“You have to know that’s the way of things,” I offer. “Boys can’t stay with their mothers forever. It wasn’t my fault you died.”
“I killed myself,” she says simply. “I didn’t mean to, but I couldn’t take any more pain.”
I understand pain.
I nod.
“My brother….”
My voice trails off. Thinking about Finn makes my chest hurt.
“I can’t live without my Finn,” I say limply. And Olivia shakes her head.
“You have to. He’s gone, but you’re not.”
“Why did I keep dreaming about you?” I ask her, confused now in a very real way.
She gets up and her form is so slight, so small. She’s dark like Dare and her eyes gleam like the night.
Black, black eyes that examine my soul.
She cocks her head, in the same way that Dare does.
“Because you couldn’t remember me. You couldn’t remember what happened. And what happened to me, is why Dare is who he is. He’s a protector, Calla. He’ll protect you until his dying day.”
“Why did you want me to bring him to you?” I ask. “You’re dead.”
“Because I left him and I shouldn’t have,” she says, closing her dark eyes. “He didn’t deserve it. And now he’s in pain, and he’ll stand by you until he can’t stand up anymore.”
She’s right.
Despite his own pain, he was by my bed, He’s been here the whole time, humming to me.
She shakes her head. “My son had to do what he did,” she tells me, and I know she’s talking about Richard now. “I wasn’t strong enough to stop it, but he was. Dare was strong enough.”
Her voice is small.
“Your story is so sad,” I tell her, because it is. The saddest thing I’ve ever heard. She shakes her head knowingly.
“It’s not. The saddest thing is knowing that you think none of this has been real. Your dreams are always real, Calla. Even if you don’t realize it. You’ve got to open your eyes. Open your eyes.
Open your eyes.
Open your eyes.”
I startle awake, the insistence of her voice shocking me into lucidity.
My eyes open.
The light is so bright it’s blinding.
The humming stops.
“Calla?” The voice is familiar. It’s a voice I love, more than life, more than anything.
Finn.
He grips my hand and little
by
little,
My eyes adjust and I can see him.
I focus on his face, on the haphazard curls that frame his face like a halo, the pale blue eyes and the freckle on his hand.
“Calla, you’re awake,” he says in wonder, so much surprise in his voice. “I thought… God, it doesn’t matter what I thought.”
He thought I was going to die.
Because I was going to.
And he is dead,
And I’ve got to stop imagining him. I blink hard, holding my eyes closed.
I try to speak, but my voice won’t come, my throat far too dry. There’s a tube down my throat, I realize groggily. I pull at it with my hand, but someone stops me.
I open my eyes to find a blonde nurse.
My eyes widen when I see her nametag.
Ashley.
The Ashley from my dreams, only now she’s not a girl in an evening gown anymore, she’s a nurse in puppy dog scrubs. She smiles when she sees my eyes open, and she mills about my bed.
“Don’t fret,” she tells me. “I’ve called the doctor and she’ll be right in. For now, close your eyes and I’ll get this tube out. I’m going to count to three, then I want you to exhale.”
I do, and on three, she pulls the tube out of my throat.
It feels like a snake in the grass, slithering away, and I’ve never been so happy to see something go.
My hands flutter to my throat, cupping it, and Finn holds a straw to my lips.
“Drink this,” he tells me, so I do. I feel like I haven’t had a drink in a hundred years, and so I drink, and drink, and drink, even though it hurts to swallow.
When I’m finished, I clear my throat.
My words are dry, but I’m able to speak them.
“I’m so sorry, Finn.”
There’s pain on his face, real pain, and he closes his eyes for a minute.
“It was an accident,” he finally says. “It wasn’t your fault.”
But it was.
I know it, and so does he.