Chapter 3

At nine that night, I'm packing my first suitcase when Tessa calls.

"Audrey? Where are you?"

"Why?"

"It's Blake. He collapsed. They've taken him to Memorial."

The shirt in my hand falls onto the bed.

"What happened?"

"His stomach. I don't know. There was blood, and—can you just get here?"

I stop moving.

Tonight.

Emergency recall.

"Put him on."

"I can't. They're examining him."

"I want to speak to someone at the hospital."

"Audrey, his parents are out of state. I'm the only one here."

Her voice breaks.

"Please."

I call Blake.

Straight to voicemail.

Again.

Voicemail.

I know about the card.

I know what I saw.

But knowing doesn't stop the picture forming in my head.

Blake on a hospital bed.

Blake alone.

Blake not answering because he can't.

When I was seven, my parents separated.

For a while, each thought I was staying with the other.

My grandmother collected me from an empty house.

Blake knows that story.

He knows why I ask people to text when they land.

For years, he sent photographs from airports before I even asked.

Still alive. Stop worrying.

He was the person who made the silence easier.

Now he's the one making it.

I call Tessa again.

"Which entrance?"

"Emergency."

"I'm on my way."

In the rideshare, rain hits the windows so hard I can barely see outside.

Two blocks from the hospital, traffic stops.

The driver looks at his map.

"Collision ahead. We're not moving."

I can see a pedestrian underpass across the street.

"I'll walk."

Tessa texts as I get out.

Please hurry.

I send back:

Two blocks away.

The steps into the underpass shine with water.

Someone hurries past me.

My shoe slips.

I reach for the railing with my left hand.

Miss.

My forehead strikes metal.

Then my wrist folds beneath me.

For a second, there's no sound.

Only pain.

A stranger kneels beside me.

"Don't get up."

"My phone."

"Stay still. Someone's calling an ambulance."

At Memorial, a nurse cuts the wet sleeve away from my wrist.

A doctor tells me it's broken.

Seven stitches close the cut above my eyebrow.

The head scan is clear, but they want to observe me overnight.

"Who can we call?" the nurse asks.

I give her Blake's number.

Then I turn my face toward the wall.

He arrives half an hour later.

Dry shirt.

No hospital bracelet.

No blood.

Tessa follows him.

She stops just inside the door.

I look at Blake.

"Your stomach?"

He doesn't answer.

"Did you collapse?"

"Audrey—"

"Were you ever a patient here?"

Tessa starts crying.

"We didn't know you'd run."

Blake turns toward her.

"Stop."

But she keeps talking.

"You said you were two blocks away. We thought you'd just walk in. Then you stopped answering."

I stare at her.

"How long?"

Neither speaks.

"You were timing it. How long?"

Tessa wipes her face.

"Seventeen minutes and forty-six seconds."

"Until what?"

"Until you said you were two blocks away."

"I started the timer when you answered my first call."

The call.

The voicemail.

The rain.

All of it measured.

I look at my left arm.

My drawing hand.

Seventeen minutes and forty-six seconds.

"That's a good result, isn't it?" I ask.

Blake flinches.

"Don't."

"She left you," I say. "You called her back in under eighteen minutes."

He sends Tessa outside.

When the door closes, he sits beside the bed.

"I should have stopped it."

"You told me you had."

"I know."

"You knew why I'd come."

He looks at the bandage above my eye.

"I didn't know you'd get hurt."

"You knew I'd be scared."

He says nothing.

"That was the point."

Later, he returns with soup.

Pulls a chair close.

Lifts a spoon.

"Let me."

I look at his hand.

"Are you timing this part, too?"

The spoon stops.

He puts it down.

In the morning, Nora comes to get me.

I called her after Blake fell asleep in the chair.

She takes one look at my wrist and turns toward him.

"Don't."

It's only one word.

He steps out of her way.

At discharge, the nurse goes over my instructions.

Nora writes them down.

Blake carries my bag into the parking lot.

"We'll get you home."

I take the bag from him with my right hand.

"Nora's taking me."

"Audrey, you need help."

"I have help."

He looks at her, then back at me.

"You're throwing away four years over this?"

I raise my injured arm as far as the sling allows.

"No."

My voice is quiet.

"You kept hurting me because you thought I'd stay."

Nora opens the car door.

"This time, you were wrong."