“Everything all right?” I peer into his face.
“Yeah, I’m . . .” He looks around us, pushing his fingers through rich strands of chestnut locks. “I will be all right. I’m having a night. That’s all.”
“What happened?”
I’m aware that we have an audience in the form of Cashier Guy, but I don’t care. Dom looks off.
“Oh, it’s nothing.” He grabs a bag of chips, then slams it on the checkout counter. “Normal life stuff. Here. I’m getting fucking chips. Happy?” he asks the cashier.
“No, tell me.” I stay rooted in place. I’m not going to be an asshole twice tonight. I let Dad down. I’m not failing this guy too. Especially after the solid he did for me.
Not when I was thinking earlier how we all have a Virginia Woolf inside us. Someone who wants to fill their pockets with rocks and disappear into a lake.
Dom gives me a once-over. His smile hangs on his face like a half moon. Sad and incomplete. “I lost a patient today. She was nine.” The last word is barely audible as Dom’s voice breaks. I feel my heart ballooning to a monstrous size, then popping right there in my chest. I grab his hand and pull him from the cashier and from the pitiful bag of chips and from the convenience store. Far away from this place, with the static lights and stained linoleum floor.
“Come with me.”
“Who’s the axe murderer now?” he asks tiredly, but he doesn’t resist. For all his strength and muscles, his hand is limp and cold in mine. He follows me.
“I’m going to feed you something that’s not chips, and then I want you to tell me everything about your shift.” I stop for a beat, then add, “And then I am going to kill you. Don’t worry, I’ll dump your body somewhere exotic.”
He laughs weakly, because he has to, but he still laughs, which is what I was aiming for.
I shove him into my Chevy. I untuck the gas pump and start driving. We split a sleeve of Oreos, and I engage him in light small talk. Where did he go to college? （Northeastern for undergrad, Boston College for his nursing degree.） What’s his favorite color? （Purple.） If he could date one celebrity, who would it be? （Probably Kendall Jenner, though he reserves the right to switch to Zendaya.）
He answers my questions, subdued. I head to Wendy’s, where I buy him a Baconator burger with a side of fries, a Frosty, and chili. Okay, the chili is actually so I can have the crackers that come with it. I park in the joint’s parking lot and take the food out, then lean against the hood of my car. Dom joins me. I pass him his food.
“How long had she been there?” I ask.
He knows exactly who I’m talking about. The nine-year-old. He hangs his head, shaking it. I can’t see his face, but I know that he is crying. “Three months. It was horrible, Lynne. There was nothing we could do. Nothing I could say to her. And she was such a trooper. Strong, courageous, engaging. She tried to fight it with all she had. You should’ve seen her.”
“Dom.” I’m surprised by how deeply sad I feel for him, for her. Both of them are practically strangers to me. “I’m so sorry. Please eat. Tell me everything, but eat too.”
Dom takes a tentative bite of a french fry, just to appease me. His dim eyes zing when the salty fried potato hits his taste buds. He grabs two more and shoves them into his mouth. I think he is starting to succumb to his hunger, which is a good thing. It would make me very unhappy to know Dom, like me, is used to forgetting to eat. Though I cannot imagine it to be the case, based on how buff and healthy he looks.
“Was it . . . did she . . . ?” I don’t know how to ask the question. Thankfully, Dom knows exactly what I’m trying to say. He takes a pull of the milkshake before passing it to me. I put the straw in my mouth and suck, like it’s normal. Like sharing drinks, saliva, and secrets with beautiful men is something I do on a regular basis.
“No. She couldn’t really feel anything. She was in a medically induced coma. Her systems started shutting down in the afternoon, one after the other. It was the worst shift I’ve ever had. It was like watching a church being burned down, section by section. The fire consuming everything—the Bibles, the pews, Jesus on a cross.”
I close my eyes, picturing it. A chill runs down my spine. You don’t have to be religious to want to throw up.
Leaning back against the hood of my car, Dom grabs his burger and takes an enormous bite. I rub at his arm, knowing words are meaningless right now.
He rips another piece of his burger with his teeth. His jaw ticks sharply each time he takes a bite. “And all I was thinking as I watched her losing the battle to this disease was that . . . there’s so much bullshit in the world, you know? Right now, at this very moment, there’s a tabloid columnist writing a nasty piece about a pop star just because they can. Because it’s cool to hate on celebrities. A politician plotting to ruin a colleague standing in their way to the presidency. A girl crying into her pillow because she cannot afford a fucking Gucci bag. When all the while, people are losing their lives and would happily sign on for a Gucci-less existence. I know there’s this whole thing about not minimizing people’s problems, but fuck it, I feel like some things should be minimized, you know? Yeah, being an Afghan refugee trying to escape a horrible fate is a bigger problem than not getting asked by your crush to prom, and I’m tired of pretending all troubles were born equal when obviously that’s not the goddamn truth!”