Someone Had to Stay

This was only the first time the thing had been sitting in a hospital with a fever, where I could no longer pretend not to notice.

Chapter 18 — Five in the Morning

Around five in the morning, when the worst had passed and Hazel had finally fallen into a real sleep against my chest with a tiny hospital bracelet fastened around her impossibly small wrist, I picked up my phone.

Not to check whether Liam had written.

I had stopped waiting for that.

I called my older brother, Mason.

I dialed with my thumb in the dark so as not to wake Hazel, and he answered on the second ring, fast, the way people answer a phone that rings at an hour when phones do not ring for good reasons, his voice thick and raspy with sleep.