Night Owl(58)

"Yeah, okay," I said. I needed to be strong right now. I needed to be calm. "Okay, the—"

"Get m-me in the c-car," Matt prompted, lurching toward the doorway. "Your ph-phone. Geneva General."

Matt's anxiety was contagious. My heart began to hammer and my hands shook. At least I had something to do besides hover and panic.

I helped Matt through the cabin and out onto the porch. He vomited over the rail.

He was still wearing boxers and those sad old slippers. I couldn't look at the slippers. I could not break down right now.

I boosted him into the car as best I could. Matt slumped in the seat. I dashed back to the cabin for my flip-flops and purse.

Geneva General Hospital was less than four miles away. I propped my phone on my thigh and studied the directions as I backed up the drive too fast, thwacking branches. I squeezed Matt's shoulder.

"It's okay now," I said. "We'll be there in eight minutes. Five minutes. I love you, Matt."

If Matt heard me, he gave no indication. He was crumpled against the car door. He flinched with each bump in the road and his shallow breath hitched, but I wasn't about to slow down. I drove like hell, swerving and spraying gravel. My headlights bobbed crazily in the morning dark.

"It's okay," I kept saying, "it's okay," staring between my phone and the road. Fuck the dark. Fuck these road signs!

"Here!" I turned sharply onto North Street. Matt swayed. "Sorry, I—" I glanced at Matt and slammed on the brakes. My scream filled the car. Matt was convulsing, his eyes rolled into the back of his head and his arms and legs jerking spastically.

I floored the gas. The tires screeched.

By the time we reached the hospital Matt had stopped seizing. I didn't know which was worse—the spasms or this death-like stillness.

Another seizure shook him as I hurtled out of the SUV. I sprinted past the ambulance bay. Eerie white light lit everything. Oh god, thank god, thank god for this place. I realized I was praying as I ran. God, don't take him! God, please, he's mine!

I burst into the ER.

I must have said the right words, explained things right. All I could hear was my fear grinding and screaming. My heart was in the car with Matt.

I led the paramedics outside and watched as they dragged him onto a stretcher. His beautiful body was lifeless. Then he started to seize.

Strangers surrounded the stretcher. I tried to get to Matt. They ran the stretcher into the hospital and I rushed after them. I collided with a nurse.

"My boyfriend!" I shrieked, reaching after him. My boyfriend?

"Hun, listen to me." The nurse held my shoulders. No way could I get past this lady; she was solid and Germanic. "We need you here right now. What's your name?"

"Hannah. Hannah Catalano."

I glanced around for the first time. An old man and a younger couple sat in the lobby. All three pairs of eyes were on me.

"Okay hun, what's your boyfriend's name? Did he bring ID?" The nurse led me behind the front desk. Right, this was the desk clerk. I'd just seen her, and I nearly climbed over her desk screaming about Matt.

I dropped into a bony aluminum chair and hugged myself. Matt, oh god, Matt.

For the next fifteen minutes, I fielded questions and filled out paperwork, half of which I couldn't complete. Every other question was a reminder of how little I knew about Matt.

At least I wasn't bawling. Fear and hollow dread held back my tears.

"What are they doing? Can they stop the seizures? Is—"

The nurse rebuffed my questions with more of her own.

"He's very dehydrated. Do you know how long he's been drinking? How many times has he detoxed in the past?"

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know!

Detoxed in the past...

I remembered the way Matt's hand shook when I made him pour out his last bottle. I wanted to scream. He knew this would happen, didn't he? He'd been down this road before, probably more than once.

Around six, the nurse released me.

"I'll call you in as soon as he's stable," she promised.

I shambled into the lobby.

People came and went. The fluorescent lights hummed steadily.

I Googled alcohol withdrawal on my phone and skimmed the results.

Life-threatening condition.

Drinking heavily for weeks.

Agitation, seizure, delirium tremens... can be fatal.

When I held Matt last night and he came into my hand—was it the last time? And if I lost him now, how was I supposed to live?


I scrolled through my contacts.

Mom, dad, Chrissy, Jay, Pam, Nate.

I should call Nate. Where was he anyway? Maybe he spent the night in Geneva, though I doubted it. He probably drove home and passed out.

"Hannah?"

The desk clerk smiled down at me.

"You can go see him now. Down the hall, he's in the first bed on the left."

My terror burbled back up.

"Thanks," I said. I grabbed my things and jogged down the hall to the ICU. I blinked rapidly against the sanitized whiteness of the hospital. Everywhere I looked I saw monitors and beds and curtains. I heard low voices and a periodic groan. Doctors and nurses moved to and fro purposefully, ignoring me.

First bed on the left.

No one stopped me as I slipped into the curtained-off space.