Page 63 of The Flight Risk

“You’re in love with him, Aunt Tess.”

I look down at my feet. “Lottie. It’s so much more complicated than you think…”

“Oh, I hate when adults say it’s complicated. That’s a stupid excuse. I don’t get you two. This does matter. Love is the only thing that matters in this whole world and you found it with Adam.” She angrily throws her shoes in my room. “God, you think you’re so different from her.”

“Different from who?”

“My mom. But you are just like her! Always running away when things get complicated or seem too good to be true. Look at how she dumped me when I got ‘too hard’ to deal with. She ran off with her new rich boyfriend and left me behind. You did the same thing with Adam.”

Fiery rage simmers in my belly. Lottie hit me where it hurts the most: likening me to my narcissistic sister. The very person I’ve fought my entire life to be so different from. “I am nothing like your mom.”

Lottie backs up a couple of strides from my small kitchen island, a couple of strides further from me, so she is fully in my bedroom. Hurt and disappointment are written all over her face and it kills me that I’m the reason. “Yes, you are. You ruined everything.” Lottie holds onto her stomach. She has to be starving.

“Lottie, please eat. I made your favorite: Nonna Lewis’ chicken and orzo.” A clear peace offering.

Lottie shakes her head. “I’m not hungry. I’m going to bed.” Lottie slams my own bedroom door in my face. Pippa jumps out of my arms and lays down right next to the bedroom door. Lottie must sense she’s there because she creaks open the door just enough so she can let Pippa in, and promptly shuts it again in my face.

I break down in tears and collapse back onto the couch. I pull my favorite cozy blanket over my body and just sit there with everything Lottie told me. You do realize that he was going to ask you to move in with him, right? I close my eyes tight and let the tears roll down my cheeks. Now more than ever I wish I could jet off to an alternate universe where I’m not afraid of love and not afraid of letting someone have my whole heart. And then I cry myself to sleep.

“Aunt Tess, wake up!” I slowly open my eyes and jolt at the sight of Lottie standing right next to the couch.

“Jesus, Lottie. You scared me!” My eyes attempt to focus as I sit up. I flip my phone over and register the time–10 p.m. I’ve only been asleep for a little over an hour, yet I feel like I’ve been sleeping for days. “What’s going on? Is everything okay?”

“I’m really hot. And my stomach is really hurting. Like really, really bad.” She is clutching onto the lower right side of her torso. “I don’t know where you keep your thermometer.”

I press my hand on her forehead–she’s burning up. “Let me go get it.” I rush to the bathroom, swing open my linen closet and grab the thermometer off the top shelf. I nearly trip over Pippa and insert the thermometer into Lottie’s ear. The screen turns red. 102.3. Shit.

Stay calm, Tess. “Okay, Lottie. I need you to get a sweatshirt on. We need to go to the hospital. I think you may have appendicitis.”

She grimaces. “Can you try calling my mom? I’ve been trying for like fifteen minutes and she isn’t picking up.”

“Of course.” Lottie disappears into her room and I tap on Tara’s name in my phone. It rings and rings and rings, then: “Hey, you’ve reached Tara. Leave me a message.”

“Hey, Tara. It’s me, um, I’m taking Lottie to the hospital. I think she has appendicitis and she’s really scared and needs you right now. Please call me or Lottie back as soon as you can. I will try and update you once I know more. Bye.”

I text her immediately after leaving the voicemail with the same message. With the seven-hour time difference and the fact that Tara is notorious for putting her phone on Do Not Disturb, I don’t know if I will be able to reach her until she wakes up and who knows when that will be. Damn it, Tara, why the fuck do you have to be 5,000 miles away right now?

“Okay, Aunt Tess. Let’s go. The pain is getting worse.” Fear and pain laces my niece’s words as tears run down her face. I grab my purse, keys and phone and yell back to Pippa, “Be back, Pippa. Love you.”

I break so many traffic laws I’m just lucky a cop doesn’t stop me on our way to the hospital. I have to hold onto Lottie as we speed-walk up to the nurse’s station in the emergency room.

“Hi, my niece, Lottie, is having a lot of pain in her lower right section of her abdomen and she has a fever of 102. I think she has appendicitis and she needs to see a doctor right away. And her mother is in Paris and won’t pick up her phone. I’m technically her guardian for the time being and we came as soon as we could.”

The nurse puts her hands up. “Slow down, honey. Okay. I need you to fill out these forms. Do you have all of your niece’s insurance information?”

“Yes. I have her insurance card.” That’s the one thing Tara did leave for me in case of an emergency. I just never thought I’d have to use it.

“Perfect. The doctor will see her shortly.” She hands me a clipboard and a pen.

We sit in the waiting room and I fill out the forms as fast as I can. Lottie is laying against my left arm, clearly in pain. Luckily, the doctor quickly calls her back for initial testing. “I’ll be right here,” I tell her. “I’ll come back there as soon as I finish these forms. I promise I won’t leave you.”

I squeeze her hand and she squeezes right back, then disappears behind the secure doors. Once I finish the forms, I give the clipboard back to the head nurse and check my phone just in case I missed a call or text from my sister. I click the side of my phone and stare at the lockscreen that still has a photo of me and Oakley in Chicago. I’m looking at the camera, beaming and he is looking right at me, equally as happy.

Lo and behold, no message or callback from Tara.

I call her two more times before giving up and heading back to the examination room.

I knock on the door and am greeted by the doctor. Lottie is laying on the hospital bed, looking terrified. “Hi, doctor,” I extend my hand and he removes his glove and meets me for a handshake. “I’m Tess Lewis. Lottie’s aunt.”