“You’re supposed to give me yours,” she responds, more snap in her voice than I expect.
I shove my own paper into her hands.
She stares down at it, a frown creasing her expression. “It’s blank.” Her stare mimics her spoken word.
“Yeah.” My response presents a challenge, daring her to so much as breathe the wrong way. “So?”
“It’s just . . .” Her head tilts. She blinks once. Shakes her head. “You are not nothing. You know? Whether you wrote the word or not, you should know you’re not nothing. And whoever made you think you are is a liar.”
My jaw goes slack before I can control it. My chest swells and emotion squeezes my throat, choking me until it’s nearly impossible to breathe. I don’t know why, but I open her folded paper and look over the word on her heart, find the one she did, in fact, write. The one I didn’t have the courage to make real.
Nothing
I swallow. Then meet her eyes, my heart softening when I do.
“You’re not nothing either,” I tell her.
“I guess that makes us both something.” Her grin isn’t practiced this time.
“I guess so.” I almost mean it.
When we walk outside, I follow her to the hill I assume leads to the view of the ocean. As I watch her, the January air nipping at my neck, our words replay in my mind, stirring something unfamiliar and foreign.
A couple of nothings, making their way toward something.
Something beautiful.
Something real.
Something I haven’t seen in quite some time.
Nine
Merrick
“Y’all go on in. I’ll be right behind you.”
Merrick’s mom flipped down the visor in the front passenger seat. She checked her face in the small mirror and wiped at her eyelids, rubbing off the black, inky spots her tears had temporarily tattooed onto her skin. She caught his gaze in the mirror’s reflection. Her eyes brightened, hinting at a smile though he couldn’t see her lips.
“You don’t have to come in.” Merrick turned toward Nikki, squeezing her hand but avoiding her eyes. Her admission from earlier hung between them, and he couldn’t bring himself to meet the questioning look she was probably giving him. “Harold can take you home.”
“Do you not want me here?” As confident as she was, even Nikki had her insecurities.
“No!” Merrick’s gut clamped at the lie. Worse, his dad’s voice took the lead in his mind, telling him what good publicity it would be if Nikki were seen with their family during a crisis. Her father might be swayed to merge companies if he knew Merrick was serious about his daughter.
The thought made him sick.
He opened the door. Stepped out of the car and into the rain. Drenched instantly, he ducked his head back into the car. “We could be here all night. You should go home, Nik. Get some rest. I’ll call you in the morning. Okay?” He flashed his teeth and that seemed to do the trick.
Nikki nodded, seemingly satisfied with his excuse. She was on her phone before he slammed the door.
Beneath the awning of the hospital’s entrance, Merrick shook out his hair and wiped his feet. It was New Year’s Eve and the hospital’s Christmas décor was still up, same as it was at home. Wreaths with giant red bows hung from the glass doors. Twinkle lights wrapped the pillars on either side of the mat where he stood. He was about to go in when a distinct mechanical hum sounded. He turned, found himself eye to eye with his mom behind a half-rolled-down window.
She looked like she was about to say something but didn’t.
Her stare left him uneasy. “See you inside?”
She nodded. “See you, baby.”
Then she rolled up the window, her face vanishing behind a pane of dark glass.
It had been years since his mother had referred to him as “baby.” Merrick resented the sour feeling it left in the pit of his stomach.
“It shouldn’t be much longer.”
A hand holding a steaming Styrofoam cup hovered an inch from Merrick’s face. He looked up to find the nurse—what had she said her name was? Jane? June?—standing in front of him. She wore festive Whoville and Grinch scrubs and a reindeer antler headband that jingled when she moved.
He sighed. Right. This was a children’s hospital. No doubt he’d be seeing many a reindeer antler around. He took the cup. Sipped. Hot cocoa. With marshmallows. Of course it was.
She hummed, clearly comfortable in her own skin. Her white Skechers squeaked on the linoleum floor. “We have family counselors here if you need to talk to someone. They’re on call twenty-four-seven.”
Oh. Great. We have a talker.
So not what he needed. Someone to tell him it would all be “okay.”
He sighed again, louder. Hinting. “Thanks for the drink, but I’m good. Waiting to see my sister.”
And this, apparently, was an invitation for her to sit.
Merrick rubbed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and finger. Pinched hard, hoping to wake from what was sure to be a conversational nightmare. When he opened his eyes and she was still there, he saw it would take more than sighs and body language to get his point across.
“Look. My mom will be up any minute.” He took another sip, this one coming too fast, burning his tongue, scorching his throat. “She may want one of your counselors, but I’m good.”
“You said that.”
“I meant it.”
“Are you sure?”
She was pushing the boundaries. Crossing the line between professionalism and prying.
“Yep.”
She stood and cleared her throat. “Let me know if you or your family need anything. I’ll be at the nurses’ station all night.”
“Will do.” He expected her to go then. She didn’t.
She sniffled instead.
Merrick cringed. He noticed something he hadn’t before. Though she wasn’t super pregnant, the bump was definitely there. He didn’t have to be a prodigy to figure out she was prone to become an emotional wreck due to the simple fact she was growing a human inside of her.
He looked around, hoping the tough nurse, the one he saw in movies, would walk by and save him.
“My dad died by suicide.” Nurse Basket Case shifted from foot to foot. Had she considered she might be the one in need of counseling? “Last year. He . . . jumped off the bridge.”
She didn’t have to say which bridge. They lived in San Francisco. The bridge meant the bridge. Still, the fact that they were both natives didn’t make this therapy hour. And it didn’t make them friends either.
He glanced at her name tag. Jana. She was pretty, though tired looking. As if time in this place had aged her. What genius thought to give the pregnant lady the graveyard shift anyway?
“Has the doctor talked to you at all? Has he explained what . . . happened?” Jana tilted her head, waiting.
Merrick shook his head. “I’m sure he’ll come talk to us when my mom arrives.”
Jana’s brow pinched. “We’ve seen a lot of childhood suicide cases and attempts over the past year. It’s heartbreaking . . . to see someone so young want to take their own life.”
He didn’t want to have this conversation. He wasn’t ready to wrap his mind around it.
But his lack of preparedness didn’t stop the pregnant nurse from going on. “Most of the time, when someone slits their wrists, they bleed out in minutes. There isn’t time to save them.”