Page 122 of Fly with Me

Olive led Stella down to the lobby and through the double doors outside. She seemed to gulp down the cold air. Her shoulders went rigid.

“Stella, please tell me what’s going on.”

“No, this has been a tough day for you. I’m here for you. Want to go get lunch? H-hungry? I’m here for you.”

“Stella, today wasn’t anything worse than I’ve been dealing with for almost a year. I’m fine, really. I thought it was going to be worse than that.” It would sound fucked up and callous for her to say that it had been good news in a weird way. The idea of Jake’s suffering being almost over would be a relief. “Can you just tell me what’s up? Did my mom say something to you—”

“No, nothing like that.”

Stella sat on a wrought-iron bench next to the parking lot. She was quiet for a while, playing with her car keys, twisting them around her index finger over and over again.

“How can you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Everything. All of this. For your brother.”

Olive was taken aback. “I… I don’t have a choice.”

Stella stared forward. “I was sitting in the lobby. And someone came in for a tour. They were talking about how they have a whole unit for Parkinson’s for when families can’t manage the care at home.” She swallowed and then her pace of speaking got even faster. “There are brochures. I grabbed one.” She opened her fist and the shredded remains of a pamphlet was there. “I just need to know how you can stand watching the person you love fade away. I don’t want to. I don’t fucking want to, Olive.” Her hands trembled as she tore the paper into tinier scraps. “I just want him to be better. I know how selfish that sounds.”

All Stella had allowed out before was a single tear, but now they poured out of her eyes. “I’m fine. I’m fine.” She bowed her head, angling her face away.

Olive brought gentle hands to Stella’s shaking arms. “You’re not fine.”

After a hesitation, Stella’s eyes lifted to meet Olive’s gaze. “Isn’t I’m fine the socially acceptable response when you’re having an emotional breakdown in public?” Stella said through tears, echoing their first real conversation in the airport terminal when it had been Olive crying.

Olive wiped a few tears away from Stella’s cheeks. “You don’t say that if the person with you wants to comfort you.”

Not if the person you’re with would change the world if there was a way to make it stop hurting you.

Stella seemed to read some part of what Olive was thinking in her face, because she cried harder. Olive would never have imagined such broken sounds could come out of Stella. She wished she had something wise to say or something that could help, but there was nothing, so she held her.

“I’m sorry,” Stella said. “I was supposed to be here to be your support and now I’m a mess.”

“Be a mess. Be a crying goddamn mess about this. That’s okay.”

“It doesn’t feel okay,” Stella said, taking in a shuddering breath.

“It’s not going to feel okay. But it’s okay to feel.”

It was hard to tell after a while if Stella was shaking because she was still crying or because both of them were shivering in the freezing temperatures. “I never cared that I didn’t have brothers or sisters. It never bothered me that my other asshole ‘father’ left us.” She used air quotes. “Because my dad was all I needed, but now I’m alone with all this. He’s asking me to help him make all these impossible decisions, and I-I-I have no idea if I’m fucking it all up or not. He made me his medical power of attorney a few months ago, and I freaked out. I’m such a coward.”

“You’re not. You’re doing great.” Olive held Stella tighter. “Believe me, I know. I see how much you care about everything. And… you’re great at logistics, you told me so yourself. I’ve heard Stella Soriano knows how to make a hell of an information binder.”

Stella gave a shaky laugh.

They pulled apart an inch. The cold making each exhalation visible. Olive dug through her bag to find a crumpled plastic package of tissues buried at the bottom. Stella took one and blew her nose.

“Stella?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m here too, okay.”

Stella looked confused.

“I mean, here, just like what you told me earlier. As in if you need to talk about this stuff. Any stuff. I’ll help. You can always talk to me about it, okay? It’s hard to put so much on one person.”