both sort of held her while she cried and made that sound I’d heard earlier.
Someone must have called another grief counselor, because a second woman in a crisp black jacket and skirt showed up and tried to usher us down the hall to a room where Katie’s crying wouldn’t disturb the rest of the hospital.
She wouldn’t walk, despite our coaxing, so I just picked her up like I had before and carried her into a room that looked like some sort of playroom with lots of plastic toys in a bin and ducks on the wall and plush couches for sinking into. I tried to set her down, but I had to sit with her, so she ended up on my lap, like a child.
I stroked her hair and whispered things in her ear and the grief counselor tried to get her to talk, and finally made the decision that they had to give Katie a sedative.
They took her to an empty room down the hall from Mr. Hallman’s and she fought a little before they gave it to her.
“Hey, it’s going to be okay, it’s going to be okay.” I said it over and over, even though neither of us believed it.
Soon, her eyes were drooping closed and her grip on me loosened. When the artificial sleep finally claimed her I sat back on the bed she was in and looked at Kayla.
“She didn’t cry at all on the way down. She kept saying that she couldn’t and she wanted to.” I pushed Katie’s hair back so it wasn’t in her face.
“I should go check on mom,” Kayla said, looking out the door. We hadn’t heard anything from the room down the hall in a while.
“Go, it’s okay. I’ll stay with her. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Thank you,” Kayla said again before leaving the room. I went back to watching Katie, making sure her breathing was deep and even.
Adam sat down in one of the chairs and stretched his arms over his head.
“I feel like I should know what to do by now, having lost my mom and all my grandparents, but every time I think of something to do or say, it seems wrong,” he said.
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
I nodded and adjusted Katie’s head on the pillow. Her face was calm, as if she’d fallen asleep naturally.
“Kayla’s trying to keep it together, but it won’t last forever. Eventually it catches up with you. Just takes some people longer than others.”
Katie’s eyebrows twitched and then went still.
“I have no idea what to do. I’ve never lost anybody I cared about. Not like this. I’m not exactly close with my family.” I wasn’t sure how much he knew.
“Yeah, Kayla said you’d had a hard time, but the truth is, nothing can prepare you for something like this. There’s no manual or training course. You just have to hold on and not let it take you away.”
I hoped it wouldn’t take Katie away. She was already so broken. It was too much for one person to handle.
“Are you going to be okay? I know we just met, but we’re sort of in the same boat here.” He had a point.
“I have no idea. I just want to be okay for her.” He nodded. Adam understood.
What he didn’t understand was that I’d been on the brink of telling Katie about sleeping with Ric. I’d been about to hurt her again, and then something even bigger swooped in and did it for me.
How could I tell her now? But how could I leave her in the dark? Every time she looked at me with such hope, it killed me. I wasn’t the guy she thought I was. I wasn’t the guy she needed me to be.
She shifted in her sleep, turning toward me, and I knew that I couldn’t tell her anytime soon. Right now I had to be there for her and I’d figure out the rest later.
***
Katie woke up a few hours later, after Mrs. Hallman had sort of calmed down. She’d moved from hysterical to a state like Katie was in earlier. Eerie detachment.
Kayla ended up stepping in and helping with the arrangements, that his wish was to be cremated. She and the first grief counselor, Becky, talked and talked as Mrs. Hallman sat and nodded when they asked her a question. Katie was still groggy, so I kept her in my arms.
Her phone went off and I realized that no one knew where we were. In all the