Chapter 139

The ceiling of Mount Sinai’s third floor is a particular shade of off-white that I have now spent enough time staring at to have opinions about, and my opinion is that whoever chose this color has never had to look at it from a hospital bed while their face throbs and their palms sting and the events of the last three hours replay on a loop they haven’t figured out how to stop yet.

I’m fine. That’s what I’ve decided. I decided it somewhere between the cab and the admissions desk and the examination room where a very kind nurse cleaned the gravel out of my palms with a gentleness that almost made me cry, which I did not do, because I was fine. My cheek has been treated. My knees are bandaged. Nothing is broken. Physically, by every available medical metric, I am fine, and I am going to keep being fine, and the fact that my hands won’t stop trembling slightly is just adrenaline and adrenaline fades and I am going to be completely fine.

Zeke is sitting in the chair beside