“I wonder if she’ll ever leave him,” Noah mused.
“Maybe. I certainly get the feeling she wants to.” Eve sounded slightly wistful.
“She won’t do it.” Ted spoke decisively. “No one else can keep her in such grand style.”
Callie was sure Ted was wrong about Sophia’s motives for staying in the marriage, but the hurt Sophia had caused him in the past blinded him. She didn’t attempt to correct him. Right now, she felt as if someone could cut off her right arm and she’d be too sick to protest.
“Hey, are you okay?”
This came from Kyle. She opened her mouth to assure him that she was fine. She said that a dozen times a day, especially since she’d moved in with her parents. But suddenly she felt so extremely ill she couldn’t form the words. Something had given out on her. She wasn’t sure if it was her kidneys—she’d been having more and more trouble going to the bathroom—or another organ, but she had a feeling this might be the end.
Fleetingly, she thought about trying to scoot out of the booth so someone could take her to the hospital. But without a working liver, what was the point? They’d only be prolonging the worst misery a person could imagine.
Let go, she told herself. Don’t draw this out.
Terror engulfed her along with a sudden darkness. She was struggling just to breathe. But her last thought was how much she loved these people so she did her best to smile a goodbye.
* * *
As soon as Levi drove into town, he stopped at the Gas-N-Go and learned that Callie was in the hospital. She was fading as fast as she’d indicated she would, and that scared him, made him hyperaware of the minutes that were passing by. He had to see her immediately, before it was too late. He just hoped he’d have the chance to say goodbye....
Joe, who’d told him where she was, also gave him directions to the hospital. Once he got there, he jogged down the corridor to the intensive care unit, heart pumping erratically, afraid he was already too late.
Let her be alive... Please, let her be alive...
Kyle saw him first. All her friends were crowded around two chairs, half blocking the hallway. There was a nurse’s station across from them. Levi would’ve expected anyone who manned that station to be upset. Callie had far more visitors than the two specified by the rules. But the young blonde behind the desk seemed too preoccupied to complain. She kept sending them excited glances.
What was going on?
“You’re back,” Kyle said.
Levi could hear the accusation in that statement. Kyle was mad that he’d left in the first place. Levi didn’t blame him. “Where is she?”
At the sound of his voice, Noah, Baxter, Riley, Ted and Dylan turned. So did the famous actor, Simon O’Neal. Levi had never seen him in person, but like most other people, he’d watched at least a couple of his movies. That made it easy to recognize his face—and to understand the nurse’s reaction. No one was going to ask Simon or anyone with him to leave, even if it was a hospital. Maybe Simon had promised to finance a new wing in exchange. He definitely had the money to do whatever he wished.
Eve, Cheyenne and the redhead from the photograph in Callie’s studio—Simon’s wife—pushed through the men to be able to see him.
“She’s in Room Four,” Cheyenne said. “But the doctor is—”
Levi didn’t wait to hear the rest. He had to reach her. But he also had to slow down. There wasn’t enough space to move quickly, not unless he wanted to bowl over the equipment in this section of the facility and get himself kicked out. He didn’t know whether the preferential treatment being extended to Simon and friends covered him, as well, so he tried to navigate carefully.
It wasn’t until he stood right outside Callie’s room and could hear the quiet murmur of voices within that he began to feel uncertain. Was she awake? In pain? Was there anything he could do to make her happy before she died?
Staring down at his shaking hands, he closed them into fists. Then he opened them again, drew a deep breath and went inside.
Her parents were there. At least, he assumed the woman in the wheelchair was Callie’s mother. He’d never met her. The doctor was with them. When they glanced up, surprised by his intrusion, Levi felt so conspicuous he almost backed out of the room.
But then Callie saw him.
“Levi!” She tried to sit up but didn’t have the strength. At that point, he would’ve forced his way through all of them if he had to. Slipping between them, he reached her bedside and took her hand.
“Hi. I’m so glad—” he swallowed against the sudden tightness in his throat “—I’m so glad you’re hanging in there. I’m sorry I left. I—I shouldn’t have. I panicked.”
“It’s okay.” Her eyes closed briefly, as if she had to summon the energy just to open them. “They took my...my necklace.”
Her necklace? He was so busy noticing all the changes in her, and handling the shock of how quickly those changes had occurred, that he didn’t know what she was talking about. Then he remembered the hummingbird pendant he’d given her. Obviously, she was upset over its loss. “I’ll find it for you, okay? Don’t worry.”
That seemed to please her. She nodded slightly and let her eyes close again.
“The nurses took her necklace off before we got here,” her mother explained. “She—she collapsed at the coffee shop two days ago and one of her friends called an ambulance, so the emergency room personnel did what they had to. She keeps asking for it, but they won’t let her have it. They say it’ll get in the way, and we don’t want anything to stop them from giving her the care she needs.”
Callie didn’t find it easy to talk, but she tried again. “It’s mine,” she whispered, letting Levi know she wanted it back regardless of their reasons for denying her request.
“Can’t we get it for her?” he asked the doctor.
“It’s standard procedure to remove all jewelry,” he replied as if that was that. Then he stuck out his hand. “I’m Dr. Yee, Callie’s hepatologist. And you are...”
“Her boyfriend.” He was afraid that might sound presumptuous. They’d never made a verbal commitment to each other. But it was there in the subtext of everything they’d done together, in the strength of their feelings for each other. And he feared that if he didn’t acknowledge what he felt, he’d be denied access to her.