“I still can’t believe you’re getting married.”

Gabrielle sounded so wistful – something entirely uncharacteristic of her – that I had to look up from the menu I’d been studying for the last few minutes. She was staring out the window of the restaurant at the steady stream of cars driving past, chin propped up in the palm of her right hand. The fingers of her other hand were occupied with picking at the white tablecloth that covered the table she, Taleah and I were sitting at. With Taylor and I having set a date to get hitched, Taleah had taken Gabrielle and I out to lunch at Jasmine Rice, a Thai restaurant in Wollongong, so that we could start to figure out a few things. I had no doubt that Taylor would be doing the same with Isaac and Zac once he had recovered from surgery and the three of them had a spare moment or two during the recording of their next album.

“You’ll get married one day,” I said.

My sister scoffed at this. “Yeah, right. The government’s full of queerphobes. It’s never gonna happen.” Here she tore her gaze away from the window and fixed it on me. “More to the point, I can’t believe you’re getting married to Taylor fucking Hanson. How the fuck did you manage that?”

I let out a quiet chuckle at this. “Honestly Gabs, sometimes I can’t believe it myself.”

“Speaking of,” Taleah interjected, “how did his appointments go?”

This time I sighed, trying not to sound as tired and stressed as I felt. “He’s still in remission – that’s the good news.” The only good news, I added silently. “His oncologist said he has a myxoma in his heart. It’s a sort of benign tumour.” I rubbed my eyes a little. “And on top of that, his cardiologist not only confirmed the myxoma, but one of his heart valves is damaged and he’s got an arrhythmia.”

“Bloody hell,” Gabrielle whispered.

“Yeah. He hasn’t got a letter or anything about it yet, but he’s on the waiting list for surgery. It’s supposed to happen before the middle of next month.”

“Is it being done at Wollongong Hospital?” Taleah asked.

I shook my head. “No, up in Sydney. Wollongong doesn’t handle heart surgery. Dr. Whelan’s referring him to Prince of Wales.” I picked at a loose thread on the hem of my shirt. “Hopefully it’ll be soon. I never thought waiting would be this hard.”

It wasn’t long before a waitress came to take our orders for lunch – Taleah’s lemongrass chicken stir-fry, Gabrielle’s panang curry, and a chicken pad thai for me. As soon as the waitress had gone off to the restaurant’s kitchen, Taleah reached down to her bag and took out a spiral-bound notepad and a black biro. “Right then,” she said as she flipped the notepad open and took the cap off her biro. “You’ve set a date, yeah?”

“For now, yeah,” I replied with a nod. “Eighteenth of March 2017. We really wanted it to be on our anniversary, but that’ll be a Friday. It’s not fair to expect everyone to take a day off work or school on a weekday just to watch us get hitched.”

“That’s fair,” Taleah said, and she wrote this down. “Your anniversary’s the seventeenth, yeah?”

“Yeah. So it’s right after our actual anniversary, but not on the actual day itself.”

“You could get married in three years’ time instead,” Gabrielle suggested. “That way you’d be able to get married on your anniversary, because it’d be a Saturday and nobody would have to take time off.”

“We could,” I agreed. “But I’m not making that decision by myself – it’s something we need to decide together. I’ll see what he thinks once he’s better.”

“Is there anything you absolutely don’t want?” Taleah asked. “Because that’s just as important as what you want, possibly even more so.”

I nodded. “There are a couple of things. We’ve decided that we don’t want a massive invite list. Good friends and immediate family only.”

“Does immediate family include grandparents, nieces and nephews?” Taleah asked. Her biro was hovering over her notepad as she spoke.

“In this case, yes,” I replied. “I think Mum would crack the shits something fierce if they were excluded. Tay’s mum might too.”

“It’s not about what will make Mum happy, Rue,” Taleah reminded me, but she wrote this down anyway.

“I know that. I still don’t want her moaning at me about it.” I picked up my glass of orange juice and took a couple of sips from it. “Other thing is that we don’t want a religious ceremony. Neither of us are religious so it’d be pretty pointless.”

Taleah nodded and wrote this down as well. “That’s pretty fair.” She tapped the nib of her biro against her notepad. “Have either of you given any thought to where you want to get married?”

