There are no thoughts - just feelings - ideas of misery. Mrs. Moon’s words drown me like quicksand - closing in over my head.

I can’t breathe-

I can’t breathe-

I’m going to lose him…

But he…he was going to let me…

My sensibilities return like the striking of a match.

Pulling on the first pair of shoes I can get my hands on - still in the little skirt suit I wore to work - I yank the stolen hoodie down over top, so forcefully I hear some threads snap. I guess this is never being returned. Whatever. I don’t even grab a real coat.

Just move.

The shadow is screaming at me, but I move mechanically - like my body is under someone else’s control - I feel the sidewalk thudding beneath my boots but it sounds a million miles away - the whole world churns in an ashen ocean as far as my eyes can see - if you can call it seeing - and not just perceiving - believing in a reality beyond the gray mist trying to crowd out my reason-

I make my way to Kattar’s apartment as fast as is humanly possible and grab the bag out of the closet - slam and lock the front door behind me. My anxiety chews me to pieces until it couldn’t be worse. 

I take a cab to the hospital. 

Fortunately, there’s no one else in the waiting room and I march straight up to the receptionist’s desk - ask too loudly:

“Is Alicia Palmero on the visitor's list for Mr. Kattar Moon?”

The woman looks up from her computer exhaustedly but seems to flinch when she recognizes me.

“Oh,” she turns a nervous shade of red, and stammers through the forced professionalism, “O-of course, ma’am. You’ve been on the visitor's list for the last three days.”

Been on the visitor's…

I almost scoff to myself through the mounting panic and frustration-

Doesn’t want me to come to see him but puts me on the visitor's list. Doesn’t tell me he’s hospitalized but asks his mom to bring him something-

He had to know she was still in San Diego. Did he really intend to wait until she got home to get his hospital bag just so he could continue his little temper tantrum?

I suffer the nurse to lead me to the familiar hospital room and put in the password to let me in, but I wait until the door closes before I step out of the little corridor by the bathroom door to where he can see me.

He makes a good impression of genuine confusion when he lays eyes on me. Even if he didn’t know she would ask me to bring the bag, he had to know I’d find out. 

He turns disturbingly pale and then a sick shade of red, trying to keep his breathing steady. I can only imagine the pain, and I don’t try to.

I can’t manage sympathy today - can’t even cry - don’t even want to.

I think the fury is the only thing keeping me standing.

Tossing his backpack into the seat by the window, I cross my arms over my chest, glaring at the pretty idiot in the white gown.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were rehospitalized?”

He glares back at me, despite the pain, with a steadiness that’s almost impressive, “You were busy.”

“I was busy-” 

I can’t even - this close to going off on one of my demented little tirades - I probably would, if there weren’t other patients. I force my voice to remain steady, and quiet, but hiss venomously, “You don’t think I could take time to visit my best friend when he’s in the hospital?”

“You couldn’t when I wasn’t,” he says flatly, and that strikes the wrong chord. Though it’s not like I didn’t want to. 

I’m not about to go back to apologizing, to surrendering to his moods - not today-

Push back. the shadow-

When I don’t budge, he looks down at the blankets, running his hand over the cotton ocean. 

“It’s not that big a deal,” he mumbles under his breath, like a pouty child. There’s a brief silence, only disturbed by the rustle of the blankets. When he speaks again his tone makes my stomach churn with delicate horror:

“They’ve been telling me since the accident that I’d probably end up paralyzed from the waist down, anyway. They’re planning to do a surgery but they’ve already warned me it’s not expected to work. I guess they’re scared I'll sue if it leaves me completely…”

He can’t finish the sentence, and maybe it’s better that way. Saying it out loud would feel too much like pronouncing a curse. Just the silence knocks the wind out of me.

I can’t make myself think anything that makes sense - that would be helpful.

All I hear is feedback and the screaming - bleeding in - louder than ever-

Completely paralyzed? But? How is that even possible - when he had been recovering? He was just standing less than a month ago…

Kattar looks at me from beneath his hair like he can hear my thoughts.

