I can’t deal with it anymore.
I don’t want any of it.
Tears pour out of me, and I try to breathe—sharp pains stab my ribs with each one. My head floats from a lack of oxygen, and all I think is: kill me.
I am miles away from the one person who can talk me down from this edge. From the one person who has been with me every step of my life. Who has shared memories and moments that no one else will ever see. If I give up, she is gone.
I destroy this bond that transcends love, taking her soul with me.
It is the only thing that keeps me breathing.
I watch Connor bite a pill in half with his front teeth. His eyes flicker to mine, full of uncharacteristic concern that he rarely shows anyone.
“Are you putting me to sleep?” I ask.
“Not in the way you’d like,” he says softly. He passes me half of the pill. “I can’t take your pain away, no matter how much I want to.” He pauses. “This is the best I can do for now.”
Every moment of my life has been a mountain that I struggle to climb.
{ 55 }
2 years : 01 month September
LILY CALLOWAY
“Lo,” I say the minute Connor hands him the phone.
He told me that Lo took a sleeping pill, so I only have a few minutes with him.
Tears already stream down my cheeks, picturing them swept up in the Paris riot, footage on almost every news station. Rose and I didn’t know that our sister and the guys were tangled up in it until we called Connor.
I sit on my bed with the comforter pulled up to my chest.
Rose has left the room to tell Poppy that Daisy’s in the hospital. Connor, Ryke, and Lo are in the waiting room, unsure of how badly her injuries are.
Rose and I already checked flights and threw clothes into carry-ons.
“Lily,” he chokes. I hear the torment in his voice. I don’t have to ask where it’s from. The origins are most likely many, vast places.
My throat tightens, and I collect myself for him as much as I can. “I love you,” is the next thing I say.
I can practically picture him pinching his eyes to dam the waterworks, his breathing sharper than usual. “I fucked up,” he says.
“No,” I tell him, as sternly as I can. “You didn’t.”
“You don’t know what I did.”
“It doesn’t matter.” I wish I could hug him. Why do we have to be so far apart?
And then he says with a broken voice, “I’m never going to defeat this.”
“Lo,” I breathe, licking my dry lips. “You’re forgetting something.”
He exhales deeply. “What’s that?”
“We’re in Earth-616. This isn’t an alternate universe.” I clutch the phone tighter, tears falling. “We’re going to have our happy ending.
It’s just going to take us a little while to get there.”
He told me that once. When I hit a low. Now he just needs to remember his own words.
He breathes out again, like a weight is slowly lifting off his chest.
“Do you believe me?” I whisper.
“Every word,” he says. “I want to hold you.”
I smile and wipe the rest of my tears. “You are.”
“Yeah?” he murmurs. “Lily…”
I wait for him to finish his thought, one of my hands gripping my white comforter.
Very softly, he says, “I wouldn’t be here without you.” It is bigger than an I love you. It is a declaration that solidifies what I’ve known for so long.
We aren’t connected by our addictions.
But by our childhood. Souls fused together from the very, very start.
{ 56 }
2 years : 02 months October
LOREN HALE
Since the hospital four days ago, I haven’t been able to produce a sentimental apology for my brother. Every time I try, something worse comes out of my mouth. Staying quiet has better results, but it also tears my stomach to shreds. I’m beginning to think that I hold back just to punish myself.
I run my hand through my hair before readjusting my baseball cap. I glance over my shoulder at the gas pumps, expecting a bombardment of cameras.
It’s quiet, trees rustling in the wind.
“No one is following us,” Ryke reminds me, breaking a layer of tense silence. His eyebrow is stitched, the most severe of his wounds from the riot. I have two broken ribs, but I had to say no to pain pills. It’d be way too easy to rely on them.
Ryke and I stand outside of a gas station in Ohio, a grimy bathroom door in front of us on the side of the building. The road trip began in New York and it’ll end with Ryke climbing a few rock formations in Yosemite, California.