“Nope. Not yet. But probably somewhere that’s easy for everyone to get to.” I tapped my fingernails against my glass of juice. “I doubt we’ll decide until after Tay’s better. He’s under enough stress as it is, and right now more stress is the last thing he needs.”

“No point in rushing things when you have plenty of time,” Taleah said, perfectly summing my thoughts up. “Just don’t leave things too late, though.”

“We won’t, Leah. Don’t worry.”

By the time lunch wound up just after one-thirty, I had figured out a few things that were my responsibility alone – the style of my wedding dress being one of those things – and with Taleah’s help had hashed out a few other things that would need to be a joint decision with Taylor. Gabrielle headed off on her own to meet up with her girlfriend, leaving Taleah and I to head back up to Thirroul by ourselves. Almost as soon as I’d climbed into the front passenger seat of Taleah’s Holden Captiva, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and texted Taylor.

On my way home :) lunch was good, figured out a few things for when we get hitched. Hope you were able to get some practice done. Love you xo

Normally I would have been worried by not getting a reply straight away, but I knew that Taylor would either be in the middle of band practice or having a much-needed nap. I didn’t want to interrupt the three of them or wake him up, so I locked my phone and slipped it into my handbag, resolving to check it again once we were a bit closer to home.

But even so, the whole drive back to Thirroul, almost from the moment Taleah had pulled out of her parking spot behind the restaurant, I felt uneasy and on edge – why I felt that way, though, I had no idea.

It wasn’t long before I figured it out.

The very first thing I saw when Taleah pulled her car into the driveway at home was Zac. He was sitting in one of the cane chairs that Taylor and I had set up on the front porch, staring straight ahead with his arms wrapped around himself. Something deep down inside, I wasn’t entirely sure what, told me that he had been sitting there for quite a while.

“What’s he doing?” Taleah asked as she put the handbrake on. She sounded about as confused as I now felt, and I wasn’t sure I liked it.

“No idea,” I replied with a frown. “Can you wait while I find out what’s going on? Hopefully they’ve just had a fight or something and he’s come outside to cool off.”

“Yeah, of course.”

I managed a small smile and popped open the passenger side door. “Thanks Leah.”

The unease I’d felt during the drive home steadily intensified as I slipped through the front gate and walked up the driveway toward the house. As I got closer, I could make out some of the smaller details that I hadn’t been able to make out while I’d still been in the car. Not only was Zac visibly shaking, but I could instantly tell that he’d been crying – something that, in the two years that we had known each other, I’d never known him to do. In his lap was the T-shirt that Taylor had been wearing when I’d left the house not even three hours earlier – and on top of the T-shirt was something that made my heart sink and my blood run cold.

Taylor’s phone.

“Zac?” I asked, willing my voice to stop shaking as I spoke. “What’s going on?”

It felt like forever before I got a response. When Zac finally did speak, I immediately understood why it had been so hard for him to answer.

“We were working on a new song, and he said he wasn’t feeling well,” he said at last. “So we stopped practicing.” He wasn’t looking at me while he said this. “We were on our way out of the practice space so that he could go and lie down when-” Here he broke off and swiped a hand across his eyes. “He wouldn’t wake up,” he finally managed to get out, his voice just about breaking.

I sat down hard in the other chair, the words Zac wasn’t saying hitting me like the proverbial tonne of bricks, and stared down at the toes of my sneakers. “Shit,” I just barely whispered, feeling cold all over.

“Rue? Is everything all right?” I heard Taleah call out, the engine of her car cutting out a second or two later. I looked up from my feet just in time to see her climbing out of the driver’s seat.

“No!” I called back, wincing at the way my voice cracked on that one word, before turning to Zac. “Please tell me someone called an ambulance.”

Zac nodded. “Isaac did.”

“Wollongong?” I asked, and he nodded again. “All right, come on.”

The twenty minute drive back into town felt like it lasted an eternity. I found myself relegated to the back seat of the car behind Taleah, having decided to take that particular seat partly to save my knees from being rammed into by the back of the front passenger seat, but also so I could keep an eye on Zac. For most of the trip down from Thirroul he stared straight ahead, but I managed to catch his eye in the rearview mirror just once, right as Taleah drove beneath the Elliotts Road bridge in Fairy Meadow. They looked empty, their usual lively spark missing. I knew it wouldn’t return until we knew that Taylor was going to be okay.