“The injury was aggravated a few days ago. The…spinal damage…”

“What-what happened? Did you fall-?” I start to stammer and he flashes me a look of black fury.

“I wasn’t walking…” he says bitterly, without explaining any further. 

And maybe I should be mad, or upset.

If today was any other day, I probably would have been crying ages ago, would still be paralyzed on the living room floor-

But all I see is the pain in his eyes, the beads of sweat making his long hair stick to his face and neck as he tries with everything in him not to cry - not to let me see him cry -

And if today was another day - if I felt better than I do now…maybe I would have thought of something comforting to say.

But today isn’t a day for making sense, apparently.

Don’t know what possesses me but I walk over to him without the slightest grain of hesitation - of bashfulness - of worry that I’ll regret this later and sit down on the edge of his bed, taking his face in both of my hands.

“Yah. Viejo.” 

I can feel his furious heartbeat through the delicate skin - red and white and that perfect cashew brown all at the same time. I could find it in me to kiss him right now and forget about anything else - about reason and consequences - but instead, I press his forehead against mine and just breathe. I feel the heart skip beats, flip, somersault, and then calm down into a steady rhythm. I feel the skin growing hot under my fingertips, but I know if I open my eyes now, it’ll break the spell.

I whisper a sort of prayer my mother used to say to my brother and me when we were small.

Peace, my sweet, my heart.

“I can see you,” I say softly, “I’m no idiot, Kattar. We haven’t been friends for 15 years for me to be that blind.” The heart speeds into near panic - 

Not this time - we’re not lying this time-

 “You can pretend - pretend to be as angry and as cold as you like. I still see you. You don’t have to hide that you’re hurting from me.” 

I feel the salt water running down onto my fingertips and my hands - the dark hair shrouding his face…

I make myself let him go, and sit back on the edge. 

He doesn’t raise his head, just sits there staring at the blanket, with the tears running down his nose and freckling the white with uneven spots of watery gray.

But it’s the first time he’s ever cried in front of me. The first time he hasn’t tried to hide it, fight it. 

I take his pale hand in my small one and he squeezes it with all his might. Then the sobs come out like flood waters, like little tsunamis, trying to suffocate - suck the life out of him.

“How’d the injury get aggravated, Kat?”

He shakes his head at the blankets and wipes his eyes with the heel of his palm.

“Not today, Alicia. Some-sometime soon…”

*

I’ll send you something beautiful every day.

He looks at me with an expression that makes my heart flip, but then quickly back at the blankets.

Not-not today.

It’s the wrong - the wrong time.

“Y-yeah. that would be nice. Thank you, Lise.”

I close the front door feeling skittish and hot.

Don’t panic - just breathe.

I’m going to kill myself one of these days with my delayed sense of concern for the future-

But it’s done - can’t fix anything by making myself regret it-

Oh my goodness, I actually-

-Stop-

Now all the emotions - are pounding on the floodgates- rivers of panic and-

God-

-I should paint something-

Now’s the wrong time to start having a panic attack- the wrong time to shut down-

I start smearing the body of a lion on the canvas - the delicate mane-

Now more than ever - when he’s at the edge of losing everything-

Curled up in the grass by a small, scared, scarred coyote with its chin resting in the lion's fur-

I have to be strong for him - keep fighting for him - and there’s the showcase-

With the wildflowers and the grass, rippling and brushing against their sides. 

I have to keep going for his sake-

Paralyzed-

We have to make something out of this armageddon - this disaster-

If nothing else-

Burying its face in the tangled mane-

I can’t- I can’t-

Nuzzling the ugly little mutt…

I pause, staring at the fanciful still life.

Lions and coyotes. 

Somebody tell them they make no sense.

I raise one hand and caress the half-dried mane, getting tacky beads of cocoa brown stuck to my fingertips.

It’s never ached this bad before - burned this hot before - and it’s the worst time it’s ever been-

I can’t-can’t think like this - be rational.

Now is the wrong time-it’s the worst time - to -

-For heaven’s sake, Alicia!

You’ve gotta keep it together.

Says the body weeping in front of the canvas.