Then I’m kneeling in the sand, next to a sheet.
My fingers shake.
My heart trembles.
And I pull the white fabric away.
He’s dressed in jeans and a button-up, clothing for a concert. He’s pale, he’s skinny, he’s long. He’s frail, he’s cold, he’s dead.
He’s Finn.
I can’t breathe as I hold his wet hand, as I hunch over him and cry and try to breathe and try to speak.
He doesn’t look like he was in a crash. There’s a bruise on his forehead and that’s it. He’s just so white, so very very white.
“Please,” I beg him. “No. Not today. No.”
I’m rocking and I feel hands on me, but I shake them away, because this is Finn. And we’re Calla and Finn. He’s part of me and I’m part of him and this can’t be happening.
I cry so hard that my chest hurts with it, my throat grows raw and I gulp to breathe.
“I love you,” I tell him when I can breathe again. “I’m sorry I wasn’t with you. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
I’m still crying when large hands cup my shoulders and lift me from the ground, and I’m pulled into strong arms.
“Shhh, Calla,” my dad murmurs. “It’ll be okay. He knew you loved him.”
“Did he?” I ask harshly, pulling away to look at my father. “Because he wanted me to go with him, and I made him go alone. And now he’s dead. I called mom and they’re both dead.”
Dad pulls me back into his arms and pats my back, showing a tenderness that I didn’t know he possessed. “It’s not your fault,” he tells me between wracking sobs. “He chose this. He knew you loved him, honey. Everyone knew.”
I choke back another gasping sob, because how could he have chosen this? My mother killed him on purpose. I feel it in my bones in my bones in my bones.
This can’t be happening.
This can’t be happening.
This isn’t my life.
I shake off my father’s arms and walk woodenly back up the trails, past the paramedics, past the police, past everyone who is staring at me. I walk straight up to Finn’s room and collapse onto his bed.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see his journal.
I pick it up, reading the familiar handwriting written by the hands that I love so much.
Serva me, servabo te.
Save me, and I will save you.
Ok.
Ok, Finn.
I close my eyes because when I wake up tomorrow, I’ll find that this was all a dream. This is a nightmare. It has to be.
Sleep comes quickly and when I wake up, I’ll save Finn.
Because really, he’s all that matters.
If he’s dead, I want to be dead.
He can’t be dead.
I’ll give anything for him.
I’d give my life.
“You could,” the hooded boy says, and he’s here on the edge of my bed. “You could give your life. You could jump, you could sacrifice yourself, and then it would all be over. Or… you could offer your mother instead.”
“What?” I ask stiffly.
“You heard me. You’ve heard me all along. You have the power to change it. You always have, and you always do. Change it to the way it should be. Do it.”
I’m appalled, I’m frozen, I’m filled with dread, because I would rather. I would rather give anything than my brother.
I fall asleep with the sheets wrapped like a rope around my hands, and I dream the dreams of the tormented.
Chapter Seventeen
I dream.
I dream of Sabine and her raspy voice, and of words that she said to me.
“You must choose,” she’d said, and she says it now in my dream and I don’t know what she wants me to do.
So I ask her.
“You know,” she nods.
But I don’t.
She nods again, and all I know is that if I could choose anythinganythinganything in the world, it would be for my brother to be with me, to be alive. I’d give anything.
“Anything?” Sabine asks, and I nod.
“Anything.” My answer is firm.
Sabine nods once more, and light streams in my window, and into my eyes as I open them.
I’m fine for a minute, until I remember.