“Did you seek treatment again?” I demanded.
“For a while. But then Crash died, and it just didn’t seem important anymore. You’re going to think I’m silly, but I can feel the cancer within me. I can feel it spreading, poisoning my organs. I can feel myself walking the plank, but I’m not scared of going over the edge. Not when I know my Crash is waiting for me on the other side.”
“Crash will be waiting for you on the other side, no matter what!” I breathed. “Whether it be today, next week, or five years from now. He would want you to live. He would want you to experience everything on his behalf. He’d want you to make memories and spend years getting to know your grandchildren. He'd want you to arrive on the other side with stories to tell. He’d want you to give him so many tales of Bee and how she’s doing. He’d want to know everything about Axel from your memories, so that he has a chance to fall in love with him himself. You don’t have to give up!”
“It’s too late,” she shook her head, swallowing heavily. “It’s terminal, Rachel.”
“Has a doctor told you that? We can get a second opinion! We can—”
“I’m tired. I don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t want to spend my last days being poked and prodded. I want to leave on my own terms. I want to leave with what dignity I have left. And I want you to help me, Rachel. Today.”
Chapter 75
Rachel
“Kitty!” I breathed, my voice shaking. “I can’t do that.”
“It’s okay,” she said softly.
Is she really comfortingmeright now?!
“Please think this through. I can’t—”
“I’ve done nothing but think it through!” She snapped, her voice sounding the strongest I’d heard it in weeks. “I’ve done nothing but sit here thinking about it. My mind is made up. I’m dying today. And you can either leave me to die on my own, or you can sit here, and you can listen as I unload my final memories, and wait for Crash to come and collect me. It’s silly,” she laughed, a tear slipping down her cheek. “But I hope Macbeth is waiting for me, too. I hope that, despite their differences, Macbeth found his dad again, and they were able to make amends. I don’t want to think of him spending eternity alone. Lord knows he was alone enough during his short life. So it's up to you.” She shook away her tears and wiped away the dampness from her cheeks with the back of her hand. “Stay or go. I’d expect nothing less from you if you walked away. Be a shame to disappoint me in my final moments.” She grinned atme to let me know she was joking, but I was in no mood for fucking jokes.
“Kitty,” I sniffed, my own eyes filling.
“I’m going to take these,” she said, shaking her head and reaching over to grab the pills off the bedside table. “It’ll be just like going to sleep.”
“Wait!” I snapped as she unscrewed the bottle. “Just… wait. Please? Wait for Dante to get back. We can talk to him. He needs to be here. He’ll—”
“He’ll try to convince me not to. And I love him enough to allow him to succeed and not go through with it. And then his final memories of me will be hospital visits, medication, tubes sticking out of my body. I’ll be in pain. Before long, I’ll have to rely on people for everything. Washing, dressing, feeding. I don’t want that. I want to die now. I want people to remember me as I was. Not what I’ll become if I stay here.”
“It doesn’t work like that! People don’t just forget who you were just because—”
“Yes, they do! All the memories will be tainted. They’ll say shit like ‘she was so strong. It’s such a shame she went out the way she did.’ No, my mind is made up. There’s a note in the top drawer. Will you make sure Dante gets it?”
“Kitty—”
“Please, Rachel! Please.”
“Okay,” I nodded, not because I was agreeing, but because there was nothing else to say. I needed time. I needed to find a way to delay this, because I knew there was no changing her mind. But if I could just… I don’t know. Dante would know. I had to hold out long enough for him to come home, and he would take charge and get this situation under control.
But she misunderstood my silence. Before I could stop her—before I could even think—she tipped the bottle, tossed the pills into her mouth, and swallowed them dry.
“Don’t look so sad, Rachel,” she smiled softly, patting the space next to her on the bed. “Come sit next to me.”
I did as she asked. Kicking off my shoes, I climbed into bed and wrapped my arm around her tiny frame.
This was good. This was giving me time.
“Did I ever tell you about the time Crash took Dante and Macbeth shooting, and they hit Zach in the ass?”
“No,” I half laughed, half cried. “But I’d like to hear it.”
My hope was that she would talk long enough to forget this entire thing. But hope lived in the head. The truth was in my heart. And in my heart, I knew Kitty was already gone. She had left with Crash. She was a shell of her former self, and now she was willing to let her body go and allow her soul to reunite with its other half.
All I could do was comfort her and give her the one thing she wanted.
