theater.
“Maybe in words, instead of vague gestures.”
I shake my head, staring at my knees. “I’ve never walked out of a movie before. Annie and I stayed for the entirety of The Break-Up, even when it became clear that they weren’t going to get back together and would, in fact, break up. Annie was so upset she cried.”
“Chloe.” Nick’s head dips as he tries to meet my eyes. I look back at him.
“This isn’t about The Break-Up,” he says.
I exhale a long, shuddery sigh, looking at my knees again. “Her dad gets better. In Annie’s movie. He has cancer, and his treatment works, and he gets better.”
Nick nods slowly.
I chew on my lip for a moment, then turn toward him. “That’s never going to happen for me. Never, ever, not unless I wake up tomorrow and there’s some magical, Alzheimer’s-reversing drug in the news, which seems pretty unlikely at this point. My dad’s not ever going to get better. He’s only going to get worse, because my life isn’t a movie. My problems can’t be solved in an hour and a half. I can’t have a romantic epiphany that coincides with my dad’s improving health and then, like, walk around the city purposefully while a cover of a ’90s pop song plays. That’s not how life works.”
Nick puts his arm around me and I lean into him.
“I should check my phone,” I say, because even though Milo’s on Dad duty, old habits die hard. I dig through my purse, then find it and gasp. There are multiple missed calls, from my dad’s facility and the hospital.
“Fuck.” I stand up. “Milo was supposed to be fucking handling this. What the fuck?!”
“Chloe.” Nick stands up and grabs my arm, holding me steady. “What’s happening? What’s wrong?”
I call Brookwood back, my heart pounding as the phone rings. “I need to get to the hospital.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
My dad is fine.
He’s asleep when I get there, his body looking small and frail in the hospital bed. Brookwood called an ambulance when he complained about chest pains. But once he got here, he said he felt fine, had no memory of his chest pains, and all of his tests showed no problems. They’re keeping him overnight for observation, just in case.
I don’t want to wake him, so I tell the doctor I’ll be back first thing in the morning, then sink into a hard plastic chair in the waiting room.
The chair beside me squeaks. “Well, that’s a relief, huh?”
I jump. “Nick! I forgot you were here!”
He raises his eyebrows. “The words I love to hear.”
“I didn’t mean . . . Ugh. You know. I was so caught up with Dad stuff that I forgot you came in here with me. Thank you, again, for driving me.”
“Of course,” he says. The two of us take a second to look around the waiting room, which is pretty deserted at this time of night.
“You know, I hate to brag, but I think we’re the best-dressed people in this hospital,” I say.
Nick smiles and hands me a package of Twix and a bottle of Coke. “I know this isn’t a gourmet snack or anything, but I was working with what the vending machine gave me.”
I tear open the package, then hesitate after I take a bite of Twix. Nick got this for me, without me asking. I know it’s only candy, and I shouldn’t be getting emotional over anything that comes out of a hospital vending machine, but it’s been an emotional day.
I know everything else in my life is taking up one hundred percent of my time and attention (the fact that I’m in a hospital waiting room right now is a perfect example of that), but I let myself imagine for a moment what it would be like if Nick and I were together. In a relationship. Not a Netflix-and-chill situation like with Mikey Danger, or a no-strings, no-expectations thing like I’ve always had with everyone else, the kind of situation where I can never really drop my guard and relax. With Nick, I’m myself, all the time. I don’t have to be responsible Chloe, caregiver Chloe, or therapist Chloe, because Nick doesn’t need me to take care of him.
It’s not that I don’t have people I can count on. I do. I have Annie, and Tracey, and Uncle Don, and probably even Tobin if the emergency in question isn’t time sensitive. But I’ve never wanted to depend on them, because I know what happens when you really let yourself