“Okay. Yeah, okay.” I feel anything but okay. I feel panicky and out of breath. “I can do that,” I say mostly to convince myself. I grab my phone from my dress pocket and tap David’s name in my favorites list.
The phone rings.
And rings.
And rings.
Voicemail.
He’s probably sitting around the Christmas tree with his family, fielding questions about why I’m not there. By now they’ve collectively decided that they hate me and are telling him how much better he can do. When I end the call, it feels like pressing the red disconnect button signals the end of our relationship, as well.
“He didn’t answer,” I say, even though it’s obvious. I try again, but get the same result “We should probably get out of here before someone else thinks our kid died. And I need to talk to Priya, too. At least maybe I can put things right with her.”
“I’ll meet you down there,” Finn says, “I should go find Theo. I think he’s still wandering the hospital looking for you.” He gives a guilty grimace.
* * *
? ? ?
?I’m standing outside what I think is Priya’s ER cubicle. It’s the third one on the right past the door, but is that the correct door? Was it actually the fourth cubicle? Since there’s only a curtain and no real door, I take a deep breath and say, “Knock, knock!” I sound like a nosy neighbor in a sitcom, but it’s better than walking in on a half-naked old man in the midst of a heart attack.
“Hello?” Priya’s voice comes from inside the cubicle in front of me. She sounds groggy.
I pull the curtain wide enough to let myself in, and Priya looks up at me expectantly.
“If you think I’m about to tell a knock-knock joke, you’re about to be very disappointed.”
She doesn’t laugh at my attempt to lighten the mood. She keeps staring at me. Her eyes are glassy. I can’t tell if I woke her or if she’s been crying. I’m really screwing up today on all fronts. “While I don’t have a knock-knock joke, I do have an apology. I’m sorry I’m a self-obsessed bozo. You were right, I have been a bad friend to you.”
“Yeah, you kind of have been,” Priya says. “The self-obsessed bozo part, not the bad friend part. You’re a great friend, Hannah. Honestly, sometimes you’re way too intense about it. You’re stupidly loyal.”
“I think you’re being too generous. Plain stupid is more like it. Don’t go easy on me. I’ve been a narcissistic asshole the past few months.” I grimace and correct myself, “Maybe years?”
“No, I was pretty harsh before. They gave me some painkillers and I think they’re starting to work.” She shrugs. “So, you’re going through a self-obsessed phase. So what? Do you remember when I dated Charlie the New Yorker cartoonist and I was convinced he was cheating on me, and it was all I could talk about for four solid months?”
“He was cheating on you. You were right.” When I saw him on Hinge, I shrieked and threw my phone across the room. I recognized him from my role as Priya’s accomplice on many evenings of light internet stalking. She insisted I try and match with him to catch him in the act of cheating on her. We flirted for a few days in messages Priya ghostwrote, and on the night of our first date, Priya showed up instead of me to confront him. He stormed out, but I was waiting at the bar. We closed down the restaurant toasting the success of our mission, the thrill of catching him dulling the sting of his betrayal. He didn’t matter; we had each other.
“So, I’m saying everyone gets a main character phase once in a while.”
Priya was pretty insufferable that spring.
“Speaking of dating . . . do you want to talk about what happened with you and Dr. Ben?”
Priya pats the sheets next to her good leg. I climb in bed with her, scrunching myself as small as possible against the guardrail so I don’t jostle her injured leg, which is nestled atop a stack of pillows while she waits for a cast. Somewhere in the distance a heart-rate monitor emits a steady beep-beep-beep.
Priya shifts so her head rests on my shoulder and she can whisper the story directly in my ear, as if the people in the neighboring cubicles might be listening through the curtain-walls. Although, with the wait times tonight and no other entertainment, they might be.
“I’m an idiot, Han. The problem with us was always distance, so I thought once he moved here our problem would be solved and we’d be together. He said from the beginning he wasn’t looking for anything serious. That the first year of internship is super intense and he didn’t have time for a relationship, but I thought he was bluffing. So, I thought we were dating, while he thought we were having post-shift cocktails and casual sex.” She covers her eyes with both hands. “He told me exactly what it was, and I didn’t believe him. I’m not even sure if it counts as a breakup if both people aren’t on the same page about being in a relationship in the first place.
“When I asked him what we were doing for Christmas, he got all freaked out and ended things. I think that’s why I was so hard on you the past month. You were complaining about not wanting to spend Christmas with David, while I was bending over backward to get Ben to invite me to spend Christmas with him. And here you had this great guy who loves you so much and wants to build a future with you, and you were pumping the brakes.”
“Well, joke’s on Ben. You are spending Christmas together. You kind of won this one.”
“Not funny,” Priya says. “Or intentional.”
“I’m sorry I was rubbing all my David stuff in your face. I didn’t know. Also, Ben is an idiot if he doesn’t want to be with you. You’re the dream girl.”
I press a kiss to Priya’s forehead. Our roles in this conversation are familiar from any number of times we pretended a frog was a prince and were disappointed when he turned out to be a frog after all. “If it makes you feel any better, I think I’m about to be single again, too. I think David’s going to break up with me. He’s super pissed.”
She finds my hand between us on the bed and squeezes. “He should be.”
“Wow,” I deadpan, “great to have friends who are unconditionally on my side. Finn basically said the same thing. Did everyone take truth serum when I was in the bathroom?”
“It’s your friends’ job to tell you when you’re being stupid, and you are. So, are you going to stop being so dense and go do something about it?”
“I tried. I called David but he didn’t answer. He’s probably screening my calls.”
“Oh my god!” Priya shrieks. If the people in the surrounding cubicles weren’t listening before, they are now. “This isn’t a conversation you have over the phone. You need to go there.”
“Yeah, but didn’t we just have a fight about me being a bad friend? You’re in the actual hospital, so . . . I think I should probably stay here.”
“Ugh,” she groans, “be a good friend to me tomorrow. Tonight you need to go to Connecticut and find David.”
She’s right. I do need to go find him. This isn’t a phone conversation. This is a grovel on my hands and knees situation. Even then, I’m not sure we can come back from this.