This Is Not How It Ends(6)

My phone buzzed, and it was a text from Philip. Landed.

Ben watched me type into the keypad: Meet you home. Soon. Walking Sunny. Then grocery store. I told myself explaining the current situation in a text was too complicated.

He replied: I’ll be waiting for you.

A rush of blood slid up my neck.



We were whisked inside the hospital—Sunny, too—and I offered to hold Jimmy’s backpack in the ER waiting room. Ben thanked me, and I answered the question he hadn’t asked. “We’ll be right here.”

His hair was flattened by the cap he lost somewhere between the ambulance and the hospital doors. Redness rimmed his tired eyes, and when he finally spoke, he talked to the linoleum floor. “Thank you. I don’t even know your name.”

The urge to comfort him took root. The weight of what we’d just endured tugged his lips down, and his shoulders sagged, though he was tall.

“I’m Charlotte.”



Another hour ticked by and Philip texted, asking me why he was home and I wasn’t. I didn’t respond, tucking the phone inside my bag. After last night’s conversation, I wasn’t sure I owed him a response. Satisfied, I rested my head against the freshly painted pale-pink walls, eyes closed, Sunny resting by my feet. Most everything about the Keys was bright and cheerful—the seashells with their silky coats, the golden-purple sunsets, the turquoise-blue waters. Their shine masked the barnacles and seaweed, the muck that crept along the shore.

“Charlotte.”

Hearing my name didn’t immediately register. As I straightened up, the man, Ben, stared down at me. I shifted in the seat, crossing and uncrossing my legs. Sunny rose to a sit.

“You saved his life,” he said, taking the empty chair beside me. “They said he’ll be fine,” he continued, all the emotions he’d tucked away lacing through his words. “You’d never know how close he came—”

“That’s great,” I said. “Really great.”

His eyes were on mine, but I didn’t dare turn toward him. Relief seeped through, though I knew not everyone was as lucky, and the void pricked my skin. I focused on the sweet Indian couple huddled in the corner. The elderly man snoring. The young girl watching House Hunters.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” he said.

I waved him off, but he was quick. He grabbed my wrist, the one with the ring, and squeezed. “He could’ve died,” he finally said. The tremble in his voice swirled through my ear and made it hard to ignore the force of his hand. Sunny noticed it, too, and pressed his nose up against me.

“It was nothing,” I said. “Really.”

“It was everything,” he corrected me. “How did you know?”

He released my hand, allowing me to fumble inside my bag for the EpiPen, the bright-yellow cylinder a tiny missile.

“What’s your poison?” he asked.

“Almonds.”

“I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t come along. I froze.”

Recognizing his worry, I turned in his direction, taking him in. The sorrow in his face was bigger than this, deeper. I knew. Sadness colors people. The tones and hues say things that words cannot.

“I work for Dr. Scott,” I began, reaching inside my bag again. “She’s famous around these parts.” When I’d found what I was looking for, I handed him the crumpled card.

He looked confused.

Maybe it wasn’t the right time. Not everyone was as open-minded or able to hear about alternative treatments for allergies, especially while in a hospital after a near-death experience. “It sounds crazy,” I said. “It is crazy. I fought the idea for months. But trust me, it worked. Go home. Talk to your wife about it . . . and when you have a clear mind, google NAET. It’s not easy to explain . . . not now. You have to be open to it. But don’t throw that card away. Talk to Jimmy’s mom, and then Dr. Scott . . . Liberty, that’s her name.”

He seemed to be thinking about what I’d said. He started to speak, paused. And then, “You’re not allergic anymore?”

I shook my head. “I’m not.”

“Why the EpiPen?”

“Old habit.”

He answered, and I could tell his thoughts were somewhere else. “Do you have any idea what his life’s been like?”

“I do.” I had watched my mother practice poking me in the leg with the pen. I’d overheard her on the phone talking to her friends, afraid to leave me to go to work, afraid I’d be alone and die.

His eyes darted back and forth, something behind them trying to come out. “It’s terrible,” he said, slipping back into melancholy. “Watching your child suffer. Fearing for their life.”

Undecided, he held the card in his hands while I stood up to leave. I could have easily texted Philip to come get me, but I settled on an Uber so I didn’t have to explain why I was at a hospital and not the grocery store.

“Are you going to be all right?” I asked.

He looked up at me. “Yeah, I’m good,” he answered, though he clearly wasn’t. “Thank you, Charlotte.”

I waved him off. “Really, it’s no big deal.”

“It is a big deal,” he said. “Thank you.”