Page 116 of My Fault

Noah’s face was pale. She stood up and walked over to me, asking in a nervous voice what was wrong.

“It’s my sister. She’s in the hospital. I don’t know what the deal is exactly. Apparently she hasn’t gotten her insulin… I needto go.” I took off running for my room. Noah followed, but the only thing that mattered to me was my five-year-old sister and the fact that the people taking care of her were too stupid to give her the medicine that kept her alive.

“I’m coming with you,” she said.

I looked at her for a few seconds and nodded. Yes, I wanted her with me. My mother would be there…and I hadn’t seen her in three long years.

41

Noah

I’d never seen him so worried—or just one time, if I counted the night he’d found me screaming in the closet. He looked the same now, sad and frustrated. We were in his car. He was driving with his left hand and holding my hand with the right, just over the gear shift. I had no idea his worries could affect me so deeply. I wanted to wipe away that sorrow and make him smile the way I had those past few hours, but I knew it was impossible. Not many people could make Nicholas Leister break down and give everything, but I knew his sister was one of them. What little he’d told me about his mother was enough for me to know that he hated her or at least preferred never to think about her again. Not giving his diabetic sister her insulin was the perfect reason to hate her even more.

We drove in silence. It saddened me that, after being so happy, so together, everything had suddenly crashed and burned, but at least he kept kissing my hand once in a while or stroking my cheek. He was gentle, and each of those caresses stung even as they consoled me. Sleeping with him had meant something, and it was the only thing I could think of when I felt his skin touch mine.

We didn’t even stop to eat. When we reached Vegas six hours later, we went directly to the hospital.

Madison Grason was on the fourth floor of the pediatric wing. As soon as we found out, we took off running. In the waiting room, we saw three people: a couple and a portly woman. The latter walked over to the door when she saw Nick looking at the woman behind her.

“Nicholas, I don’t want you starting a scene,” she said, glancing from him to me and back.

“Where is she?” he asked. In the meantime, the woman in the back of the room had gotten up and was looking at Nick with preoccupation.

“She’s asleep. They’ve administered insulin. She’s fine, Nicholas, she’s going to make a full recovery.”

I squeezed his hand. I wished he would calm down, but he was completely beside himself. He walked past Anne and straight toward the other women. She was blond, and when I saw her up close, there was no doubt in my mind: this was his mother.

“Where the fuck were you? How could you let this happen?” he shouted. The bald man next to her tried to get between them, but she stopped him.

“Nicholas, it was an accident,” she said, calm but with eyes full of grief.

“Leave my wife in peace. We were already sick with worry before you showed up—”

“Fuck you!” Nick was squeezing my hand so tightly it hurt, but there was no way I would try to break free just then—he needed me. “She’s got to have her insulin three times a day. It isn’t rocket science, but what do you expect when you don’t think twice about leaving her in the hands of a bunch of dumb babysitters?”

“Madison knows she’s supposed to take her injections, andshe didn’t say anything. Rose just assumed she’d done it—” the bald guy explained before Nick cut him off again:

“She’s five fucking years old! She needs a mother!”

This wasn’t just an argument about Nick’s sister. That much was clear. He was shouting at his mother because of Maddie but also because of himself. I hadn’t realized how much she’d hurt him until then, but it must have been hard, losing your mother at such a young age. I had lost my father, too, but in a certain sense, I’d saved myself from him, and my mother had always been there for me. Nicholas hadn’t had a father who loved him, just one who gave him money. I hated that woman for hurting him, and I hated William for not caring for his son enough.

I stepped back when a doctor appeared.

“Are you the family of Madison Grason?”

Everyone turned to him.

“She’s responding to treatment. She’ll get better, but she needs to spend the night here. I want to keep an eye on her glucose levels and her condition in general.”

“What’s going on with her, exactly?” Nick asked.

“You are…?”

“Her brother.”

The doctor nodded.

“Your sister’s suffering from diabetic ketoacidosis. That happens when the body doesn’t have enough insulin and it starts burning fat as a source of energy. When this happens, the liver produces ketones, which are a type of acid that is toxic when it builds up in the bloodstream.”