Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 146548 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 733(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 146548 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 733(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
Fair Warning: you fuck with the baby of the family and everyone will come after you.
Over FaceTime, she waves. “Hi, Moffy. Hi, Farrow.”
“Hey, Audrey,” I say, watching her eyes slowly widen at the sight of Oscar several bowling lanes down.
“OhmyOhmy, KinneyKinney. Don’t let him see my face.” She buries herself in a pillow, and Kinney rotates the camera back to herself.
Audrey still hasn’t overcome the mortification of sending apology cookies to Oscar.
Jack, who returned to our booth, asks my cousin, “Audrey, do you still have a crush on Oscar?”
We all just hear a mumbled noise from the pillows.
Kinney keeps eyeing the bowling alley entrance. I can’t just sit here and hope for the best. There has to be something more I can do.
And I tell my sister, “Let me call this girl.”
She looks back at me, brows pinched. “What are you going to say?”
“I’m going to ask if she needs a ride here, ask what’s holding her up and tell her that I can help. That’s it.”
Kinney takes a giant breath, and she speaks into her phone. “I’ll talk to you later, Audrey. I need to text Moffy her number…” she trails off, and all of our heads swerve as the door opens.
A blonde thirteen-year-old girl in a flower sundress nears the hostess podium.
Dear World, I’m so damn grateful for this good luck. She needed it. Best Regards, a human who’s a big brother
“Holy shit,” Kinney’s eyes bug. “She’s here.” She glances at her phone. “Audrey—”
“Go fall madly in love and you must tell me everything!” Audrey hangs up first.
And before Kinney darts away from the booth, she stretches over Farrow and flings her arms around me in a short hug. “I’m sorry. I was the turd this time,” she tells me. And then she looks to Farrow. “But not to you. You were late.” She skips off at that, and Jack follows my sister to film Holly and Kinney greeting each other.
I’m about to apologize to Farrow, but he’s laughing hard. “God, your siblings.”
I love him. I love that he loves my siblings, even when they’re emotional and wound up and taking jabs left and right.
And as his laughter fades, our hands intertwine, and I tell him, “You made it in enough time so I can beat you at bowling.”
He smiles softly, almost sadly. It fucking hurts, and I can easily fix my sister’s tiny crisis—I can try to fix anything—but I can’t even attempt to fix this. And I want to be patient.
I need to be patient.
If I ask what I can do, I know he’ll just say, be here. And I’m here. But it’s been over twenty hours since we last even saw each other. Those digits are becoming normal, and I can’t remember the last time his shift was under twelve hours.
“Farrow…”
I want to find the right words. To tell him it’s alright if he has to be late again. To not make promises to my little sister about next time. Because it’ll feel worse for him if he breaks it. But I’m not sure how to say anything.
And more than that, I can practically feel his fatigue, the heaviness that mounts on his chest and tries to drag him under. I want to take that weight off Farrow. So damn badly. I open my mouth to speak, but aching, strained words come out of him first.
“I’ll be okay.”
28
FARROW KEENE
I made a mistake.
It’s been hitting me all week. All month. Shit, possibly even the first day I stepped into the hospital. I thought I could weather it out. What’s one more day. One more week. One more year. But my boots clap along the sterile halls, and I feel my time draining away with my energy and will to keep course.
Pushing open the break room door with my shoulder, charts fill my hands, and I see the sofa. Instantly, I collapse on it lengthwise and kick my feet on the cushion.
Charts lie on my lap, but I don’t have any desire to finish them. I have—I glance at the wall clock—around fifteen minutes before I’ll need to check on my other patient. Unless someone codes.
It’s been that kind of day.
“Can’t believe he tried to shock an asystole rhythm,” Dr. Shaw says, entering the break room. The third-year Med-Peds resident heads straight for the coffee pot. “Nice catch on that intern, Keene.”
I stopped a first-year resident from trying to shock a flatline. Asystolic patients are non-shockable and won’t respond to defibrillation. And if an attending had been present, he would’ve done the same thing as me.
I can’t muster a response. I just click a pen.
Do your motherfucking job, Farrow.
Dr. Shaw pours coffee. “You look beat.” He sweeps me from head to toe. “Rough day?”
I could explain to him how a simple diagnostic exam that’d normally take twenty minutes lasted an hour and a half.