“The well?” Conrad says. “I’m not aware of one about a well.”
Audrey frowns. “I feel a little unsteady,” she says. “Must be all the wine.” She glances up at the clock on the wall, and I feel something squeeze in my stomach. I look over at Jessica and Tobias. There’s no time, there’s no time, there’s no time.
I can’t stand it any longer. I stand up and walk over to them.
“How’s it going over here?” I ask.
Jessica looks at Tobias. “Well, he’s dead, and it appears he’s going to remain that way, so not great.”
Tobias starts to laugh then. It’s been so long since I’ve heard his laugh. Longer, by far, than the time he’s been gone.
Jessica puts her hand on my shoulder. “I’m still here,” she says. “We’ll work it out, we have the time.” She squeezes my shoulder, taps Tobias on the chest, and goes back to the table.
“I wish I could take you away from here,” he says. He’s looking out the window, not at me. At the passing taxis and a few lingering people on the sidewalk. Outside the city spins, unaware.
“Where would we go?” I ask.
“Maybe down to the West Side Highway,” he says. “We could walk along the water.”
“Not far enough,” I say. I go to stand shoulder to shoulder with him.
“You’re right. We never got to go to Mexico, or Paris, or Guam,” he says. “I regret that.”
“Don’t,” I say. “No more regrets.”
I put my head on his shoulder.
“What’s going to happen to me now?” he asks. I turn to look at him, and I see the fear dancing just around the perimeter.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I wish I did. I don’t think you’ll be where you were, though. I think you’ll be…” My voice catches, and in the space he answers.
“Gone,” he says.
My cheeks are wet. I haven’t stopped crying. “There isn’t any more time.”
He nods. His eyes are wet, too. “I’m so sorry,” he says. “We were so good at being together but so bad at the rest of it.”
“The rest of it was important,” I say. “I think more than we realized.”
He nods. “Were we always going to end up here?” he asks.
I think about the decade we spanned, the entirety of it splayed out before us tonight.
“I don’t know,” I say. “But we did. I think that’s what matters now.”
He takes my face in his hands. “I love you,” he says. “Always.”
Meant to be. I used to think that about us. That we were meant to be. That the stars had aligned to bring us together. It never occurred to me that our fate might not be forever.
TWENTY-FIVE
IT HAPPENED ON A SATURDAY. I was at home, doing laundry. I had planned to head out to Jessica’s in the afternoon. We were going to go to an early dinner, since she said she was now getting tired at seven. I was going to see her belly. I hadn’t seen Tobias since the day he dropped me off nearly a month ago.
It was early December now, and we were creeping into winter. Christmas lights were strung around the city. The window displays were up at Bloomingdale’s, Bergdorf’s, and Barneys. Going up and seeing them was something Jessica and I used to do together. We’d get hot chocolates at Serendipity on Third Avenue and then make our way through the city, hitting all the big department stores. Sometimes we even made it all the way down to Lord and Taylor. We never made it inside the stores; we were broke anyway. It was just to look at the windows—the spinning displays of confetti silver and gold, life-sized candy canes, winter wonderland scapes.
I was folding one of Tobias’s shirts when I heard it. It was an old UCLA one, soft cotton, that I’d taken to sleeping in. He hadn’t taken it, and when Matty came for more clothes I purposefully left it out.
I heard the screech of tires and the crunch of metal and the shattering of glass through my closed window. I ran to it and looked down into the street. Someone had been hit, that much was clear. People were outside shouting. I grabbed a down vest off my bed and ran down into the street.
I was barely out my front door when I saw him. Just a leg, to the right of the car. It was his shoe, though. This old pair of Dr. Martens with the soles worn in. I would have recognized them anywhere. I ran.
His body was half under the car. Later the driver would argue that he had come out of nowhere, that he had practically run into the street. But now his body was mangled. His shoulder was crushed, his leg bent at an impossible angle.
“Call nine-one-one!” I screamed. I bent down next to him. His body was warm. I could smell him, those cigarettes and that honey. I put my hands on his head and held them there. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” I whispered over and over again. I bent my head down low to his mouth to check, to see where the air was. I couldn’t find it. It’s strange the tricks adrenaline plays on you. The need to fix, to rectify. In the moment of impact we think it’s possible to go back. We’re so close to the previous minute; how hard would it be to just turn back the clock? To just quickly undo what has just been done?
I stayed that way, my face pressed to his, until the paramedics arrived. Getting him unhooked from underneath the car was complicated, and more than once they tore at his limbs further, but I didn’t look away. I had the feeling that if my eyes left his, even for a moment, he’d be gone. That the only thing keeping him there was the fact that I was, too. Please. Stay with me.
I rode with him in the ambulance. I must have called Jessica at some point, although I do not remember that. I remember him being rushed into the operating room. And I remember her being there, hours later, when the doctor came out. I’m sorry. We tried. Too much damage.
He never woke up.
Jessica started to cry next to me, but I felt blank. Like an empty white room with no trace of a door. I wanted to see him, but they told me I couldn’t. Family only. But I was family. We had been to gether for nine years. I was the only family he had, and he needed me. Even if he was no longer there.
“We have to call his parents,” Jessica said. All I knew about them was that they lived in Ohio and had once taken us to an Olive Garden in Times Square.
I sat down in the hospital waiting room. I didn’t want to leave. Where would I go?
I found their number in my phone. His mom answered on the third ring. I counted. I told her there’d been an accident. She kept saying she was sorry, like I was the one who had lost something. Maybe that was her defense, to believe I had lost more, that I could shoulder more of the burden. I found out later he’d never told her we were taking time apart.
She said they would get on the next flight out. We would need to plan a funeral, she guessed. She choked on the word. Did I know where we could get some flowers?
They gave me his effects on the way out. A plastic bag, zip locked at the top. I couldn’t bring myself to open it.
“We need to go,” Jessica said.
“No,” I said. “We can’t. We can’t leave him.” I started to scream it, the sobs tearing through my body. “We can’t leave.”
Jessica held me, her pregnant belly between us. “Okay,” she said. “We’ll stay.”
We sat in that hospital waiting room until three o’clock in the morning. Jessica took me home and stayed with me until Tobias’s parents arrived the next day. When I saw his father I broke down again.
The last thing Tobias had ever said to me was over the phone. “Do you know what my T-Mobile password is? I need to change my plan.”
I told him I’d see if I had it in my password folder and I’d text if I did.
“Sabby?” he’d asked.
“Yes?”
“Five.”
“Tired,” I’d said, and hung up.
11:47 P.M.
TOBIAS AND I GO BACK TO the table. Audrey is becoming fidgety. My father looks tired. Conrad is yawning, tapping his breastbone like he’s readying to curl up by the fire with a scotch and close his eyes.
“Thank you all,” I say. “I have no idea how this came to be, but I’m glad it did. I hope it’s real.”