The Love of My Afterlife(88)

Cooper looks like reality is starting to dawn on him. “So we can’t actually go back to Earth, Merritt? Ever?”

Merritt’s face falls, her eyes filling with tears. “You’re not glad to be here? With me? It’s pretty cool, once you get used to things.”

A question begins to form at the edge of my consciousness, but it doesn’t get the chance to fully realise because my vision starts to go hazy, the lights in this weird launderette flickering, and I hear a buzzing sound and then a siren.

“Oh!” Merritt gasps. “Are you kidding me? Well, well, well, Delphie. This is a turnup for the books! Looks like you’re getting that kiss after all…”

I sway slightly. Before I know it, Cooper has me in his arms.

“Delphie? Are you okay? What’s happening, M? What’s happening to her? Shit, is she fainting? Delphie, can you hear me? Delphie! No. Come back to me. M, help me! Do something! I can’t lose…”

Sounds start to fade away. I put my hand to Cooper’s face, but the hot sensation of his skin disappears beneath my fingertips into nothing.

I disappear into nothing.





44





I awaken again, a forehead touching my forehead, my nostrils pinched closed by a finger and thumb, lips pressed against my lips. I feel the whoosh of Listerine-flavoured air filling up my lungs and start to cough, spluttering and spitting. The owner of the forehead yells, “She’s alive! She…I saved her! I saved her life, oh my god!”

Pain immediately envelops me, my shoulders throbbing, the evening air stinging a small patch on my cheek, the taste of blood in my mouth. My knee. My knee feels like someone has taken a hammer to it.

I try my best to concentrate on the face above me, the big earnest blue eyes looking imploringly into mine.

Jonah.

“Hi,” he says softly, brow furrowed. He touches my hand and I flinch.

I open my mouth to say something, but he shakes his head.

“Hush. Just stay still, okay?” He looks up, nodding at something or someone I can’t see. “The paramedics are here now. You’re okay.”

My head feels thick and heavy, my heart skittering out of rhythm. There’s a mad burst of activity beside me as a mask is placed over my face and I am lifted by two paramedics onto a trolley. They’re talking to me. I know because I see their mouths moving, but the words seem all jumbled because my head is filled with only one thought.

Where’s Cooper?

I lift my head, and a kind-faced paramedic gently pushes it back down onto the trolley. But not before I see Cooper’s car crashed up against a Land Rover, and there on the ground in front of the cars is Cooper himself.

He’s lying straight, arms at his sides, eyes closed—he looks like he’s playing pretend. Surrounding him are four or five paramedics. One of them is pressing on his chest over and over, his face red with the effort.

“No,” I manage to whisper before I’m wheeled up a ramp and into the ambulance. It takes off, sirens blaring mournfully.

“You’re okay,” Jonah says from my side. What is he doing here? Why is he in here with me? “You’re going to be okay. You crashed your car down the road from my house. I heard the bang from inside and ran out to find you lying on the road. You must have crawled out. You’re safe now, though. You’re okay.”

I’m not okay. Nothing is okay.

My heart punches in my chest, the force of it making my whole body ache. A machine starts to beep and suddenly the paramedic with the kind eyes is above me brandishing a needle. I don’t feel it go in. I don’t feel anything.



* * *





I wake up, god knows how many hours later, in a room with walls made of glass. The pain in my knee is unbearable. I sit up and my whole body feels like it’s been chucked down a full flight of stairs. I’m dressed in a hospital gown, and my leg is wrapped in bandages. My head feels foggy and my mouth is as dry as dust.

“Oh! You’re awake! Do you want some water?”

It’s Jonah again.

He’s sitting on a plastic chair beside my bed. He pushes a bottle of water towards me, but then realising that I could probably do with some help, he unscrews the cap and holds the bottle to my lips. I gulp down the liquid. It dribbles on my chin and plops onto my chest.

“You had surgery,” Jonah says. “On your knee. You have bruised ribs and a glass cut near your ear. But they gave you stitches. There will barely be a scar.”

“Cooper. Where’s Cooper. Is he…Is he…?”

“The man you came in with—Cooper—is there.” Jonah points to the left of me.

I look through the glass window, and there he is. Lying in a bed, sleeping soundly. The relief that he’s not dead bursts out of me in the form of a noisy sob, mixed with a yelp of pain because the movement makes my ribs feel like they’ve been squeezed in a brutal mechanical contraption.

“He…uh…he’s in a coma, I think,” Jonah says.

“A coma. People wake from comas. He’s not dead. He’s going to wake up.”

Jonah doesn’t say anything, just sets his mouth into a stoic line. The stubble is thick on his jaw. His eyes are red, and his linen shirt is crumpled.

“Have you been here all night?”