After Hours (InterMix)(100)

Amber’s voice drifted from the receiver a moment. “It’s not medicine, honey—it’s a smoothie. No. That was jelly in the spoon. Now drink.”

I smiled at my sister’s bald-faced lies. “I’ll let you go. Give him a telephone kiss from me.”

“That’s probably safest, with this cough.” I listened to a distant mwah smooch sound and the muffled noise as she pressed her phone to Jack’s cheek. “Talk to you soon.”

“You, too. Love you both.”

“Love you.”

And just like that, we were good again. I pocketed my cell and resumed my walk, feeling a bit lighter.

Amber’s temper arrived and retreated in the same fashion—frequent but fleeting downpours. Kelly’s had manifested with no warning, a bolt out of an otherwise clear sky, drawn by what must have been a rare and perfect lightning rod, waved around idiotically by me. Even when he’d messed Marco up, he’d been calm. He’d been in control, his actions conscious choices. What I’d brought out in him was something else entirely—the type of knee-jerk emotional reflex I’d assumed he was immune to.

Assumed. That’s what I’d done, exactly as he’d called it.

But what could I do? I could apologize again, after he’d cooled off for a day or two. Drop the forty bucks and the twelve-pack off on his stoop as a peace offering. But I didn’t get the sense that he’d want those things. I knew something about him now, something intensely awful, something he’d never even spoken to his mother about. Something he didn’t want to talk about, a fact so obvious in hindsight, I blushed at my own selfish, selective blindness.

I locked my door when I got to my room, knowing I wouldn’t be roused by a knock. No tall, uninvited visitor bearing stolen flowers or sexual advances. Not tonight and probably not ever again.

* * *

I moped through my weekend, trying not to think too hard about Kelly. On Monday morning I told myself for the fiftieth time in my life that I might like jogging, if I gave it another try, and so I laced my sneakers and discovered for the fiftieth time what a miserable hobby it was. Now I had shin splints to match my heartache.

I holed up in my room and researched BSN programs. I browsed apartment listings. I’d been ending my shifts with dull twinges in my lower back, so I bit the bullet and checked out a brand of shoe Jenny had recommended. Some of them were nearly cute, and I ordered a pair of red orthopedic clogs, embracing the inevitable.

Nothing I had in the communal kitchen was appetizing in any way, so I let my restless taste buds trick me into thinking I’d find the solution at the grocery store. The solution would probably take the shape of an entire bag of Fritos or a tub of sorbet. So be it. I climbed into my car by the last glow of dusk and hit the road.

The store was quiet, just me and a few other shoppers and the softly echoing Top Forty hits droning from the speakers. I piled junk in my basket, my mopey inner child plotting to alternately pickle and sugar-glaze our sadness. Canned ravioli, Junior Mints, frozen egg rolls, butterscotch pudding. I was debating which was healthier, puffy Cheetos or crunchy ones, when my phone buzzed at my hip.

Setting my basket down, I checked the screen. Amber. I hit Talk, scanning the nutrition facts on a sack of kettle chips. “Hey, sister.”

“Oh my God. Erin.” There was panic in her voice—quavering dread that I caught in a heartbeat.

“What’s wrong?”

Gaspy little breaths answered me, and behind that muted siren wails.

The bag fell from my hand. “Amber? What’s going on?” I could already feel Marco’s thick neck between my strangling hands, but—

“It’s Jack. We’re in an ambulance. We have to go to the ER at the children’s hospital in Darren.”

I abandoned my basket, feet dragging me toward the front of the store. “Why? His flu?” A million terrifying thoughts visited me in the half second it took her to reply—pneumonia, infection, hundred-and-six-degree fever.

“They don’t know what’s wrong. He’s burning up, and . . .”

Her words were swallowed by frantic sobs, and I began to march, fishing my keys from my purse. “I’m leaving now. I’ll see you there.”

“Oh Erin. Tell me he’s gonna be okay.”

And I gave her the only answer I was willing to hear, myself. “He’s going to be fine.”

We hung up and I jogged for the exit, swearing when the automatic doors parted too slowly. I shoved between them and out into the cool night air.