Ellie is Cool Now

Chapter 32

We pull up to the emergency room entrance of the hospital.

There's an ambulance parked at the doors, the lights still spinning even though they've turned off the siren.

Mark puts his car into park.

The lights whirl, sending beams of red around and around.

My head is full and heavy.

I threw on the same clothes I wore to the Renaissance Fair, twisted my hair into a bun, and washed off all my make-up .

I feel bare and weird and scared. I want to go back to Mark's, but I can't. I want to be pissed at Roxy, and I am, but I'm also afraid that the last thing I ever said to her — after ten years of nothing and two days of something almost like redemption— will be fuck you.

"I'll go find a space," Mark says. His hand squeezes mine in my lap.

"I think I need to go in," I say, already unbuckling. "Alone."

"Ellie," he tries, but I've got the door open. He reaches for me, hand on the sleeve of my coat. I pull forward, stepping one foot out of the car.

"I don't know what to expect in there," I say. "But I know that her seeing you with me won't help. It has to be me. Just me." I grab my purse before shoving out of the car.

I don't look back because I know he'll be watching. He doesn't drive off right away. He's probably warring with whether letting me go in by myself is the right thing to do. And maybe he's right, and I'm wrong, but —

Roxy Draper + Ellie Jenkins = ?

All I know is that whatever this is, Roxy needs me. Not fucking Brock Crawley.

My brain flashes with an image of Brock slithering out of the ER like the yellow-bellied snake that he is before Mark runs him over with his car and leaves him to bleed out on the pavement.

Move over, Dexter, maybe I'm the real serial killer after all.

The automatic doors woosh open.

The emergency room at All Saints Hospital is about 20 minutes from Stonybrook and isn't exactly Seattle Grace of Grey's Anatomy. It's dingy, and mostly empty, and the heavyset nurse behind the counter wears multi-colored, cat-patterned scrubs.

Roxy isn't in the waiting room. I imagine Brock driving up in his stupid douche car, opening the passenger door, and kicking her out before speeding off in a blur of shiny black. He didn't tell me what happened, why she's here, and I don't know if she had ID or anything. I don't know if they'll let me in to see her.

I don't even know if she's still alive to see.

I shake off the thought and speed walk up to the intake counter. The nurse, Rhonda by her nametag, doesn't immediately look up.

"Hi," I say, setting my purse on the counter.

"There's a wait," she says, eyes on her computer screen. I look around at the one person sitting in a chair by the double doors, passed out.

"You're clearly swamped," I say, my voice syrupy. I'm not great at the flies to honey thing. "I'm looking for my...fr—sister." The word feels strange in my mouth. Not the truth, but not a lie, either.

After an overlong beat, Rhonda turns her murky-green eyes my direction. She's got jowls for days and looks a little like a bulldog. She takes me in with a disapproving gaze, her full lips pouting into a Droopy Dog frown. "She got a name, this fr-sister?"