Free Rule of Thirds, The by Chantel Guertin Page B

up a spill if that’s a job a paid employee does? More importantly, will I ever be in the supply closet to make out rather than to get a mop? Right now, it seems as unlikely as not having any more panic attacks.
    Thankfully, after cleaning the spill, Hannah rewards me with flowers. Not like, she gives me flowers. But she says I can deliver them. Apparently the Handy Helpers—volunteers over 60 —usually deliver the flowers but someone called in sick. The florist is in the atrium, which is obviously my favorite spot in the entire hospital (until the supply closet takes over as makeout central) because of the Dylan sighting, but today he’s not there. The florist disappears into the walk-in fridge and returns with a large bouquet of blue and pink flowers and two balloons—one that says “It’s a Girl!” and the other that says “It’s a Boy!” Shouldn’t you be sure of the sex before sending flowers? Then I realize, duh, it must be twins. Maybe this whole place isn’t all about death, dying, disease and the land of eternal depression after all.
    “Flower delivery,” I say, knocking on room 242 , the way the woman at the florist instructed me. There’s a quiet “Come in” so I push open the door and walk in. A woman about my mom’s age lies on the bed. She gives a half-hearted smile when she sees me. “These are for you, I think,” I say, looking at the tag. “Shelby?”
    She nods. “Thanks. You can put them over there.” She points to the window, where there’s a mountain of bouquets and baskets piled on the sill and below. There has to be at least a dozen bouquets of flowers, two dozen balloons and an army of teddy bears of all different sizes and colors.
    I set the bouquet down. “Wow, you’re popular,” I say. But she doesn’t look very happy. Dark moons underline her eyes, and I realize, this woman hasn’t had a good night’s sleep for weeks.
    “My twins were born three months early.”
    “Oh, are they OK?”
    She says that they’re in the NICU, the neonatal intensive care unit, because they only weigh two pounds each. “I hate that they have to be there. I’m there so much the nurses kicked me out, actually. They said I need to get my rest.” She sighs. “They’re beautiful.”
    “Congratulations?” I say. “Er—I’m sorry?”
    She almost laughs. “I know—I’m confused too. I don’t know whether to be happy I have two beautiful babies or scared for them because they were born prematurely. So it’s almost like I’m not letting myself feel anything.”
    “You have to let yourself feel your feelings,” I say. “That’s what I hear, anyway.”
    “Thank you,” she says. “Feel my feelings—I’m going to think about that.”
    Four floors, nine bouquets and an hour later, I’m going up on the elevator on the way to the fourth floor, having one of those think-sessions that tend to happen on otherwise empty elevators. There’s so much pain in this building, it’s hard not to let it all get you down. There was a little boy lying still in his bed, an old man with a broken hip, another mom with some weird leg infection and another couple of people who didn’t have any idea yet what was wrong with them. The only thing they knew is that they felt like crap. Those hurt the most. I’d seen the beginnings of that story before, and I knew how it ended.
    Then the doors open on 3 , and Dylan walks onto my elevator.
    “Hey,” I say, mustering a smile.
    He looks up at me, somewhere else, and for a moment I have this weird feeling he’s totally forgotten who I am. “Oh hey,” he says. No smile. Nothing. Actually he looks miserable. He presses the button for the ground floor even though the elevator is going up. “Oh,” he says. He looks at me. To see whether I noticed? And the whites of his eyes are kind of gray and his skin looks ashen. Dark circles. He looks down at the book in his hand.
    “What are you reading?” I ask him.
    “Oh, uh . . . what?” he says,