Alan led me outside onto the hospital roof. A Chinook wind blew past, lifting my hair in the warm-winter breeze.
"What are we doing up here?" I asked, looking around at the city lights and the icing of snow on the roof's edge.
He pulled me into an almost too-tight embrace, one hand on the back of my neck, the other pressed between my shoulder blades, with his cheek against mine.
The touch, so reassuring and comforting, made that night's events so much more true, and it sent me into a flurry of tears.
"Please be okay," he whispered.
"I almost lost him," I said in a wavering voice caught on tears. "I don't know what I would have done, I was so scared--"
"But he's okay, and he'll be okay from now on. I know how awful tonight was, but it's already tomorrow. It's over."
"I miss my mom," I murmured.
"I know you do. You have all along."
"I can't keep losing the people I love, Alan, I'm scared to be alone."
"You're not going to be."
Crying hard, I pleaded, "Don't leave!"
Alan's fingers surfed through my hair. He looked me in the eye. "I wasn't planning on it. The only way I'd ever leave is if you asked me to." He smiled. "But maybe we should go in. It's cold."
"I just…I just want to sit for awhile," I said quietly, sinking to the cold cement and leaning back against the brick ledge. "But you can go inside if you want."
"Are you asking me to leave?" he asked, grinning.
I looked up at him, probably looking like a depressed, allergy-prone rabbit with my water eyes and pink nose. I smiled, sniffling. "Nope."
He settled down beside me, pulling his long legs to his chest. "Then I'll stay. Hey, have you heard of that new kid show? Sesame Street?"
"Uh, heard of it, yes, but I haven't seen it."
"It's incredibly frightening. I mean, they've got this green hobo monster living in a trash can and an eleven foot tall bird," he said in disgust. "How can that not give children nightmares?"
I grinned. "Has the hobo monster been giving you nightmares, Alan?"
"I refuse to answer that," he replied cheerfully.
I laughed, done with crying.
Everything spinning in my mind began to slow down, calmed by the amount of love I felt for and from Alan. A light December breeze touched us but I barely felt it. He smiled softly and tousled my hair.
Tonight was over because it was tomorrow. Alan had told me once that if it wasn't okay, then it wasn't the end. But he promised that everything was going to be okay now, and I believed him, so…the end.