We’re quiet a moment, and it hits me square in the chest. This story is familiar. His sister wrote about it—how nobody realized at first why things like that had started to happen to him. And then those things started to get worse, almost overnight.
“Anyway,” he says, turning to face me, “what you did was much more impressive.”
“That’s one way to put it.” I look down, try to focus on the forms in my lap instead of how close we’re sitting, but my eyes find their way back up to his. “Thank you for bringing me here. I’m pretty sure most people would’ve been scared off by that.”
“I’m not most people,” he says with a shrug. “And like I said, I was impressed.” He clears his throat and glances at the counter. “So go ahead, give those to Mary. I’m not going anywhere.”
As soon as I hand Mary the clipboard, another nurse in mint-green scrubs with wild, curly hair dyed bright red escorts me down the hall to an examination room. I sit on the thin, crinkly paper that covers the table and lower the hand that’s been holding the napkins to my lip for what feels like forever. It seems like a good sign that I don’t feel anything warm or sticky when I take them away, but I feel nervous all of a sudden. Exposed.
The nurse peers at my lip from where she stands, then puts a hand on either side of my head and tilts it back gingerly into the light to get a better view. “So you’re a new friend of Colton’s?” she asks, almost matter-of-factly. There’s that same thing in her voice that was in Mary’s. Interest. A trace of protectiveness.
“Um . . . yes.” I don’t know what answer is the right one, or if there is a right one at all. I open my mouth to explain, but the movement pulls at the cut on my lip and I wince a little instead.
She tilts my head back down so our eyes are level. “He is such a sweet boy. We just love him around here.” She stands and moves to the counter, and comes back with a small stack of gauze pads and a bottle of rust-colored solution. “Lie right back there on the table for me, honey.”
I obey, and she squirts some of the liquid onto the gauze, dabs gently at the skin around the cut. “He’s been through so much, but he’s a fighter, that one. Took it all on with more grace and courage than most people, you know?”
I nod like I do know, and she pushes off the floor with one foot, sending her stool to the trash can, steps on the pedal to flip open the top, and tosses in the soiled gauze pad. Then she slides back and squirts more solution onto a fresh piece of gauze, again dabbing at my lip, only now, closer to the actual cut. I flinch when she touches it directly.
“Sorry. It’s tender, I know.” She goes back to dabbing the edges. “The good news is, it’s small. Two or three stitches should do it. We’ll get you fixed up and out of here in no time.”
“Okay.” I nod again, trying to stay calm, even though a quiet panic starts to rise in me. I’ve never had stitches before. Never broken a bone, never had anything more involved than a shot. I feel shaky all of a sudden, weak at the thought of a needle threading in and out of my lip.
She must see the fear on my face, because she puts her hand on mine and squeezes. “It’s okay, sweetie. You won’t feel anything after we numb it up. And it’s right on the edge of your lip, so you’ll barely be able to see the scar, if there even is one.” I feel my eyes start to water, and she sees that too. “You want me to go get him for you? Colton? Sometimes it helps to have someone in here with you, and he’s an old pro at well . . . everything.”
It surprises me how much I want to say yes despite the fact that he’s almost as much of a stranger to me as she is. But after seeing how uncomfortable he was out in the waiting room, I shake my head and lie for what feels like the hundredth time today. “No thanks, I’m okay.”
“You sure?”
I take a deep breath, nodding on the exhale.
“All right then.” She stands and peels off her gloves, folding them into themselves and then each other. “Someone will be in shortly to get you ready, and then we’ll get you all patched up and on your way back out.”
“Thank you.”
“You bet.” She smiles at me again and pats my hand. “You just promise me one thing.”
I sit up on my elbows. “What’s that?”
I’m expecting that she’ll say that I need to be brave, or that I need to be more careful, but she doesn’t. She looks at me with eyes that are kind but firm, and she says, “You promise me that as Colton’s . . . friend, you’ll be careful with that heart of his. It’s strong, but it’s fragile too.” She purses her lips together for a second. “Just be good to him, okay?”
A lump rises in the back of my throat, and I bite the inside of my cheek.
“I will. I promise,” I manage. Barely. My voice sounds small, scared, but she doesn’t seem to notice. Or maybe she thinks it’s still nerves about the stitches. She has no idea how careless I’ve already been, or that I know that heart of his maybe even better than he does.
She nods like we’ve got an agreement and pulls the curtain shut, and I lie there alone on the table, staring up at the holes in the ceiling tiles. They go blurry in an instant. I think of Colton, of how much time he spent sick. Waiting for a heart. Wondering if it would ever come, and knowing what would happen if it didn’t. Knowing he would die before he really got to live.