Quinn entered the room and pulled up a chair, his eyes red and face puffy, and she realized that he had been awake for over six hours. Quinn sniffed loudly and wiped a fresh track of tears from his cheeks. “Pete’s parents are on their way up,” he said. “And the nurses say the pressure in his brain . . . ” He couldn’t meet her eyes and Cassidy clenched hers shut. “They are going to give him some more medication, to make sure he’s not feeling any pain.” His voice cracked at the end and he broke down.
Cassidy wrapped her arms around Pete even tighter, her body bucking with silent sobs.
“Maybe it’s best if we say goodbye now,” Quinn said, shifting in his chair. He grabbed a nearby box of tissues and wiped his nose. “I don’t think you don’t want to be here when he—” A gasp of anguish escaped his lips.
Cassidy closed her eyes and sobbed.
“ . . . when he goes,” Quinn finished, his voice high.
“No,” she whispered. “I can’t leave him,” she said, her voice hard.
Quinn rubbed her back, his face tight with pain. “I know.”
Cassidy couldn’t hold in her hurt any longer and a series of wails escaped her lips. She wanted to stop—she didn’t want Pete to see that she wasn’t being strong, but she couldn’t fight it. She didn’t feel strong, she felt flattened, and so heavy that she imagined a crane having to lift her out of the bed.
Cassidy held Pete, hoping for something, some kind of sign that told her he knew she was here, that her presence mattered.
“Come on,” Quinn coaxed when her crying ebbed. “We need to give his parents their time, too.”
Cassidy sighed and another shuddering sob came with it. With great effort, she shifted so that she could stroke his cheek one last time. She kissed the place just in front of his ear, right where his hairline ended and the soft skin of his cheekbone began.
Samantha came back into the room as Quinn helped Cassidy stand. She carried a new bag of saline and a syringe. Samantha completed her tasks, deposited the waste in the small, metal trashcan in the corner of the room, and left again.
Cassidy knew she should say goodbye, but it wouldn’t come. “I love you,” she said, her voice a hoarse whisper. She held his hand one last time, focusing only on him—trying to see him without the wires and tubes and sounds, and the smell of the starched sheets and the medicine. She pictured his grey-blue eyes, his bright smile, and the way he sometimes tilted his head at her—appraisal when she had said something brilliant, or skepticism when he’d caught her in one of her half-truths and was just letting her know he was onto her.
Cassidy gave his hand one last squeeze and then let it go. Quinn pulled her close and they cried together.
Finally, she let Quinn lead her from the room.
Nineteen
San Francisco
October 5, 2016, 10:45 a.m.
Cassidy rode in silence, unable to focus her thoughts. The wind blowing through the open car window pulled her hair from her face and whisked her tears across her cold cheeks.
“Why did they call you and not me?” she finally asked, her voice hollow.
Quinn’s face paled—the same way as when they were kids and she caught him stealing gum from her room. “I must have been at the top of his call log or something,” he said.
Cassidy wiped her eyes. During times when she and Pete were apart, they talked in the evening, but last night she had attended an evening lecture on campus and then gone out for beers with some of the other students. She had actually been proud of herself for joining in. So far she had not taken the time to make any new friends in Eugene. Strangely, her thoughts went back to the pub where she had shouted over the din with the mixed group of academics and graduate students. The idea that she had traded small talk with strangers for talking to Pete one last time made her feel wretched. She closed her eyes and let the tears fall.
“Plus, the motorcycle was mine,” he added.
Cassidy knew this—Pete had borrowed it on a previous trip and enjoyed it so much he was shopping for one in Eugene. “They probably pulled the registration, and . . . ”
Cassidy pictured Pete on the motorcycle she’d ridden many times with Quinn, dressed in jeans and boots and a heavy jacket, the black helmet hiding his face. “Why weren’t you guys together?” she asked. A surge of anger quickly followed, so fast she didn’t have time to suppress it. “Why didn’t you drive your bike to work? Don’t you normally drive it?” she said, her high voice quavering.
Quinn cruised to the shoulder of the busy thoroughfare lined with trees and small houses. He parked the car on a side street and turned to face her, his expression grim. “I had to work,” he said patiently. “I took the N so Pete could have the bike in case he wanted to go out.”
Cassidy felt herself shutting down as the image of Pete speeding along the highway on Quinn’s bike came into focus in her mind. She collapsed against the seat, a cold lump of pain filling her chest.
“I’m sorry, Cass,” Quinn said. He picked at a stray piece of vinyl on the steering wheel. He sighed.
Cassidy just sat and cried. Outside the window, bits of trash dotted the gutters; a dog barked behind a chain-link fence. Down the street, she could hear the thump of a basketball bouncing against the pavement. How could people be playing basketball? Her world had stopped. Nothing made sense anymore.
Pete had probably gone for a drive to celebrate after the meeting with his publisher, high on the praise they’d given
