Chapter Twenty-Seven

                                    

                                          
The elevator refuses to budge, traveling in the same, usual slow pace despite my silent pleadings for speed. I want to bang my hands against the wall to make it go faster, repeatedly and with enough strength that it'll miraculously soar to the floor I need to be at, and should have been at—hours ago. 
The three minutes to the car, and the ten minutes it took to get here feel like a waste of time. 
Precious time. 
And now we're passing floor twenty-three, and there's nothing I can do but waste more. 
Giovanni held my hand on the entire way here, but now he stands beside me on the ascent, a good distance away. I'm glad for it. The last thing I want is him consoling me.
Norman's still alive. It hasn't happened yet. 
There's still time. 
There's still a chance it won't happen today. 
The elevator comes to an abrupt halt and I slip through the slim exit before the doors have even parted halfway, sprinting into the hallway. The front door is unlocked. The apartment appears to be empty, but as I jump down the steps inside, I notice the nurse standing outside of Norman's bedroom. 
When Deborah sees me, her face is a mixture of emotions. None of them overpower the other. She shows me just enough compassion, pity and concern to be respectful. I drop my purse on the ground and shake my head, swallowing. 
How could this happen? It's too soon. 
"What happened?"
"As you know, Mr. White has been fighting off a relatively mild cold for the past couple days...unfortunately, it's developed into pneumonia, Miss Bardot." 
Her words take a moment to process, only because in my research on stage-four cancer, pneumonia is a killer. A quick killer. And my immediate, horrifying thought is that he won't be able to come back from this. And if he could, would he even want to?
She tells me how he progressively became worse—his coughing sharpened, a fever spiked, and he was almost completely unresponsive by the time the doctor arrived. I want to shout, ask why she didn't call sooner, but don't have it in me to yell. Giovanni rests a hand on my shoulder as she confirms my suspicions and explains how hard it would be for him to recover this progressed in his disease. 
He was sitting up today. Yes, he looked sick. He's looked sick for months. But he was okay when I left. Why did I leave? God, why did I leave? 
He's been alone this whole time. 
I think about how sick I became just a few days ago, and dread fills my belly. Dread drowns out the woman's voice, or Giovanni's replies. What if I got him sick? What if my precautions didn't work? 
"Scarlett?"
I tear my eyes off the wall at her voice. "His lungs are inflamed, and filled with fluid. He will be extremely tired and weak, when he is conscious. Due to the fever, he's experiencing chills. He's itchy, which is very common in stage four. With pneumonia, oxygen has trouble reaching blood, which is why his body cells aren't working properly, why he's progressively worsening. Bronchial pneumonia is very hard to treat at this stage, but the doctor is doing everything he can to make Norman comfortable."
"Is he in a lot of pain?" Stupid question.
She shakes her head. "The doctor's given him heavy dosages of pain medication. Mr. White is currently sleeping, but he's stable, which is a good sign."
A good sign for what? He's dying. Stabilizing him is only making this last longer, making him hurt more. 
"Is...is this it?" I whisper, hearing my voice shake, and Giovanni's lips are at my hair.