Something warm and sticky is between our skin, and now I’m staring at both myself and him from across the room. My back is shredded from glass, and his chest is riddled with bullet holes and cigarette burns, and our blood mingles, and we become one.
The hurricane rages, and the windows shatter like the antique mirror above the dresser, and gunshots explode on a street in New York that I’ve never been to. Lucky is on his back, but then he slowly stands up. He raises his arms at his sides like Jesus Christ at the resurrection while wearing a cavalier smirk.
“If four bullets to the chest couldn’t end me, this can’t either.”
But I’m not like him. He’s a survivor, and I’m just a weak nobody. He’s special, and I’m nothing. He’ll live even though he can’t breathe right now, and I’m just dying.
“I’m dying,” I declare with urgency and panic.“I can’t breathe, and I’m dying.”
“Baby, please don’t say that.”
“I’m dying. I can’t breathe. Lucky, are you there? Help me. I’m dying. I can’t breathe.”
I’m no longer in his room. I’m surrounded by white, and cold, and hard. The Jazz Manor in all of its spectacular, sensual color and warm finery is gone, and this is just a white room.
But in this room, I feel the warmth of his breath on the nape of my neck. I’m wrapped in the solid safety of his arms.
“Lucky loves you, Ava doll.”
I wish he did. I want him to. But I ruined it because I ran.
I ran into a dangerous world that’s infected with a plague, and falling apart at the seams, and crumbling, and burning to the ground because I didn’t know how notto.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” My own voice is less fuzzy and less buffered by static and white noise. “Why is it like this?”
“Ava, look at me, honey.”
He sounds so small and far away. I blink, and he’s in the room we shared, still shirtless, but he’s not bleeding anymore. The wounds have long-since healed, and his chest is covered in aged, rugged scar tissue.
I reach to touch his face, but my finger collides with glass. Like a window is separating us.
“I can’t reach you. I want to touch you, but there’s a piece of glass in the way.”
“I know, sweetie.” His coal black brows are gathered; his cobalt eyes weary below them. “That’s the screen of your iPad.”
MyiPad?
I blink away from his face and see the stark, white room. It all makes a little more sense now. It’s not a dream anymore. It’s just a nightmare that I now live in, and where I will die. And I’m going to die. It’s already happening.
I’m not ready to die. The idea that it’s happening and I can’t stop it causes my panic to surge, and that makes it harder to breathe when I already can’t breathe.
“I don’t want to die yet, Lucky.” Tears are streaming from my eyes, and a lump in my throat is strangling me. If that doesn’t strangle me to death, the panic will. If the panic doesn’t strangle me to death, the virus will. Everything is at war with my need to just breathe. “I didn’t get to do anything I wanted. I don’t want to die yet.”
“Baby, you’re not dying.” I can sort of see him, but the stupid glass is in the way, and it looks foggy. “If you’re talking to me right now, you’re not dying. If you’re talking to me right now, it means you’re already better off than you have been for two weeks.”
Two weeks?
It doesn’t make sense.
“I didn’t get to do anything I wanted.” I drag in a breath that’s so infuriating and unproductive because it just doesn’t seem to be working, but sobs continue to force what little oxygen is left out of my lungs, and I’m drowning in a hard, cold bed. “I never did anything I wanted. I never got to get married or have babies or anything. All I ever did was get a job that I hated so I could pay bills at my boring apartment. I didn’t even make it to thirty years old. I wanted so much more than this.”
“Ava...honey…” There’s an audible crack in Lucky’s voice that terrifies me. “You’re still gonna do all of that.” Through the glass, I see him wipe his eyes, and I’ve never seen him cry. I didn’t think someone like him cried at all. “I want to give you all of those things. I love you. I really,reallylove you, and that’s why you gotta keep fighting and getting better because I wanna give you all of those things more than anything else in the world.” He pauses and briefly clasps his hand over his mouth while he shakes his head slowly. “I should’ve told you that. I should’ve said that’s why I didn’t want you to leave. It’s the truth. I love youso much, and I should’ve done something to protect you better than this. I hate that you’re suffering and scared. I’m scared too, Ava. I’ve never been this scared in my life, not even when I was stuck on the streets as a kid.”
He’s scared, and I’m scared, and we’re both crying, and it just seems wrong that the stupid piece of glass is separating us.
“I want to touch you.” I’m sobbing so hard I can barely hear my own words, so I have no idea if he can hear me either, and I can’t get enough oxygen. “The stupid glass is in the way, and I want to touch your face. I shouldn’t have left.” My forehead aches from crying so hard, and I can’t breathe. “I should’ve stayed. I didn’t listen to you. For as long as I’ve known who you are, you’ve been saying, ‘Lucky loves you, Lucky loves you, Lucky loves you,’ and it made me hope for something, but I didn’t know what, andnow…”
I have to use every ounce of strength to drag in oxygen, but it’s not enough, and I just feel so dizzy.
