“Look, Carli,” she says. “I wish I could. I really do. But your dad has to be ready to talk to you about it, you know, or it won’t do you any good.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

“No, Carli.”

“Seriously, if it doesn’t do me any good, it’ll be on me. I asked for it.”

“I said no.”

Cole and Daddy walk back in before I can get an answer out of Mom.

Dr. Williams is with them. “It’s time,” she says, two nurses right behind her. One comes over and releases the brakes on my bed, and the two of them together begin to steer me out of the room. Daddy, Mom, and Cole are right behind them.

I guess this is it. It all seems to be happening so fast. The nurses are wheeling me to a room where the doctors are about to take out a part of me . . . a part I’ve lived with my whole life . . . a part I might miss. What if I never wake up?

My bed clears the room and I’m moving down the hall, staring up at harsh, fluorescent lights.

When we come to a set of double doors, Dr. Williams presses a large red button on the wall, they swing open, and we all pass through, Daddy ducking. “The waiting room is just up there to the left,” Dr. Williams says, and points to a space ahead with more puke-pink chairs arranged in a square.

The nurses turn me toward a long hall with more double doors.

Let my family come with me! I want to beg.

Cole grabs my hand.

“We’ll be close, Angel-face,” Daddy says, standing on my right.

Mom puts her hand on my left leg and says, “Just down the hall.”

I look up at my family, all together, wanting so much I can’t have. Wanting to wail like a baby, but instead I close my eyes.

REX

I make it just in time to catch Carli in the hall upstairs. When I see her, my heart starts floating in my chest. At least that’s how it feels. Like there’s nothing attached to it, like it might just go overboard and decide to float off somewhere. And that’s without even seeing her face. Through the large glass windows on the double doors in the hallway, all I can see is her big red hair peeking up over the back of the hospital bed.

On one side of her, a beautiful tall woman with short natural hair is patting her leg. Must be her mom. And on her other side, her brother is holding her hand. Her dad (clearly where Cole and Carli get most of their height from) reaches down to give her a kiss on the forehead. Damn, she’s lucky! Makes me want to push the red button and rush through the doors so I can join in on the love, too.