Taleah dropped Zac and I off outside the 7-Eleven in Darling Street, across the street from the entrance to the hospital’s Emergency department. “Are you two going to be all right?” she asked as I closed the car door behind me. Through the car’s tinted windows I could see Zac – he had moved away from the side of the car and closer to the 7-Eleven’s driveway, looking down at what I guessed were his feet with his arms wrapped around himself once more, almost as if he was trying to stop himself from falling apart.

“Definitely not,” I replied. “Can…” I swallowed hard. “Can you come in with us?”

“Of course I can,” Taleah said. “Just let me find somewhere to park, okay?”

“Thanks, Leah.”

Taleah took her right hand off the steering wheel and put it on my shoulder, giving it a quick squeeze. “I’ll be right back,” she assured me, and I nodded before stepping away from the car and walking behind it to the kerb. Almost as soon as I’d stepped up onto the footpath, Taleah was chucking a U-ey in the hospital’s driveway and heading back down the street. I watched her drive off until she hung a right into Loftus Street, and as soon as I could no longer see the gleaming silver of her four-wheel-drive I crossed the footpath to where Zac was standing. He had moved away from the driveway, and was leaning against the low fence that surrounded the 7-Eleven’s little garden, arms still wrapped tightly around himself.

“I won’t ask if you’re okay,” I said as I settled myself next to him. I didn’t miss the way he moved closer to me, or how much he was shaking. “I know I wouldn’t be.”

“I’m definitely not okay,” he replied, his voice almost too quiet to be heard over the early afternoon traffic that streamed along Crown Street. “I…” He trailed off and shook his head a little. “I don’t think I’ll ever be okay again.”

Anything I might have said in response to this was interrupted by an ambulance pulling into the driveway of the Emergency department across the street, red lights flashing and siren wailing. It was lost completely just moments later when I saw Taleah walking back up the street toward Zac and I.

“Ready?” she asked once she had reached us.

“Honestly? Not in a million years,” I replied. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Zac shaking his head, as if he was agreeing with me, and I let out a quiet sigh. “But I know I’ll regret it if I don’t go in.”

“I know it’s hard,” Taleah said, and I nodded mutely. “But I’ll be with you the whole time. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said quietly.

It didn’t take us long to find Isaac once we were inside the hospital. He was sitting on a bench just outside the doorway that led to the Emergency department, at the head of a long, brightly-lit corridor that stretched all the way down to a set of red double doors, head tipped back against the wall and eyes closed. As soon as Zac dropped down onto the bench, though, Isaac opened his eyes and looked up at Taleah and I. “Hey,” he said as he straightened up. He sounded exhausted, and I wasn’t entirely sure I blamed him. “I’m guessing Zac told you.”

“Yeah,” I said quietly. “Have you heard anything?”

He shook his head. “Not yet. But it’s only been, what…” Here he trailed off, and I was almost certain I could see a bunch of little cogs and wheels turning in his head. “Hour and a half since we got here?”

“Something like that,” Zac said quietly. He scrubbed a hand over his face. “It took an ambulance ten minutes to get to your place, then a quarter of an hour after that to-” He broke off and squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head.

“It’s okay, take your time,” Taleah said, and Zac nodded before continuing.

“Once the ambulance left it was something like fifteen minutes before Isaac texted me to let me know they’d got to the hospital. I don’t know exactly how long it took them to get here.”

“Ten minutes,” Isaac said. He let out an exhausted-sounding sigh. “The longest ten minutes of my life.”

“Excuse me.”

Those two words were all it took for the four of us to be silenced, and for Taleah and I to look back over our shoulders. Standing there in the corridor was a petite woman with dark brown hair pulled into a ponytail and bright green eyes, a stethoscope draped around her neck, and an iPad in her hands. The name badge pinned to her shirt read Dr. Vicki Frobisher. I wasn’t sure how, but I knew that whatever news she had wasn’t good.

“Are you Jordan Hanson’s family?” she asked. I didn’t miss the way she used Taylor’s first name, rather than his middle name like we were all used to. I figured she either didn’t know that he never used his first name unless he absolutely had to, or she was trying to protect his privacy.

“That’s us,” Taleah said, and I felt her slip her hand into mine and squeeze it tightly. “Is…is he all right?”

