Her eyes open again, and this time she looks more alert.

“Let’s get her to the hospital,” Charlie says.

“I’m okay,” she insists, but her voice is shaky. She tries to sit up.

I pull her back into my lap. “Don’t move. Just take a second.”

She nods, settles into my arms.

Charlie’s on his feet already, headed for the door. “I’ll pull my car up.”

Charlie is the one who talks to the receptionist in complete sentences when we arrive.

Charlie is the one who pulls me away when I start half shouting at the nurse who tells us we’re not allowed through the doors Libby’s ushered through. He’s the one who pushes me into a chair in the waiting room, takes hold of my face, and promises it’ll be okay.

You can’t know that, I think, but he’s so sure that I almost believe him.

“Just sit right here,” he says. “I’ll figure this out.”

Seven minutes later, he returns with decaf, a prepackaged apple fritter, and the number of the room Libby’s been moved into. “They’re running tests. It shouldn’t take long.”

“How did you do that?” I ask, voice hoarse.

“I was on the high school paper with one of the doctors here,” he says. “She says we can go and wait in her hall until the tests are over.”

I’ve never felt so useless, or so grateful not to be in charge. “Thank you,” I croak.

Charlie nudges the fritter toward me. “You should eat something.”

He ferries me through the hospital, stopping by another vending machine for a bottle of water, then to a pair of hideously outdated chairs in a hellishly lit hallway that smells like antiseptic.

“She’s in there. If they’re not out in five minutes, I’ll find someone to talk to, okay?” he says gently. “Just give them five minutes.”

Within twenty seconds I’m pacing. My chest hurts. My eyes burn, but no tears come.

Charlie grabs me, pulls me in around his chest, and wraps a hand around the back of my head. I feel small, vulnerable, helpless in a way I haven’t for years.

Even before Mom died, I wasn’t much of a crier. But when Libby and I were kids and I was upset, there was nothing that could make me tear up faster than having Mom’s arms wrapped around me. Because then—and only then—I knew it was safe to come apart.

My sweet girl, she’d coo. That’s what she always called me.

She never did the You’re okay, don’t cry thing. Always My sweet girl. Let it out.

At her funeral, I remember tears glossing my eyes, the pinprick sensation at the back of my nose, and then, beside me, the sound of Libby breaking, descending into sobs.

I remember catching myself holding my breath, like I was waiting.

And then I realized I was waiting.

For her.

For Mom to put her arms around us.

Libby was crumbling, and Mom wasn’t coming.

It was like a collapsed sandcastle leapt back into place inside me, rearranging my heart into something passably sturdy. I wrapped my arms around my sister and tried to whisper, Let it out. I couldn’t get the words past my lips.

So instead I dropped my mouth beside Libby’s ear and whispered, “Hey.”

She gave a stuttering breath, like, What?

“If Mom had known how hot the reverend here is,” I said, “she probably would’ve made it down here sooner.”

Libby’s saucer eyes looked up at me, glazed with tears, and my chest felt like a can being crushed until she let out a scratchy jolt of laughter loud enough that Hot Reverend stumbled over his next few words.

She lay her head on my shoulder, turned her face into my jacket, and shook her head. “That is so fucked up,” she said, but she was shaking with teary laughter.

For that second, she was okay. Now, though, when she really needs me, I’m useless.

“Why couldn’t we be in the room for tests?” I get out.

Charlie inhales, shifting between his feet. “Maybe they think you’ll give her the answers.”

There is absolutely no conviction in his joke. When I draw back, I realize he’s not doing so hot himself.

“Are you okay? You look like you’re going to be sick.”

“Just don’t like hospitals,” he says. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t have to stay.”

He takes my hands, holds them between our chests. “I’m not leaving you here.”

“I can handle it.”

His mouth shrinks, the crease beneath it deepening. “I know. I want to be here.”

A group of nurses pass with a gurney, and an ashen cast seeps onto Charlie’s face.

I scrounge around for something to say, anything else to think about. “Sharon called me.”

His lips press into a knot.

“She told me you put me up for a job.”

After a beat, he murmurs, “If I overstepped, I’m sorry.”

“It’s not that.” My face prickles. “It’s just . . . what if I’m bad at it?”

His hands skim up my arms until he’s cradling my jaw. “Impossible.”

My brow arches of its own volition. “Because I helped edit one book?”

He shakes his head. “Because you’re smart and intuitive. And good at getting the best writing out of people, and you put the work before your ego. You know when to push and when to let something go. You’re trustworthy—partly because you’re so bad at lying—and you take care of the things that matter to you.

“If I had to pick one person to be in my corner, it’d be you. Every time. You take care of shit.”

With a sharp throb in my chest, my gaze falls to the floor. “Not always.”

“Hey.” Charlie’s rough fingers come back to mine. He lifts my hand, brushing his mouth over my knuckles. “We’ll figure out what’s wrong and do everything we can to fix it.”

“That fucking list.” My chest is too tight to let anything out but a whisper. “She’s been doing too much. I shouldn’t have let her. We slept out in the heat and—we’ve been working on this fundraiser. She should’ve been resting.”

Charlie sits, drawing me into his lap, every thought of discretion, of avoiding complication gone in an instant. I need him, and he’s here, I realize. Fully, not with caveats or stipulations. His hand slides up the back of my neck, tucked beneath my hair, and I’m wrapped up in him like he’s my personal stone fortress. Like even if I came apart, nothing could get to me.

“Libby makes Libby’s decisions,” he says. “Imagine how you’d react if someone tried to stop you from doing what you want, Stephens.” A hint of a smile tugs at his pout. “Actually, don’t imagine it. It’s inappropriate to get turned on in a hospital.”

I laugh weakly into his chest, another knot unwinding in my own. “I missed something. I’m here with her, and Brendan isn’t, and—” My voice catches. The rest tumbles out painfully: “It’s my job to watch out for her.”

“I know it’s scary, being here,” he says. “But this is a good hospital. They know what they’re doing.” His fingers move in soothing, rhythmic circles against the nape of my neck. “This is where my dad came.”

The words sweet guy sear through my mind, like the afterimage left behind by the pop of a camera’s bulb.

That’s what Charlie called his father. A sweet guy. The best person I know.

“What happened?” I ask.

After a protracted silence, he says, “The first stroke wasn’t bad. But this last one . . . he was in a coma for six days.” He watches the progress of his thumb running back and forth over mine. His brow tightens. The day we met, I mistook this expression for surliness, brooding, proof he was as warm and human as a block of marble.

Now all it does is bring out the lost look in his eyes. “This huge, handy guy who can fix anything, build anything. And in that hospital bed, he looked—” He breaks off. I twine my free hand into the hair at the base of his neck.

“He looked old,” Charlie says, then, after a fraught silence, “When I was a kid, all I ever wanted was to be like him, and I wasn’t. But he always made me feel like it was okay to be the way I am.”