“Come on.” He supports me when I start to sway, waves of exhaustion coursing through me. “Let’s get you back to the fire. It’s getting cold, and you’re shivering like a leaf.”
I don’t tell him my shakes are more from the storm of emotions raging inside me than they are a sign of hypothermia. I don’t have the energy to form the words. He leads me by the hand back to our encampment and settles me by Ian’s side. He disappears for a moment to put the flare gun away.
When he returns to me, the black sweatshirt from his duffle is wadded in his hands. Like a child, I allow him to manipulate my limbs as he tugs the garment over my head and pulls the sleeves down my arms. It’s so large on me, I can fold my legs up to my chest inside it. Fully cocooned, I’m truly warm for the first time in days.
“Better?” Beck asks.
I nod, even though it’s a lie. How can I be better — how can I be anything but ruined — as I watch the frail rise and fall of Ian’s chest, wondering how many more breaths he’ll take before his last. How many more heartbeats until his pulse stutters into silence.
A soft moan draws my attention to his pale face. Instantly, I’m crouched close, fingers stroking his cheekbones.
“Ian?”
There’s a long silence. I brace for another string of feverish babbling, but miraculously, his voice rasps into the night.
“Violet?” He sounds like a child — fragile and afraid. Nonetheless, he’s conscious. He’s lucid for the first time in days. His eyes sliver open and find mine. “I…I want…”
“What?” I ask instantly. “Name it, it’s yours.”
“Want to say… thank you.” He wheezes, face contorting in pain. “Not your… fault. You… did… your best.”
“Shhh. You don’t need to thank me now.”
“Now… or… never.” He coughs wetly, the fluid gathering in his lungs making breath nearly impossible.
“Never? Don’t be silly,” I say, blinking away tears. “There’ll be time later, once you’re better.”
“Doc… we both know…” His eyes struggle to focus on mine. I think I see a glimmer of his old humor, lurking beneath the pain. “One foot… in the grave… already.”
I attempt to laugh at his awful joke, but it quickly morphs into a sob. My eyes stream like faucets and my breaths turn to hiccups.
“Beck?” Ian asks.
“I’m right here.”
I look up and see Beck’s position mirrors mine. Crouched directly across from me, he holds Ian’s other hand in a white-knuckled grip.
Ian’s strength is fading. I can see it in his every breath, feel it in the thready pulse at his wrist.
It won’t be long, now.
“Take… care of her. Promise… me,” he demands, staring up at Beck.
“You have my word.”
Ian gives a tiny nod. His eyes move back to my face. “You…”
I can’t get out a single word, I’m crying so hard.
“When you… get home… you tell your mom…” He shudders as a wave of agony grips him. “Tell her… I wish I could’ve met her. Tell her… if things were different… would’ve been my honor… to call her family.”
I lean forward, tears falling onto Ian’s face as I press a soft kiss to his lips. They’re chapped and still beneath mine.
“Go to sleep, Ian. When you wake up, we’ll be on a rescue boat. On our way home. You hear me?”
He nods weakly.
I press my cheek to his and whisper into his ear. “You’ll get better, and then I’ll bring you to New Hampshire to meet Mom. You two will have so many inside jokes, I won’t be able to keep up.”
“Sounds… perfect.”
I nod, barely keeping myself together. “It will be. We’ll build a big house. By the lake, not the ocean — I think we’ve spent enough days looking at crashing waves to last a lifetime, don’t you? We’ll get married in a big ceremony. Your whole family will come. Your ex will be so jealous, when she finds out.”
He tries to chuckle, but it turns to a jagged cough.
“We’ll have a bunch of kids. Loud ones, with your sense of humor. You’ll all tease me constantly, but I won’t mind, because we’ll be so happy. The kind of happy that makes total strangers smile on the street, and turns the closest friends green with envy, wishing they had a life like ours. The kind of happy they write fairy tales about.”
A small sound escapes him — half sigh, half exhale. His chest goes still beneath mine. No breaths move from his parted lips.
I cling tighter to his shoulders, pressing in as if to keep him with me one more second. There’s no denying the truth, though.
He’s gone.
I reach up and close his unseeing eyes.
“We’ll be so happy,” I whisper again, feeling hollow.
I doubt I’ll ever be happy again.
Chapter Fourteen
P A R T I N G S
We bury him at daybreak, on a jagged cliff on the east side of the island where the dirt is soft and the views are spectacular. It’s the first spot the light hits every morning when the sun creeps up over the horizon. Here, Ian will always be warm, always bathed in the same light he carried inside his soul. Here, he’ll finally be out of pain. At peace.
Beck smooths the dirt flat with a crude wooden spade as I watch dawn slowly bask the world in a swathe of red. At the sight, an old adage pops into my head.
Red sky at morning, sailors take warning. Red sky at night, sailor’s delight.
A storm is brewing.
Good.
It’ll match the one inside me. As far as I’m concerned, the weather can tear me to pieces. My soul is already shredded beyond repair.
Finished with his bleak task, Beck rises to his feet and moves to my side. I lift my empty eyes and watch his face contract with worry when sees how haunted they are.
“Violet…”
“Don’t.” My head shakes swiftly. “Don’t say anything kind. I can’t bear it.”
He’s silent for a long moment. “Are you ready?”
My brows lift.
“To say goodbye.”
I suck in a sharp gulp of air. “No. But I’ll never be, so we might as well get it over with now.”
His gaze is searching. “Do you want to say something?”
“I don’t really believe in anything specific,” I whisper. “I don’t know if Ian did, either. We didn’t talk about religion.”
“I don’t think it matters,” Beck murmurs. “Whatever words you choose… it’s the meaning behind them that carries true weight.”
I stare at the patch of disrupted earth, thinking about what Ian would want me to say if he were here. Nothing sounds right inside my head. Probably because saying goodbye to him feels so utterly wrong. In the end, I simply speak from the heart and hope it’s enough.