The Ward

25


7:30 A.M., SUNDAY


My eyes process nothing. I step down stairs without seeing stairs. I’m brought into a room I don’t remember entering. Only when I realize I’m not standing does it occur to me that I’m sitting. A dam, high and thick, divides me from the world.

“Ren . . .” Derek’s voice is miles away, but it pulls me from myself.

When my eyes shift into focus, things seem off. Like someone’s pressed the mute button on life and colored it in shades of gray. Looking around the small, stark space, I can piece together where he’s brought me by the objects, if not the colors. A corner mat. Cross-legged statues. Lit, floating candles under a small painting of a blue god. A cross. Stained glass windows. And rows of benches.

The hospital sanctuary.

How long my mind’s been gone, I can’t tell.

He’s seated on the bench beside me, though I don’t have to look at him to know.

Gently, he tips my chin and I have no choice. His eyes lock on mine. I notice how his finger is so close to my lip. “She’s lucky to have you, Ren,” he breathes, tone soft. “Whatever you’re feeling right now—guilt, or maybe you’re thinking you can do more for her . . . I hope you know how much you’ve already done.”

“You’re wrong.” I force myself to look past him, over his shoulder. Sliding away, I sink lower into the pew. “There is more I can do.”

He’ll think I’m talking about the surgery, but I’m not.

Callum. I need to get to him. I need him to know that she doesn’t have much time.

In some faraway corner of my mind, I remember that Dunn is having me followed. That I should be looking for another spring . . . but that doesn’t feel like what I should be doing. Not at all. I should be trying to get Aven a cure.

I push myself to stand but my head goes black and dizzy—I stumble back onto the bench. Nothing works, none of my limbs will do as they’re told.

“Drink—” Derek passes me the metal canteen from his belt. When I can’t find the energy to take it, he tilts the cool rim against my lips for me.

My tongue is sandpaper in my mouth, after all that crying. I didn’t even realize it. My thirst don’t know the word “polite.” I chug and I chug until my breathing slows. The drinking forces me to relax. After I’ve downed half, I pull myself away.

That right there just cost him three square meals of the nonpackaged variety.

“Finish it.”

I look at him, guilty, but I don’t argue. With a few more sips, my head begins to clear, like stripping dirt from a pane of glass. I wait for the world to hit me with its colors and sounds, but nothing happens. Everything is still at a distance. The glass might be cleaner, but my mind is off in a different room, numb.

Derek takes the canteen, straps it back on his belt.

“How do you do it?” he asks, and rubs at the scruff along his jaw.

“Do what?”

“I called you reckless . . . ,” he says, and he watches my hand. Reaches for it. Turns it over, palm up. “All this time you hardly spoke about her. But that’s where your winnings would go each month, wouldn’t they? You’ve been taking care of her. Yourself.”

I nod, barely.

“So how do you do it?” he asks, my hand still in his. “Love someone who’s dying—so much so that, for them you’ve been willing to risk your own life, over and over again?” Derek shakes his head, and he has the same look I saw on Callum earlier after he noticed the scar.

“What’s dying got to do with love?” I start to pull away, readying myself to stand again.

“You’re hurting.” He tugs me back. Circles my wrist with his fingers, and I let him.

My legs are not quite ready to carry the burden that is me. I’m still too numb, too exhausted.

“Some hurt’s worth it,” I say, knowing I wouldn’t give up the past three years with Aven for anything.

Curling his hand behind my neck, he brings my forehead to rest on his shoulder’s soft spot, while I wipe away fresh tears. They’ve started marching, slow, steady down each cheek. Derek reaches to catch one with a calloused finger. “She’s lucky to have you,” he tells me again.

I brush my head against the soft cotton of his tee, noticing he hasn’t moved his finger from my cheek. “Maybe,” I answer. “But she’s my favorite part of life.”

That’s when I feel him press his lips to my forehead.

He lets them rest for longer than I understand and I freeze, confused. Everything is still happening through that glass pane; it feels so far away. Is this a kiss? I think. It could be—his lips are touching my skin—so I wait for some flutter, some something.

But even my nerve endings have had the mute button pushed on them.

“She’s worth the hurt,” he murmurs, repeating my words back to me.

I pull away, try to look him in the eye. “You’re talking like you’ve never loved someone.” Derek refuses to meet my gaze.

Instead, he palms the nape of my neck and twines my rough curls between his fingers, all the while looking down into his lap. One breathy, quick laugh, and he shakes his head. “I’m just jaded, I guess. I don’t want to be—but it happens. You get older. The heart gets tired of good-byes.”

He sounds like me, back in the orphanage. Before Aven. I didn’t want to be friends with anyone. I knew I’d get left behind.

Then, I feel a second kiss. Again, my forehead. Lighter this time.

What is he doing? It’s over now—there’s Kitaneh to think about. He’ll pull away.

But he doesn’t. He traces his lips down between my eyebrows, and I can feel his breath on my eyelashes. When he kisses me there—number three—I feel it. Low in my spine. A fizzy, bubbling itch.

The fourth is different; it doesn’t meander, it has a destination. It lands on the bridge of my nose. I start to sink away, I’m not sure I can help myself.

Five and six. My cheeks. One for each saltwater trail still left behind. Slowly, he turns Technicolor—I feel his bright lashes twice, and twice, I feel the fizzing current rippling up to my back.

My body can only react.

One by one my nerves . . . they’re waking up. They’re waking up to a world on fire, and they like it. I imagine the destination of seven. It makes my face flush hot.

What am I doing? I want to leave, I have to leave, have to get to Callum’s. But I need to take this with me.

I don’t wait. I come up on my knees and with both hands, cup the angles of his jaw. I let my fingers rest at his earlobes, graze his faded tattoo, and close my eyes. Before I can think, I draw his mouth to mine. Like we’ve done this a million times, he opens up to me and we’re breathing each other’s breath.

Lips shouldn’t feel like this, like swimming through another’s body. It’s addictive, I could forget things this way. I press closer, wind my arms around his neck. He, in turn, grips me by the hips, hooks his fingers through my belt loops and tugs me into him.

Derek wants me. . . . It’s a thrill, knowing that. Makes me bolder. We close all the open spaces between us, and I know my body has never needed before. I drink him like freshwater.

Everywhere his hands move, my skin—even under my clothes—hums.

And then, just as quickly . . .

I do it—I riptide myself away from his body. “I’m sorry,” I mumble, and stagger to my feet. “I’ve got to go. I’m sorry. . . .” I don’t turn to look at his face as I run from the sanctuary. I don’t want to see.

Aven. Aven. Aven. Her name is never far from sight. It circles my brain in an orbit, leads me no different from gravity.