“Nuh-uh. You’re not getting out of it that easy, Romera.”
“Unless you’re planning on drinking the swabbing alcohol, which I highly do not recommend, then I’m afraid we have no other choice.” Truth be told, I’m exhausted now. Bed is sounding like an amazing option.
Oliver grins at me some more, sliding his hand into his backpack and pulling out a bottle of red wine. “I have another one of these,” he says. “Just in case. You and me, we’re going up to the roof and we’re not coming down until this is empty.”
I’m weary right down to my very bones, but I can tell just from looking at him that Oliver is wired. He’s clearly right: I’m not getting out of it that easily.
“All right, fine. But I have to make sure I’m home before the sun comes up, okay?”
“Why? Your boyfriend have you on curfew now?” Oliver says this jestingly, but there’s a bite to his voice.
“Of course not. I’m just being considerate.” And, of course, if Zeth wakes up and I’m not home in bed beside him, he’s going to assume I was kidnapped by some of his old friends and I’m in very grave danger. That would be a very bad turn of events. He would tear this city apart and then set it on fire looking for me.
Oliver just shrugs his shoulders. “Whatever. Let’s go.”
Up on the roof, memories hit me one after the other—all the times my father brought me up here with Alexis to watch the snow fall. I’ve been up here many times since, but every single time, this happens. My dad, Alexis and I, all holding hands, necks craning back, gentle snowflakes falling onto our faces, sticking to our eyelashes. There’s no snow falling tonight, though. It’s too warm. The skies are overcast, but the clouds are heavy with rain instead. Shame we can’t see the stars.
“Better get this show on the road, Romera,” Oliver laughs. “Looks like we might get drenched if we take too long.”
“So basically, you want to get drunk as fast as possible? Am I understanding you clearly? Just so we’re on the same page.”
Walking over to the very edge of the roof, Oliver sits himself down, legs dangling over the edge into the void. He removes one of the bottles from his bag and holds it out to me. “You know me so well.”
“Yeah, well, you’re a very smart man. Speaking of which, kudos to you for remembering to get twist-off caps this time.” The last time I drank wine with Olly, we ended up stealing a butter knife from the canteen and shoving the cork down into the bottle. Suffice it to say, we both ended up covered in red wine, and our glasses were mostly filled with fragments of cork.
“I learned my lesson, obviously.” Oliver takes out the other bottle of wine from his bag, and I realize the one he just handed to me is exactly that: mine. Neither of us have glasses, so we pop open the bottles, chink them together and drink straight from the bottle.
“We’re so classy,” I laugh.
“We’re under a lot of pressure. If it means that we have to drink like hobos in order to unwind, then so be it, right?”
“Right.”
I’ve nearly finished my bottle, feeling very sideways and most definitely drunk, when the sky opens up. The force of the raindrops as they hit the hospital roof is awe-inspiring. The sound of it roars in my ears as Oliver slumps to lie on his back, arms stretched out wide, his bottle of Malbec still gripped tightly in his right hand. “Wooohooo!” he hollers. “We’re alive, Dr. Romera. We are fucking alive.” Grabbing hold of me, he pulls me down so that I’m lying beside him in the torrential downpour, his words resonating inside my head.
I am alive. I am alive. After everything that happened, I somehow made it through to the other side. Even more miraculously, so did Zeth. I have a lot to be grateful for. I’m thick with emotion and soaked to the bone when the rain stops. Tiredness seems to hit Oliver; one second he’s telling me about a procedure he perfected earlier when he was working on one of the school bus girls, and then the next he’s scrambling to his feet on unsteady legs, telling me he has to go home. Immediately.
“You gonna throw up, mister?”
“Hell, no! When have you ever seen Oliver Massey throw up from alcohol?”
Yeah, that’s actually true. I never have seen him sick from drinking too much. Never even seen him drunk at all, for that matter. He’s most certainly a little worse for wear now, though. The giveaway is that he’s referring to himself in the third person. I smile up at him, shivering. “Then why are you suddenly so desperate to leave? You gave me so much shit for never hanging out with you and then the next thing I know you’re bolting.”
He takes in a deep breath and blows it out quickly, scrubbing his hands through his wet hair. “I have to go because I’m about to try and kiss you. And your boyfriend knows people who can have me killed. Right?”
Oh. Oh, no. I can feel my smile turning sad. “Ah, yeah…. If you did that, Zeth wouldn’t be hiring someone else to kill you. I’m pretty sure he’d do it himself.”