Page 144 of Requiem
“You scared the fucking life out of me,” I whisper shakily.
The machines answer instead of her.
I swallow hard before finally forcing myself to look at her again. “I know you can’t hear me,” I murmur softly, thumb brushing carefully across her knuckles, “but I’m gonna talk anyway because if I don’t, I think I might actually lose my mind.”
My laugh comes out broken. I stare at her face for a long moment before speaking again.
“You know, in the waiting room, while I sat with Heather…I remembered something.” I smile to myself. “Do you remember that diner outside Portland?” I ask quietly. “The shitty little twenty-four-hour place with the flickering sign that we went to after camping?”
My thumb traces slowly against her skin.
“This one particular time, you were wearing that oversized gray sweater you stole from me because you said it smelled like me so much.” My voice cracks slightly around the memory. “And you got syrup all over your sleeve because you were half asleep while trying to eat the pancakes you so desperately wanted. So obviously, I wasn’t going to force you to smell like syrup for the rest of the drive home.”
The image hits me so vividly I can almost fuckingseeit. Emma laughing quietly in our tent at three in the morning. It was raining so hard that we could barely hear each other panting and moaning. Then her adorable socked feet tucked beneath her legs in the booth across from me the following morning…
“I remember thinking…” I stop briefly, my throat bobbing. “I remember thinking that I wanted to propose to you so badly. But I was an idiot and didn’t because you were nineteen, and I worried that it would have been too soon.” I sigh. “I realize now that I just should have done it. Maybe things would have been different if we had been planning a wedding instead of me leaving for LA that day. Perhaps my priorities would have saved my life if I…if I had let them.”
The monitors continue their steady rhythm.
I squeeze her hand tighter. “You can’t leave me here after everything,” I whisper. “Do you understand me? You don’t get to come all the way here and save my life, just to lose yours.”
Emotion climbs higher into my throat, suffocating and hot. A wild and desperate anger surges inside my chest, choking me for a few beats. My eyes squeeze shut when I think about losing her. Losing my brother. Losing Micah…
“Please wake up, because I can’t do this again.”
My cheek rests on her arm.
“I can’t bury another person I love.”
***
After I’ve finished crying for what seems like hours beside Emma’s bed, I decide that it’s time to go see my best friend. Reluctantly, I stand, leaving her side. I glance once more at her before slipping out into the hallway. Idon’t know where I’m going, exactly, but I see that there are names outside of rooms. So I walk, half-present and half-not, my gaze landing on every name that I pass. Until, finally, I see his.
M. Prescott.
I stand there longer than I should, just staring at it. They all came here for me, and they might ultimately pay the price.
With a deep breath, I push the door open. The room inside is quieter than Emma’s had been. The monitor beside him ticks steadily, a rhythm that feels weirdly calm for the fact that only hours ago, he was bleeding out in the back of a car.
And when my gaze lands on him, I see that he is awake. His eyes are open, and for a second, we just look at each other without either of us moving. Then his mouth twitches faintly.
“You look like absolute shit,” he rasps.
A breath leaves me that turns halfway from a laugh into a sob, and I have to brace a hand against the bed just to keep myself standing. “You’re one to talk,” I manage, my voice wrecked in a way I don’t even try to hide anymore.
His gaze lingers on me now, studying. “You okay?” he asks.
The question should be simple, but it isn’t. So I just shake my head once. “No,” I admit quietly.
His head tilts, eyes softening. “It’s okay.”
My throat tightens hard, because I have so much to say to him. So much to thank him for.
Heather is asleep in the chair beside him, curled forward like her body finally surrendered to exhaustion after refusing it for too long. Her hand still hovers close enough to his that they could touch if either of them moved an inch.
Micah’s eyes drift past me briefly, toward the hallway, like he already knows what I’m not saying. “Emma?” he asks.
I swallow once before answering. “She made it through surgery,” I say quietly. “She’s sedated. Stable.”
