Her eyes focused on me, tears welled, threatening to fall. “It’s going to all be for nothing, Kristen. He’s an organ donor. He’d want that. He’s going to rot in that room and he’s going to die for nothing and I have no say in any of it.”
The tears spilled down her face, but she didn’t sob. They just streamed, like water from a leaky hose.
I gaped at her. “But…but why? Didn’t he have a will? What the fuck?”
She shook her head. “We talked about it, but the wedding was so close we just decided to wait. I have no say. At all.”
The reality suddenly rolled out before me. It wouldn’t just be this. It would be everything. His life insurance policy, his benefits, his portion of the house, his belongings—not hers. She would get nothing.
Not even a vote.
She went on in her daze. “I don’t know how to convince them. The insurance won’t cover his stay much longer, so they’ll be forced to make a decision at some point. But it will cover it long enough for his organs to fail.”
My brain grasped at a solution. “Claudia. She might be able to convince them.”
She hadn’t been able to make the meeting. And she would side with Sloan—I knew she would. She had influence on her parents.
“Maybe Josh too,” I continued. “They like him. They might listen to him.” I stood.
She looked up at me, a tear dripping off her chin and landing on her thigh. “Where are you going?”
“To find Josh.”
* * *
I went to the station first, but Josh wasn’t there. I found him at home.
He opened the door after letting me pound on it for almost five minutes. His truck was in the carport. I knew he was here.
He pulled the door open and walked back inside without looking at me or saying a word. I followed him in, and he dropped onto a sofa I’d never seen before.
His face was scruffy. I’d never seen him anything but clean-shaven. Not even in pictures. He had bags under his eyes. He’d aged ten years in three days.
The apartment was a mess. The boxes were gone. It looked like he had finally unpacked. But laundry was piled up in a basket so full it spilled out onto the floor. Empty food containers littered the kitchen countertops. The coffee table was full of empty beer bottles. His bed was unmade. The place smelled stagnant and dank.
A vicious urge to take care of him took hold. The velociraptor tapped its talon on the floor. Josh wasn’t okay.
Nobody was okay.
And that was what made me not okay.
“Hey,” I said, standing in front of him.
He didn’t look at me. “Oh, so you’re talking to me now,” he said bitterly, taking a long pull on a beer. “Great. What do you want?”
The coldness of his tone took me aback, but I kept my face still. “You haven’t been to the hospital.”
His bloodshot eyes dragged up to mine. “Why would I? He’s not there. He’s fucking gone.”
I stared at him.
He shook his head and looked away from me. “So what do you want? You wanted to see if I’m okay? I’m not fucking okay. My best friend is brain-dead. The woman I love won’t even fucking speak to me.”
He picked up a beer cap from the coffee table and threw it hard across the room. My OCD winced.
“I’m doing this for you,” I whispered.
“Well, don’t,” he snapped. “None of this is for me. Not any of it. I need you, and you abandoned me. Just go. Get out.”
I wanted to climb into his lap. Tell him how much I missed him and that I wouldn’t leave him again. I wanted to make love to him and never be away from him ever again in my life—and clean his fucking apartment.
But instead, I just stood there. “No. I’m not leaving. We need to talk about what’s happening at the hospital.”
He glared up at me. “There’s only one thing I want to talk about. I want to talk about how you and I can be in love with each other and you won’t be with me. Or how you can stand not seeing me or speaking to me for weeks. That’s what I want to talk about, Kristen.”
My chin quivered. I turned and went to the kitchen and grabbed a trash bag from under the sink. I started tossing take-out containers and beer bottles.