Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 104050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 520(@200wpm)___ 416(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 520(@200wpm)___ 416(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
Andie is beside me in an instant. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I lie. “Just nerves.”
We check in. The woman in scrubs gives me a clipboard with six forms and a pen attached by a chewed plastic cord. I fill them out in silence, my handwriting so spidery it’s barely legible. Name. Date of birth. Next of kin. All the lies you tell hospitals to get what you need.
The waiting room is an aquarium, all glass walls and dead air. There’s a TV on mute, playing a loop of weather, headlines, and pharmaceutical ads. The chairs are bolted to the floor, barely padded, designed to keep you alert and anxious. The magazine rack is a graveyard of People and Us Weekly, all the covers dated from two years ago.
I sit between Andie and Liam, the three of us forming a tense, closed circuit. My phone vibrates every few minutes: campus emails, random notifications, a reminder about a paper I never turned in. I swipe them away, one by one.
My breathing gets shallow. I can hear my heartbeat in my ears. I twist the admission bracelet around my wrist until the skin goes red and raw.
Liam watches me, says nothing, but his hand rests close enough that our fingers almost touch. I keep waiting for him to say something meaningful—some last-minute reassurance, some line from a poem or a sitcom or even just his own battered heart. But he stays silent, jaw clenched, eyes fixed on a point just beyond the window.
Andie hums a tune under her breath, one I don’t recognize. It’s off-key and repetitive, but somehow it keeps me anchored.
When the nurse finally comes for me, I stand up and nearly drop to my knees. My legs are rubber. I cling to Andie and then to Liam, as if proximity alone could keep me safe.
The nurse is an older woman, tired but kind. She checks my name, my date of birth, and says, “Let’s get you prepped.” Her hands are warm and dry.
They walk me down a hall lined with soft yellow light. The world goes small and slow. My lungs won’t fill all the way. I taste old panic on my tongue.
We stop at a door marked PRE-OP.
Before the nurse can usher me inside, I turn to Liam and Andie, who’ve followed like shadows. The nurse hesitates, then lets me have a minute.
I face them. I can see the fear on both their faces—different, but the same core. Andie is holding back tears with all her might. Liam just looks stunned, as if he can’t believe any of this is happening.
I reach for Liam’s wrist, grip it tight. “Why did you come?” I ask, the words tearing out of me. “After everything?”
His eyes go soft, and for a second, he’s not a professor or a lover or anything but himself. He covers my hand with his.
“Because I adore you, Simone McCall,” he says, simply. “Regardless of what happens with the surgery. That’s it.”
The words cut me to the bone. There’s no artifice in his voice—just a broken, raw truth.
I want to say something back, something equally true, but the nurse interrupts with a gentle cough.
Andie hugs me, her chin digging into my shoulder. “You got this, Sim,” she whispers, fierce as ever.
I let go. The nurse leads me inside. The door swings shut behind me with a soft, final click.
The pre-op room is cold, the air conditioner set to polar. A nurse hooks up my IV. Another slaps little electrodes on my chest, the sticky pads cool and a little slimy. Everything is blue: the gown, the sheets, even the stupid hairnet they put on my head.
The doctor comes in, a woman with square glasses and a voice like crushed velvet. She explains the procedure in calm, clinical language. She tells me it’ll take two hours, maybe three if the fibroids are as big as the scan suggests. She says it like it’s no big deal.
I nod, barely hearing her.
When she leaves, I stare at the ceiling and count the tiny holes in the acoustic tiles. I wish I’d memorized a poem for this moment. I wish I had something to hold onto besides fear.
A nurse asks if I’m ready. I say yes.
They wheel me into the OR. The lights are impossibly bright, the air sharp and chemical. The anesthesiologist—young, with nervous hands—fiddles with the IV and tells me to count backwards from one hundred.
I get to ninety-six.
Then the world slips away.
When I come back, the pain is distant. The room is still cold, but the light is softer, filtered through beige curtains. My head aches, but my body feels strangely light.
I open my eyes.
Liam is there, slumped in a plastic chair, his face slack with exhaustion. Andie sits next to him, knees tucked to her chest, her head nodding in sleep.