Daniel never grew to like other kids. I didn’t mind his antisocial tendencies in the slightest, mostly because I did enough talking for the both of us. It also meant I had Daniel all to myself. We bonded over our shared love of boxed sugary snacks, reading all the books we could get our sticky hands on, and a morbid obsession with pretending to be ghosts in his attic. We were inseparable, so much so that Mom and Dad referred to Daniel as the son they never had.
Bypassing the cootie stage entirely, we graduated to awkward, prepubescent hand-holding and close-lipped pecks by age ten. According to my doodle-filled notebooks and diaries, I was the future Mrs. Nakamura. It was destiny, or so I thought, until Daniel’s parents took a grand dump on my life plan and moved the family across the city partway through middle school. We sent emails back and forth for a year and a half, but their frequency fizzled the longer we were apart. We lost touch entirely by high school.
Angie isn’t buying it. “Butterflies?”
“Imaginary butterflies. Inside.” I point to my stomach. “Imagine a bunch of butterflies fluttering around in there.”
Angie giggles and scrunches her tiny nose. “That would tickle.”
“Exactly. That’s how it feels when you like someone. Like all the butterflies are flapping their wings inside of you, ready to spread their wings and soar.” I probably sound like an old kook, but Angie seems to understand.
“Why didn’t you marry Daniel?” she asks.
I woefully explain how he moved away and how I’ve been unable to locate him since, which is unfortunate given he’s the lone ex left on my list. Far too many hours have been logged searching all the variations of Daniel’s name I can think of, with zero success. I’m beginning to wonder if he was the unfortunate bystander of a Mafia hit and had to go into witness protection.
“I get the butterflies around Matty. And Oliver,” Angie admits shyly. She tells me all about Matty and Oliver, two boys in her class who are “cute” for different reasons （one is a bad boy who gets a lot of time-outs; the other is a dependable nerd）。 She reminds me of my young self, hopelessly rotating between crushing on literally every boy in class.
“Exactly my point. Attraction is key. I’m not attracted to your uncle Trevor,” I point out. “I mean, he’s handsome, but not my type.” My eye twitches again. I’ve lied to a child. A hospitalized child waiting for a heart transplant, no less. I’m officially going to hell, and my permanent residency is well deserved. At the same time, coming clean about my crush would only result in a myriad of questions, all of which I can’t answer. The last thing I want to do is explain to a nine-year-old that her uncle has deep-rooted commitment issues.
Angie gives me a sassy head tilt. She knows I’m full of shit, but she’s allowing me to live in denial. Bless.
“Why? Has your uncle said anything about me?” I ask, pretending to be wholly focused on Crystal’s card. I cut out a little container of protein powder and write I’m WHEY into you along the top.
A devious smile spreads across her tiny face. “He says you have the worst singing voice he’s ever heard. He likes to talk about you.”
I lurch forward in my chair, ready to demand a play-by-play of the entire conversation, start to finish. Context is key. But I manage to rein it in.
“My mom calls Uncle Trevor a spinny door.” She twirls her finger around in a clockwise circle.
“A spinny door?” I repeat, rifling in Angie’s pencil case for the glitter glue.
“Like the ones downstairs that spin around. Because of all his girlfriends,” she says matter-of-factly. “He has lots. But he doesn’t let me meet them.”
I laugh, realizing she’s referring to the revolving doors in the hospital lobby. Angie’s mom isn’t wrong about Trevor having a revolving door of women. Though in his defense, he hasn’t brought anyone home since Gabby over two and a half months ago—back when my feelings toward him were simple and not a chaotic shitstorm. Now I’d rather undergo an unnecessary rectal exam before hearing him and a random rocking each other’s respective worlds through the tissue-thin walls of our apartment. And still, emotionally unavailable men like Trevor are to be regarded as potentially lethal plagues, to be avoided at all costs.
“So, Angie,” I say, clearing my throat, eager to change the subject from Trevor’s sex life to my main objective—party planning. “Is Rapunzel still your favorite princess?”
Distracted by the glitter glue, she nods, slightly less enthusiastic than the last time she told me.
“Do you want to dress up like her for your birthday?” I ask, spreading glitter glue over Crystal’s card.
Her brown eyes light up for a split second, before darkening in disappointment. “Marissa says I can’t be Rapunzel because I’m not blond.”
My heart aches at her admission. Whoever this Marissa is, I want to give her a piece of my mind.
“That’s not true.” I move from my chair to the end of the hospital bed. It creaks under my additional weight. “When I was growing up, there was only one Disney princess who looked like me. And Mulan was great, don’t get me wrong. But just because I didn’t have blond hair like the other princesses didn’t mean I couldn’t be who I wanted to be.”
She stares at me for a moment, like she’s not sure whether to believe me. “Do you think that’s true?”
“Of course. Think about Rapunzel. She’s funny, right? Brave?”
Angie nods, holding her completed card an arm’s length away to examine it. “She’s nice to animals too. She has a pet chameleon.”
“Exactly. Pretend all the princesses looked the same. They’d still have their own unique personalities. Whoever’s personality you like the most is the princess you get to be, no matter what you look like on the outside. Rapunzel is still the same princess even when she loses her magic hair.”
Before she can respond, her eyes light up at the presence of a woman in a powder-blue bomber coat in the doorway. “Hi, Mom.”
Upon first look, there doesn’t appear to be much of a resemblance between Angie and her mom. Angie has soft, round features contrasting her mother’s angular, sharp lines. But the moment she opens her mouth, it’s evident the resemblance is in the mannerisms. The leftward curve of her lips. The slight indent that isn’t quite a dimple but wants to be.
Her mom gives me a curious smile. “I’m Payton, Angie’s mom. Are you one of the new nurses?” Her voice is low and a bit gritty, almost worn.
I stand and extend my hand in a friendly shake. “Oh, um, no, actually. I am a nurse, but not on this floor. I’m Trevor’s friend . . . and roommate.”
She lights up. “Oh! Taryn, right?” Before I can tell her my name is Tara, not Taryn, she pulls me into her bony embrace. “He told me you were helping with her party. And about the money you were raising on your social media. Seriously, I can’t thank you enough. You have no idea how much we appreciate this. Really.”
“I love planning parties. I have a lot of ideas,” I say, smiling at Angie.
Payton looks solemn for a moment, waving me into the hallway. I follow her out. “Honestly, sometimes I feel like a shit mom. I mean, what kind of mom can’t even plan her own kid’s birthday party?” she whispers.