Chapter 37
Monica
On the Wednesday before the Dogmother’s Ball, I didn’t get home from work until after midnight and was so stupidly tired that I spent a good minute and a half fumbling with the front door lock before I realized I was trying to use the wrong key.
Inside, the lights were dim and the house was silent, which was just what I’d expected. What I didn’t expect—and what made me almost jump out of my skin—was a voice coming from the shadows saying, “Where the hell have you been?”
“Geez! Don’t do that,” I said, clutching my heart when Alex got up from the sofa and walked into the light. “You scared the crap out of me. And you sounded just like my dad when I used to break curfew. What are you doing up?”
“Waiting for you,” he said, still sounding exactly like my dad. It was kind of eerie. “Where were you?”
“At work. Where else would I be?”
I went into the kitchen and dumped my stuff on the counter. Alex was right behind me.
“I’ve been trying to call you for two hours. I called your cell and the restaurant. I thought something happened to you.”
“Oh, Alex. I’m sorry. The battery on my cell must have died and we don’t answer the restaurant phone after closing. I’m sorry,” I said again, and walked over to the sink for a drink of water. “It was a crazy night. Ben and I had a fight and he walked out in the middle of his shift, so I had to do his job and mine, too, and then one of the dishwashers didn’t show up for work.... It was miserable. But I’m sorry you were worried. What did you need?”
“What did I need?” he asked incredulously. “I needed for you to be here for once!”
“Hey! That’s not fair!”
I spun around, ready to remind him that when I wasn’t here, nine times out of ten it was because I was quite literally slaving over a hot stove to provide for the family, but Alex cut me off before I could.
“Ryan Plummer showed up here,” he said. “I caught him out in the yard, throwing gravel at Zoe’s bedroom window, trying to get her to climb down.”
“No!” I shouted, my heart pounding, thinking about an open window, Zoe getting into that boy’s car. “Where is she? She better not have—”
“She didn’t. She’s upstairs asleep,” Alex said. “But Ryan wouldn’t leave. We got into a fistfight and the neighbors called the cops.”
“What? The police were here?”
For the first time, I noticed a scratch on Alex’s right cheek.
“They were going to take me and Ryan in.” Alex’s eyes grew bigger, angrier, and even more frightened, reminding me that he was still just a kid. “Mrs. Patterson from next door told them I lived here, but they wouldn’t listen. Why aren’t you ever here when we need you? Why? I called you and called you—”
“Oh, Alex . . .” I paused, not so much because I couldn’t find words but because, just for a moment, I couldn’t find my breath. “Honey, I am so, so sorry. You must have been so scared.”
“I was!” he shouted. “Where were you, Monica? If that cop from school hadn’t shown up and said he knew me, they’d have taken me to the station. They almost put me in handcuffs. Where were you?”
“Alex, I . . . I . . .”
My breath was gone again. The pounding of my heart became a lurching. Dots of black danced before my eyes. I slumped to the floor.
* * *
I don’t know what happened next; I’m not sure how long I was unconscious.
But I do remember being in the ambulance, Alex sitting next to the gurney, tears streaming down his face, and him babbling, “Don’t die, Monica. Please, don’t die. I didn’t mean to yell at you. I didn’t mean what I said. I love you, Monica. So does Zoe. Don’t die, Monica. Please, don’t leave us.”
Honestly, I don’t remember if I actually said the words or just thought them. An oxygen mask was covering my face, so I’m not sure he could have heard me anyway. But I do remember squeezing Alex’s hand so he’d know that I loved him, too, and that I wasn’t going anywhere.
The emergency room was a blur as well, a montage of people in white coming and going, asking questions and sticking needles. They admitted me to the hospital and ran some tests. By the next morning, I felt—well, a long way from one hundred percent, but better. Or I did until the door to my room opened and Dr. Dreamboat walked in.
“Monica,” he said, swooping to my bedside. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine. Why are you here?”
I pulled my hand from his grasp and Alex, who had been snoozing in the recliner next to my bed, blinked and sat up straight in his chair.
“Just checking on you,” he said. “I was on duty when they brought you in last night, don’t you remember?” I shook my head. “That’s okay. I’m glad you’re looking so much better this morning. I felt terrible about having to leave before I knew how things turned out with you. But it was the end of my shift and the twins—”
“Get out,” I said, pointing to the door. He just stood there. “I’m serious, Mark. Get out. I don’t want you in my room.”
“Hey,” he said, looking offended. “I’m a doctor in this hospital.”
“You’re not my doctor. Or, if you are, you’re not anymore. I’m firing you. Go.”
Alex, now fully awake, practically catapulted from the recliner and put himself between me and Mark.
“You heard her; my mom wants you out of her room.”
His mom?
Dr. Dreamboat didn’t move. Alex’s fingers curled into a fist.
“Did you hear what she said, you . . .”
The very descriptive words that came next were the sort of thing that, in other circumstances, might have forced me to dock Alex’s allowance. But in this instance, I was totally fine with it. And it wasn’t like he said anything inaccurate.
As he was walking out the door, the Bad Doctor looked over his shoulder and snarled, “Real nice kid you’ve got there, Monica.”
“Thank you,” I said, lifting my hand and resting it on Alex’s shoulder. “I think so too.”