The Rule of Thirds

Chapter Seven

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27: 9 DAYS UNTIL VANTAGE POINT

“Can you take Mr. Winters to his chemo treatment?” Hannah asks, looking up from her chart. “Room 318. They’re understaffed on the third floor.”

I register this information, then shake my head.

“No?” She looks at me incredulously.

“I’ll do it.” Ashley—one of the other volunteers—is standing behind me. “You’re crazy,” she whispers. “It’s the best job. You just take them there and hang out with the other candystripers, and it practically takes up the whole shift.” She smirks at me, grabs the form from Hannah, and practically skips down the hall to the elevator. Suddenly it makes sense why there’s never anyone around when someone soils their sheets, and I’m the sucker who cleans up the mess.

Hannah tells me to mop up a spill in front of room 422. There’s an orderly in the supply closet, returning mop and pail. Why am I cleaning up a spill if that’s a job a paid employee does? More importantly, will I ever be in the supply closet to make out rather than to get a mop? Right now, it seems as unlikely as not having any more panic attacks.

Thankfully, after cleaning the spill, Hannah rewards me with flowers. Not like, she gives me flowers. But she says I can deliver them. Apparently the Handy Helpers—volunteers over 60—usually deliver the flowers but someone called in sick. The florist is in the atrium, which is obviously my favorite spot in the entire hospital (until the supply closet takes over as makeout central) because of the Dylan sighting, but today he’s not there. The florist disappears into the walk-in fridge and returns with a large bouquet of blue and pink flowers and two balloons—one that says “It’s a Girl!” and the other that says “It’s a Boy!” Shouldn’t you be sure of the sex before sending flowers? Then I realize, duh, it must be twins. Maybe this whole place isn’t all about death, dying, disease and the land of eternal depression after all.

“Flower delivery,” I say, knocking on room 242, the way the woman at the florist instructed me. There’s a quiet “Come in” so I push open the door and walk in. A woman about my mom’s age lies on the bed. She gives a half-hearted smile when she sees me. “These are for you, I think,” I say, looking at the tag. “Shelby?”

She nods. “Thanks. You can put them over there.”

She points to the window, where there’s a mountain of bouquets and baskets piled on the sill and below. There has to be at least a dozen bouquets of flowers, two dozen balloons and an army of teddy bears of all different sizes and colors. I set the bouquet down. “Wow, you’re popular,” I say. But she doesn’t look very happy. Dark moons underline her eyes, and I realize, this woman hasn’t had a good night’s sleep for weeks.

“My twins were born three months early.”

“Oh, are they OK?”

She says that they’re in the NICU, the neonatal intensive care unit, because they only weigh two pounds each. “I hate that they have to be there. I’m there so much the nurses kicked me out, actually. They said I need to get my rest.” She sighs. “They’re beautiful.”

“Congratulations?” I say. “Er—I’m sorry?”

She almost laughs. “I know—I’m confused too. I don’t know whether to be happy I have two beautiful babies or scared for them because they were born prematurely. So it’s almost like I’m not letting myself feel anything.”

“You have to let yourself feel your feelings,” I say. “That’s what I hear, anyway.”

“Thank you,” she says. “Feel my feelings—I’m going to think about that.”

Four floors, nine bouquets and an hour later, I’m going up on the elevator on the way to the fourth floor, having one of those think-sessions that tend to happen on otherwise empty elevators. There’s so much pain in this building, it’s hard not to let it all get you down. There was a little boy lying still in his bed, an old man with a broken hip, another mom with some weird leg infection and another couple of people who didn’t have any idea yet what was wrong with them. The only thing they knew is that they felt like crap. Those hurt the most. I’d seen the beginnings of that story before, and I knew how it ended. Then the doors open on 3, and Dylan walks onto my elevator.

“Hey,” I say, mustering a smile. He looks up at me, somewhere else, and for a moment I have this weird feeling he’s totally forgotten who I am. “Oh hey,” he says. No smile. Nothing. Actually he looks miserable. He presses the button for the ground floor even though the elevator is going up. “Oh,” he says. He looks at me. To see whether I noticed? And the whites of his eyes are kind of gray and his skin looks ashen. Dark circles. He looks down at the book in his hand.

“What are you reading?” I ask him.

“Oh, uh . . . what?” he says, distracted.

“Hey, are you OK?”

“Yeah, yeah, just um . . . sorry, I’m just a bit preoccupied.”

“Oh.”

Don’t get distracted . . . “So actually,” I say, “it’s great that I ran into you. I wanted to invite you . . .”

The doors open on the fourth floor.

He manages a weak smile. “Your floor,” he says.

“Of course,” I say. My floor. There’s some magneticforce keeping me on the elevator but I push against it and step out. The doors are closing just as I turn around. He’s looking down at his book again.

What just happened? My phone buzzes and for a split second I think it’s him.

        Dace: U ask Funeral Boy to party?

Ugh. It’s like she’s psychic. I start to type out what just happened, then delete it.

        Me: No.

        Dace: Well what r u waiting for? U don’t want ur new bikini to go to waste do u?

        Me: What new bikini?

        Dace: The one Abercrombie says he can’t wait to c u in. He’s coming. 1 down 1 to go!

“He totally brushed me off. I was there, I was about to ask him to the party and instead he told me, basically, to get off the elevator. There wasn’t anything friendly about it. It was like he didn’t want me to be there. Not like I was a friend, like I was someone he didn’t like. He despised. You should have seen it—it was his whole manner.”

I’m laying on my right side on the bed, looking at 17-year-old Dad on the wall. “Ugh, I thought things were good. Oh, and Ben’s coming to the party. Dace says because of me. Which is cool. But I just wish Dylan were coming. Even though he totally brushed me off. Ugh—why do I care so much?” I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling. Maybe his brush-off had nothing to do with me? Maybe he had other things on his mind. Maybe he has a thing about personal conversations on elevators? What if I hadn’t seen him on the elevator—then what? Am I seriously going to throw away a chance at love with Dylan, all because Ben jumped my lips quicker and the elevator doors opened before I could ask Dylan to the party? I sit up and grab my phone off my nightstand and bring up Dylan on the text message screen.

        Me: Chip n dip Alert! Tmw @ Dace’s. Pool party included. Wanna come?

And then I watch the screen, waiting for his response to come. Which is how I must have fallen asleep, because a couple of hours later I wake up with the phone still in my hand. The clock says 3:19 a.m. “Yep,” I say to my dad. “It’s that pitiful.” I put the phone on my nightstand and turn off my light.