Dr. Frobisher just looked at us for a few moments before letting out a quiet sigh. “We should talk.”

The doctor ended up leading us up to the third floor, to a waiting room just down the corridor from the Intensive Care Unit. The sight of those foreboding grey double doors, even despite the splash of bright aquamarine that had been painted diagonally across them, made something akin to fear clench itself in a tight fist around my heart.

“Are you okay?” Taleah asked me quietly as we settled ourselves on one of the lounges in the empty waiting room, Dr. Frobisher closing the door behind us before pulling up a chair and sitting down in front of us.

I shook my head. “I’m terrified, Leah,” I whispered, willing myself not to start crying. The last thing I needed right now was to lose it in front of some doctor I didn’t know. “What if-”

“Don’t talk like that,” Taleah interrupted me, her tone gentle and not quite chiding. “He’s going to be okay, I promise.”

Dr. Frobisher cleared her throat, and both Taleah and I fell silent. Her hand found mine again, and I held onto it like it was a lifeline – as if it was the only thing keeping me grounded.

“It’s too early to say what Jordan’s prognosis is,” Dr. Frobisher said. “But that he has survived long enough to reach hospital is a good sign – generally, only six percent of people who experience a cardiac arrest at home survive this long.”

“When will you know if he’s going to be okay?” Zac asked.

“I can’t say for certain. But I should have a fairly good idea within the next seventy-two hours.” She was silent for a few moments as she tapped away at her iPad. “Now, as I understand it, he’s currently on the waiting list for surgery at Prince of Wales in Sydney – is that correct?”

I nodded. “Yeah, he’s supposed to be having a myxoma removed and his mitral valve either repaired or replaced. His cardiologist said it would probably be happening sometime in the next month.” I started worrying at the hem of my T-shirt. “Is this going to affect that?”

“I’ll be meeting with his cardiologist to determine that during the next few days – that’s Dr. Whelan, correct?”

“That’s correct, yes,” Isaac replied.

“It’s very likely that Dr. Whelan will make a recommendation that he be transferred to Prince of Wales as soon as possible, so that he can undergo emergency surgery. Again, I can’t say for certain when that will be, but it’s likely to happen as soon as his condition is stable enough for travel. That could be in a few days, or sometime during the next few weeks.”

Here Dr. Frobisher gave us a smile that I took to be sympathetic. “I know this must be a shock to you all,” she said gently, and I nodded. “And I know you’re anxious to see him. But as he’s currently in Intensive Care, I can only allow immediate family to visit.”

“How many visitors can he have?” I asked.

“Two at a time.” She glanced at her watch. “Unfortunately, visiting hours won’t be resuming until three o’clock, but you’re welcome to wait here until then.”

“Thank you, Dr. Frobisher,” Isaac said. I couldn’t help but notice how tired he sounded, and I knew there was no way I could blame him.

“It’s no trouble at all,” she replied with another smile.

Somehow, I managed to hold things together until after Dr. Frobisher left. Almost as soon as the door of the waiting room had closed behind her, the first tears began pricking at my eyes, and I put my head down and cried. I didn’t resist when Taleah pulled me into a tight embrace, one of her hands stroking my hair as I broke down.

“We need to tell Mum and Dad,” I just barely heard Zac saying – he sounded dangerously close to tears. “Fucking hell. How are we going to do this?”

“It’s not fair,” I sobbed out, my breath hitching in my throat. “Taleah it’s not fair…”

“I know, love,” Taleah whispered, and I felt her press a kiss to the crown of my head. “I know.”

The next two weeks were the loneliest, tensest and most agonising that I had ever experienced. It was the first time since Taylor and I had properly met and started going out that we had gone longer than a day or so without seeing one another, and the first time since we had moved in together that we had been apart. There was always someone else in the house – whether it was Taylor’s brothers, his parents, my siblings or my parents – but I went to sleep each night and woke up each morning on my own, alone in the bed that we’d shared for nearly a year and a half. The morning after it had happened, I’d woken up alone, thinking that he’d just gone for an early morning surf and would be home soon. When the reality of it had hit me, I’d broken down all over again. Knowing that he was so close, but at the same time so far away, was one of the worst feelings in the world.

