I do not deserve her. But I’ll be damned if I just let her go—again.
“Yeah,” Ava says in a small voice. It’s hard to see with her a little bit far away from the camera on her end, but I’m pretty sure a tear slips down her cheek. “I shouldn’t have left.”
“Well…” She really shouldn’thave, but I’m not about to beat that dead horse again. “I know you had your reasons.”
“They were stupid reasons,” she mumbles. “I really don’t think I’m going to make it through this.”
“Baby, please...” She told me not to call her that, but I can’t help myself. “Please don’t say that.”
“It feels true. I can’t explain what this feels like, but it’s bad. It’s the worst...like the worst thing you...or I...it’s just so bad.” She drags in air and lets it out, and I wish more than anything that I could hold her or even just touch her. “I’m scared, Lucky.”
“I know you are, sweetheart, but you’re gonna be okay,” I say, holding her gaze. “Your nurses are badasses, and you are so strong and young and healthy. You’re gonna get through this, honey. I believe in you.”
Ava wipes her cheek and closes her eyes. She’s so exhausted. I know she doesn’t need to waste stamina on trying to talk to me, so I go back to the keys, and I play for her.
My audience of one.
The woman I didn’t expect to fall for, and the one I feel like I won’t be able to live without.
Twenty-Five
Lucky
“What the fuckis going on with her, Zoey?” I don’t mean to snap, especially since, as Ava’s best friend, Zoey is pretty much the gatekeeper to any chance of me having any kind of future with Ava once this is all over. “They haven’t answered any calls for a week.”
“First of all,” Zoey says in a fragile voice that scares the hell out of me, “when I return your phone call, you will not talk to me like I’m your frickin’ subordinate, you self-important douchebag.”
“I’m sorry,” I insert hastily. “I’m really sorry, Zoey. I really, really am, but I am freaking the fuckout.”
“I know,” she clips, her voice a touch more fragile. “I am, too.”
She pauses, and I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from demanding,Well?
After a too-long stretch of silence, she sighs. “She developed pneumonia. Like between having the flu andthat virus, it’s just fucked up her lungs.”
“Holy fuck.” I suddenly have no idea where in my house I am beyond standing near a wall behind me, which I stumble against before sliding to sit on the floor. “Fucking pneumonia?”
“Yeah.” She sighs again, her breath a bit shaky. “So about a week ago, they gave her some kind of medicine that put her into a deep sleep...like, I don’t think it’s an actual medically-induced coma, but it’s something like that. I don’t understand this stuff. I think if it was actually a medically-induced coma, they would’ve said that, and I don’t remember them saying that. I just know they gave her meds to make her sleep, and she’s been sleeping this whole time. They’re giving her lots and lots of oxygen while she just sleeps because they’re trying to keep her from having to go on a ventilator.”
I suddenly feel like I’mthe one who needs to be on a fucking ventilator, because I can’t breathe right now. My three buddies who died of this shit not even that long ago both wound up on ventilators, and I heard through the grapevine thatthatis when you need to get really fuckin’ scared. Because thatis like the point of no fucking return. That is when your internal organs are so fuckingfuckedthat you’re not gonna claw your way back.
“Jesus Christ.” I don’t know if I’m praying or cursing. “Jesus fucking Christ.” Okay, I’m definitely cursing, but I’m hopingil Padre-Figlio-Spirito Santowill cut me some slack in this situation.
“Yeah,” Zoey says, not even hiding the heartbroken defeat in her tone.
My hand is shaking while I hold the phone to my ear, and my eyes are starting to burn, and there’s no concealing the crack in my voice when I say, “What the fuck am I …”
I can’t even finish my sentence, but she manages to understand me anyway.
“I don’t know, brother. I really don’t know.”
Still holding the phone to my ear, I let my head hang below my shoulders and drape my wrist on one bent knee. We both descend into thick silence; both of us abundantly aware that the lack of speech right now is because we’re both fighting off the urge to cry. After all, it’s not like Zoey and I have the kind of relationship where—even if I werethe type to cry—we’d be crying together in some kind of blubbering, kumbaya, bullshit friendship circle. She doesn’t want to do that, and neither do I. And yet, here we are, still just lingering on the phone in deafening, terrified, devastated silence.
“I’m sorry, Zoey,” I eventually say, staring at the hardwood floor between my knees. “I’m responsible for this, and I’m just so sorry.”
“Shut up, Vince. It’s not your fucking fault.”
“It is my fuckin’ fault.” I rub my forehead and then my eyes. “I invited her here, and we both know why. If I hadn’t done that, she would’ve just been safe at home this whole time.”
