huge. He’ll be back home before you know it.”
“I don’t want Evie to grow up without a dad like we did,” she whispers against me. “Trent’s a good one.”
“I know,” I tell her. “She won’t.”
We spend the rest of the wait passing Evie between us, playing with her to avoid talking to each other. I feel lighter, though. For the first time since Trent’s collapse, I feel like I can think positively. Like maybe my actions did some good. Maybe I did save his life.
When the ICU doors buzz open, I shoot to my feet. Mom walks out first, but my eyes are on Lennon. She looks terrible. Sad. She’s staring at her feet as she walks. I rush to them.
“Hey. What’s up? How is he?”
“He’s good,” Mom says softly. “A little disoriented, but the doctor said that’s normal.”
Lennon finally looks at me and my throat tightens. It’s nothing but despair and guilt and loss in those hazel eyes.
“He doesn’t know me,” she whispers, her voice hollow. “He didn’t know who I was. He asked about Evie and you. He asked about Claire. Even Eric. But it took prompting to get him to know me, and even then, I’m not...”
She shrugs.
“I think he might have been lying, you know, because he didn’t want to upset me.”