The second weekend after everything had gone so horribly wrong, I pulled my car into a parking space on the Lowden Square side of Wollongong train station and turned off the ignition, letting out a tired sigh as the engine cut out and started ticking over. Sophie was on her way down from Newcastle – the two of us had been talking on Facebook earlier that morning while she had been on the train to Sydney, and I’d offered to pick her up when her train got into Wollongong. We had planned to have both her and Mattie visit for at least the last few weeks, but with everything that was happening Sophie had decided to come alone, with Mattie volunteering to hold down the fort and keep everyone back in Newcastle updated.

Just got to wollongong traino, I tapped into a new message to Sophie. How far away are you?

Train just left north gong. See you soon :)

Sure enough, not even five minutes later the train that Sophie had caught from Sydney was rolling into the station, gliding to a stop alongside platform two a minute ahead of schedule. I didn’t move from my spot next to the station exit as the train doors opened and let a teeming mass of passengers disembark, instead waiting until the platform had mostly cleared. The absolute last thing I wanted or needed was to be knocked off my feet by someone in too much of a hurry to watch where they were going.

It didn’t take me long to spot her. She was standing right next to the yellow line that ran the length of the platform, almost directly opposite the benches beneath the windows of the stationmaster’s office, her head bowed and hands tensed around the long handle of her suitcase. “Sophie!” I called out, not waiting for a response before starting down the platform toward her.

“How is he?” she asked almost immediately, right after we’d embraced. She looked and sounded incredibly worried, and I didn’t blame her one bit for it.

“He…” I trailed off and rubbed my eyes, trying to hide how tired and anxious I felt. “He’s hanging in there,” I finished. I didn’t miss the way my voice cracked as I spoke. “Hasn’t woken up yet, but he’s still here. That-” I broke off and squeezed my eyes shut, and sucked in a sharp breath in an attempt at staving off the tears that were trying to fall. “That’s the main thing right now,” I finally managed to get out.

Rather than head straight up to the hospital and sit around in the Intensive Care Unit waiting room until visiting hours resumed, I drove us out to Stuart Park. The park was full of people – something not all that surprising, considering it was just after midday on a Saturday – and I ended up driving almost all the way to the end of Cliff Road in search of a parking space. I finally found a free disabled space that looked out toward Fairy Creek and swung my car into it. For the longest time after I’d cut the ignition, neither of us moved or said a word.

“I never thought it would be this hard,” Sophie said at last, breaking the silence that we had fallen into.

“Thought what would be this hard?” I asked, not entirely sure what she meant.

“Just…” She let out a quiet, shaky sigh that I was pretty sure was hiding tears. “I thought him getting sick and everything was rough,” she said. “I honestly thought that would be the hardest thing he would ever have to go through. But this almost feels like it’s worse.”

“Dr. Frobisher – she’s his doctor right now – told us what could happen when he wakes up,” I said. I didn’t even want to consider the possibility that Taylor would never wake up – it hurt too much. “He could lose his memory, he could start having seizures again, he could be paralysed, he…” I trailed off and let out a sigh of my own. “He might not be able to talk or sing ever again.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah.”

In the rearview mirror, I watched Sophie close her eyes and tip her head back against the headrest of her seat. “Would you be able to let him go?”

“What?”

“I hate that it’s even a possibility, and I really hate that I’m even asking you this. But if that doctor of his came back and said that there’s no chance of him ever waking up again, would you be able to let him go?”

“I…” I folded my arms on the steering wheel and leaned forward, burying my face into my wrists. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I’ve never had to think about it before.” I raised my head just enough so that I could look over at Sophie. “What about you? Would you be able to?”

Sophie didn’t say anything for the longest time. When she finally did speak, I could tell it was something that she had given a lot of thought to.

“No. Absolutely not. He’s my best friend in the entire universe, how could I?”

“But…” I prompted her, sensing that there was something else she wasn’t saying.

“But…” she echoed, and she released a shaky breath. “I would. If I had to, I would let him go. It’s not about me and what I want. When it comes down to it, it’s about him, and what’s best for him. And if what’s best is letting him go, then as much as it would kill me to do it, I’d do it in a heartbeat.”

“I’m glad he has you.”

Sophie gave me a small smile. “The feeling is entirely mutual, trust me.”

