Chapters (46)
- Cover
- Other Titles
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Friday
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- Saturday
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- Sunday
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- Monday
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- EPILOGUE
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
When she gets to the hospital this time, Nicki immediately knows something isn’t right. In the parking lot she sees her dad’s truck, parked at a weird angle across two spaces, as though he had just abandoned it there. Oh no. She tries to remember how her mother had looked when she visited earlier that morning, whether or not Kate had seemed different. Nicki should have been able to tell; if anyone could, it would have been her, she was the only one who was here every day, the only one who was beside Kate the whole time, the only one of them who really gave a damn. Just because she doesn’t want to sit around and cry about what is happening to Kate doesn’t mean she’s in denial. How can she be in denial about something that’s in her face every single fucking day? The blank look in her mother’s eyes when Nicki says a word she doesn’t understand. Her head hung in humiliation when Nicki has to pick her up after she’s gotten lost, or when she’s pissed herself in the mall because she can’t find the bathroom and doesn’t know how to ask where it is. Nicki has spent the past eight years watching her smart, funny, badass mother slowly deteriorating into a scared, confused shell of a woman. So no, Nicki does not want to talk about how bad things are with Mom. She doesn’t want to talk about it because she has to fucking live it every day.
Ignoring the microphones shoved in her face, Nicki rushes into the hospital, paces in the elevator until it reaches the eighth floor, races down the hall to Kate’s room.
Shawn is standing outside the door. “Nicki,” he says, grabbing for her arm as she tries to push past him. “Wait.”
“Don’t fucking touch me!” she says a little too loud. A nurse at the station looks up from her computer and starts down the hall towards them.
“Nick, she’s gone,” Shawn says.
“Oh god.” Nicki feels her knees start to buckle. “No, no, she can’t be.” The world is spinning. “Oh god, oh god.”
Shawn reaches out to steady her, holding her by her arms. “Nicki, look at me. She’s not dead. She’s gone. Like disappeared gone.”