Eva grabbed her good wrist and held firm. “Don’t, Lexi. You’ve got a broken rib and a fractured arm. Just be still.”
“I need to see Zach and Mia—”
“She’s gone, Lexi.”
Lexi sagged with relief. “Thank God. When did she leave? And how’s Zach?”
“Mia died, Lexi. I’m sorry.”
Died.
Gone.
Lexi couldn’t seem to comprehend the words. How could it be? She felt Mia beside her, leaning close, whispering, don’t let me be alone. I might do something stupid. It had been a moment ago, a second. Can I sit with you? “No,” she whispered. “Don’t say that…”
Eva shook her head, and there it was, wrapped in the silence like some sleeping snake that had just been poked. The truth lashed out.
The car. The crash. Dead.
No. No.
“That can’t be true,” Lexi whispered. Mia was part of her; how could only one of them survive? “I’d feel it, wouldn’t I? It can’t be true.”
“I’m sorry.”
Lexi slumped back. She glanced over at the door and expected to see Mia there, dressed in some weird getup, her arms crossed, her hair braided unevenly, smiling that smile of hers and saying, hola amiga, what should we do?
Then she sat up. “Zach?”
“I don’t know,” Eva said. “He was burned. That’s all I know.”
Burned.
“Oh my God,” she said. “I don’t remember any fire.”
Burned.
“Tell me what happened,” Eva asked gently, holding Lexi’s hand.
Lexi lay back, feeling as if her soul had been scooped out of her body with a ragged blade. If she could have willed herself into nonexistence, she would have. Please God, let him be okay. How could she live otherwise?
How could she live without Mia?
*
Jude stood beside the gurney, holding Mia’s hand. She knew there was commotion going on all around her: people coming and going, the team members talking about “the harvest” as if Jude were deaf. There was a boy that desperately needed Mia’s strong, loving heart, only a year younger than her daughter, and another boy who dreamed of playing baseball … a mother of four who was dying of kidney failure and just wanted to be strong enough to walk to school with her children. The stories were heartbreaking and should have comforted Jude. She’d always cared about things like that. But not now.
Let Miles find peace in these donations. She did not. Neither did they upset or offend her. She just didn’t care.
There was nothing inside of her but pain; she kept it trapped inside, behind pursed lips. God help her if she started screaming.
At her back, she heard a door open and she knew who it was. Miles had brought Zach to say good-bye to his twin sister. The door closed quietly behind them.
It was the four of them now, just the family. All those doctors and specialists were outside, waiting.
“Something’s wrong with Mia,” Zach said. “I can’t feel her.”
Miles went pale at that. “Yeah,” he said. “Mia … didn’t survive, Zach,” Miles said at last.
Jude knew she should go to her son, be there for him, but she couldn’t make herself let go of Mia’s hand, couldn’t move. If she let go, Mia would be gone, and the idea of that loss was overwhelming, so she held it away.
“She d-died?” Zach said.
“They did everything they could. Her injuries were too extensive.”
Zach started ripping the bandages off his eyes. “I need to see her—”