I walked with a nurse toward the changing room, and the moment the hallway was crowded enough, I turned and walked the other way.
I rode the elevator down with the crowd and walked out of the inpatient building.
"The airport, please."
The driver hit the gas, and the hospital shrank behind me.
Leonard sat in the room waiting. Minutes stretched. No one came back. Eventually the silence made him uneasy enough to get up and look.
"Where's Constance? She was just changing."
The nurse frowned. "She finished changing and left a while ago."
Cold sweat broke across his body. He searched the entire inpatient wing. I was nowhere.
Call after call after call. I rejected every one. Leonard lost it.
Then his phone rang.
He checked the screen and exhaled like a man pulled from water. "Connie, did you get lost?"
"Tell me where you are. I'll come get you—"
"I'm at the airport."
"Leonard, let's break up."
Airport announcements echoed through the line. The phone trembled in his hand, his knuckles turning white.
