Page 126 of The Warmth of Our Closest Star

I had to. The alternative was too much to consider.

She patted my hands and let go.

“Go get something to eat. Take a shower. Change. Get a nap. And grab him some clothes,” she repeated. “If you give me your number, I’ll let you know as soon as I know which room we’ll be moving him to.”

“Okay,” I said, then gave her my number before asking another question. “Do you think I should call his parents? Anyone else?”

I had no one else to ask at the moment, and I figured a nurse would be familiar with what was most common in these specific situations.

“Well,” she said, thoughtfully, “maybe wait until he’s in his new room. He’s going to be just fine. They might want to call and talk to him and that’ll be easier in a room with a private phone. But, if you feel you need to let them know now, just tell them that you’ll let them know later which room he’s in so they can call.”

“Okay.”

She patted my hand once more. “Go. I’ll take care of Peter until you get back. I promise.”

Nodding, I said nothing else besides a “thank you,” and I made my way out of the surgical recovery area. As I walked through the startlingly bright hallways of the cavernous hospital, my feet echoing off the walls due to their emptiness at such an hour, my mind raced. Equally excited that Peter was fine and traumatized by what had transpired in less time than it takes to braise a roast, I knew I was in a kind of shock.

My feet carried me on autopilot as I made my way to the hospital exit, my mind racing with what had just happened. Most prominently, I couldn’t stop thinking about how Peter could have died. I could have lost him. Once again, Enzo Barbier could have watched someone who meant everything in the world to him disappear from that world.

I had no idea how I would have dealt with losing Peter.

Just as Peter would have felt if I had died having my surgery that I had been too selfish to even think to tell him about.

Like a punch to the gut, the last several years replayed in my head. My selfishness and foolishness washed over me. I had been so concerned with coming to terms with my past that I hadn’t taken the time to embrace my future. I hadn’t embraced my happiness. I hadn’t let the best thing that had ever happened to me become an important part of my existence.

I had let my past rule my present.

Peter, our marriage, and our happiness were all that mattered. I still had to work on myself—and Peter still had to work on making sure I felt like an equal partner. But to think that working on those things separately was a solution was the dumbest idea I’d ever had.

Sometimes, in a person’s life—though hopefully, it’s rare—a person can fix a mistake. Correct a regret. That’s exactly what I decided to do as I left the hospital.

By the time I reached the sidewalk outside of the hospital, I was running—running like I had done when I was in Montreal, trying to distract myself from my problems. Now, as a married man on the downward slope towards thirty in my new homeland, I was running towards my happiness. I couldn’t wait to chase it down, wrap my arms around it, and refuse to let it go.

My feet didn’t carry me to our house. Without being directed, they delivered me to my apartment. The sun was barely rising when I threw the first of my clothes into a suitcase that lay open on my bed. When I went to our house to grab some of Peter’s things for his trip home from the hospital, I would drop off the suitcase. Peter’s first day in the hospital would be the day that I started moving my things back home.

I would never spend another night in the apartment, away from my husband.

A half-hour later, I stood in the living room of my apartment, looking around at the unnecessary, empty life I had made for myself in an attempt to avoid pain.

When the sun rose from the horizon, filling the room with its golden light, I found I knew two things. Storms are unavoidable in life, so you may as well weather them with the people you love—the ones who want to help you adjust the sails. And since storms were unavoidable, it was fucking ridiculous to create more storms simply because you had become accustomed to them.

The Months the World Stood Still

“Have you been watching the news?”

Peter’s voice was tinny, echoing through the cellphone as I sat in front of my computer in our shared office space in the house.

“Not really, no,” I said back. “You know I’ve tried to avoid the news as much as possible ever since that asshole became president. I miss you.”

“I miss you, too,” he said hurriedly, his voice cutting out a bit, “go to the grocery store, babe.”

“What?” I asked.

“Sorry,” Peter seemed to be moving around, shuffling noises echoing through the phone before his voice rang through clearly. “I’m packing right now. It’s a freaking ghost town here. Everyone’s checking out and leaving. Go to the grocery store.”

“Are you coming home sooner?” I asked, confused as I stood from my desk and headed down the hallway to the den. “Did you need me to pick up something specific?”

It had been almost three months since Peter’s appendectomy. I had been living in our home since he returned from the hospital the day after his surgery, which was when they let him leave. In the past three months, I’d managed to move everything back to our house, sold the furniture I had acquired, and settled my lease with the building manager. She had been sorry to see me go, since, like most of her tenants, I had been quiet, paid on time, and rarely bothered her. However, she had let me break my lease without holding me to the fees I’d have to pay for doing so.