We ended up arriving at the hospital right as visiting hours resumed for the afternoon. Dr. Frobisher met the two of us as we stepped out of the lift onto the third floor of A Block. “I have some good news for you,” she said, and for the first time in what felt like an eternity I felt something akin to hope. “I have been talking with Dr. Whelan, and with the cardiothoracic surgery team at Prince of Wales, and we all agree that Taylor is stable enough for surgery.”

“When?” Sophie asked, and Dr. Frobisher glanced sharply at her before replying.

“Tomorrow morning,” she said. “He’ll be airlifted to Sydney tonight, at the conclusion of visiting hours. If you have any other family members who haven’t yet had a chance to visit, I’d advise you to let them know as soon as possible.”

“I’ll do it,” I said immediately. “Thanks Dr. Frobisher.”

“It’s no trouble at all, Ruby.”

As soon as Dr. Frobisher was out of sight, I almost collapsed out of sheer relief. It was the first piece of good news that any of us had had in nearly two weeks. The nightmare we had found ourselves trapped in wasn’t over, not by any means, but there was finally a tiny spark of light at the end of the interminably long tunnel – one that I badly wanted to become a flame.

“He’s going to be okay,” Sophie said – she almost sounded like she couldn’t believe what had just happened. “Right?”

“I don’t know,” I replied. “But I really hope so.” I let out a slightly hysterical laugh and gave Sophie the first smile I’d managed in days. “Go and see him. I made sure they put you on his visitors’ list.”

Sophie gave me a smile of her own. “See you in a bit, yeah?”

I didn’t wait for Sophie to start heading down the corridor to the Intensive Care Unit. Instead I headed off in the opposite direction, toward the waiting room. To my relief it was empty, and once I’d closed the door behind me I pulled my phone out of my pocket and started scrolling through my contacts.

“Ruby, hey,” Isaac said once he had answered his phone. He sounded almost as exhausted and worried as I felt – as we’d all been feeling for the last couple of weeks. “What’s up?”

“I just talked to Dr. Frobisher,” I replied. “Is Zac around?” Almost as an afterthought, I hurriedly added, “It’s good news, I promise. At least I’m pretty sure it is.”

“Yeah, he’s around here somewhere. Hang on.”

It didn’t take Isaac long to track Zac down. Listening to the two of them talking to one another was a harsh reminder of what was missing, and I blinked hard against the tears that were pricking at my eyes.

“So what’s up?” Zac asked, and I quickly swiped a hand over my eyes before replying. Neither of them could see me, but at the same time I didn’t want to sound like I’d been crying. “Isaac said you had some good news.”

“Yeah, um…” I took a deep breath and let it out as steadily as I could. “Dr. Frobisher’s been talking to Dr. Whelan, and they’ve both been talking to some doctors at Prince of Wales. They think he’s stable enough to go up for surgery.”

There was no response for what felt like forever, and I was just about to ask if they had heard me when Zac spoke.

“You’re not kidding, right?” he asked. To me he sounded wary, as if he didn’t want to let himself believe that something good was happening, and I didn’t blame him in the least.

“I promise I’m not kidding,” I assured him. “As soon as visiting hours are over tonight, he’s going up to Sydney. Dr. Frobisher said he’ll be having surgery tomorrow morning.” I quickly swapped my phone to my other hand. “I’m going to see if they’ll let me go up with him – if they won’t, can one of you give me a lift up there?”

“Yeah, of course,” Isaac replied. “Do you want us to tell everyone else?”

“Please,” I replied, trying not to sound too grateful. “Sophie already knows – she was with me when Dr. Frobisher told me what was happening – but I’m not sure I can handle telling everyone else who needs to be told.” I dropped my head into my free hand. “Basically just tell them what I told you, and that they’ve got until eight o’clock tonight if they want to visit before he goes up to Sydney.”

“Will do. We’ll see you later this arvo, yeah?”

“See you.”

Almost as soon as I hung up, I could feel more tears threatening to fall. This time, though, I let them. I put my head down and finally allowed the tears to come – tears of not just fear and worry, but also of relief.

He wasn’t out of the woods yet. Not when there were still at least two major hurdles left to be overcome. But once the universe was done using him for target practice, even if it was just for a little while, Taylor would be coming home. All would be right with the world once more.

Somehow I should have known it was too good to be true.