I held out my hand. And then he ran.
He threw his arms around me, kissed me hard, and pulled me even closer so my head rested against his shoulder and his jaw against my ear.
“Where were you?” he said. “I went by the house, and I looked all through the hospital, and I drove around town, and I was about to do it all over again.”
“I just went for a walk,” I said. “I needed to think.”
But stopping there felt like lying. Leaving out so much, it went from omission to dishonesty. What was it Mom accused me of, all that time ago? Pushing her away, shutting her out. Because I’d wanted to keep everything I was going through to myself.
A lump rose in my throat, remembering. I made myself swallow it. “It’s been hard,” I said quietly. “I’m really scared.”
“Me too,” he said, and gave a ragged sort of laugh. “I’m scared all the time. But a little less scared now that I know you’re okay.”
He pulled back, just slightly. “They told me about your dad,” he said. “What happened to him. I’m going to go and tell those idiots with their guns and their gasoline how stupid they’re being, and if they don’t like—”
“Gav,” I said, breaking the string of his words. I curled my fingers into his coat. All the desperation that had left me when I walked away from the cliff started to well up inside me again. I had to stop it.
“Don’t,” I said. “I know you want to be the hero. And if that’s what you need to do for the town, all right. But I don’t want you doing it for me.”
“It’s not about being a hero,” he said. “They killed him. They hurt you more than I can even think. I can’t just leave that alone.”
“Yeah, you can,” I said, shifting away so I could look him in the eyes. “You know what would hurt me more? If you risked yourself because you thought it would help me, and something happened to you. The most important thing to me is that you’re okay too. You get that, don’t you? But if I’m trying to protect you, and you’re trying to protect me, it’s all going to cancel itself out. And neither of us will be okay.”
“So what do you want us to do?” he asked, his voice tight. “Just not be together?”
I dragged in a breath. “No,” I said. “Of course not. But maybe…You remember the other day, you said you thought you’d have noticed me even if the epidemic hadn’t happened? Can’t we just act like this is a world where our lives aren’t in constant danger and horrible things aren’t happening every minute, and be normal together? Stop worrying about who needs to protect who?”
“Normal,” he said. “You mean like, chocolate and flowers, and school dances and curfews and arguing about whether we hang out with your friends or mine?”
“Well, maybe not totally normal,” I said. “Normal-ish.”
His shoulders rose and fell, and then his lips curved with a faint smile. “All right,” he said. “I could give that a try. I already know what I’d be doing right now in a normal-ish world.”
He tugged me close and kissed me, and right then I wasn’t so scared anymore. Right then I felt like maybe everything could work out after all.
I understand better what Drew meant, back in September, when he said there wasn’t any point in locking ourselves away from the world just to stay safe. It’s the rest of the world that makes it worth being alive. But I don’t ever want Gav to feel like I did, pushed to the edge, blaming himself because he couldn’t save everyone. Because he couldn’t save me. If I need to be saved, I’ll do it myself. I think I can handle that.
Yesterday when Gav came by for lunch, I started feeling faint, and I slipped on the stairs and nearly fell, so I asked him to drive me to the hospital. Nell tutted at me and had me lie down in the reception room with a constant supply of juice and soup. By the evening I was feeling better again, but she made me spend the night.
Other than a few hospital staff and volunteers, no one came through the whole time. In the morning, I said to Nell, “It’s not so busy anymore.”
“No,” she said, squeezing my shoulder. “We didn’t have to admit any new patients yesterday. The numbers have been going down, but it’s the first time that’s happened since the outbreak started.”
I know it isn’t a huge breakthrough. There are a lot fewer people left to get sick. But the town’s not empty. Those who’ve survived this long must be taking all the precautions, and the precautions must be keeping them safe. And if the virus can’t claim any new victims, it’ll start to fade away.
I went up to see Meredith before I left. She’s still lost in a delirium, but for moments now and then she settled into a sort of calm. I think that’s at least a little better.
When I got back to the house, Tessa was filling flowerpots with soil by the living room window. “I think there might be enough sun here to get something growing,” she said, and I could have hugged her. Instead I settled for making us a pot of tea. We sat in the dining room for a while, sipping from our mugs and not saying anything. Then a couple of squirrels started chattering outside the window, some dispute over who was the true owner of a stash of acorns probably, and we looked at each other at the same moment and smiled.
There was something perfect about it. This one peaceful moment, understanding each other without speaking.
Tessa said once that she got by because she focused on the people she had with her, not the ones who were gone. The ache of missing Mom and Drew hasn’t gone away, and now there’s a sharper pain for Dad on top of it. But I’ve got people. People who care, who I care about. Maybe they’re not who I’d have picked to be with if I’d been given the choice four months ago. But that doesn’t mean they’re not exactly who I need.
Another day, and Meredith’s still with us. Her fever broke around noon, and for a few minutes her mind seemed clear. She held my hand and said my name and beamed at me when I kissed her cheek.
Nell says it’s too early to tell if her improvement will continue. “Try not to get your hopes up, hon,” she said when I was leaving. But that seems like terrible advice. Why would it be better to expect the worst than to hope? Expecting the worst almost sent me off a cliff.
I don’t expect the best, either. But I’m hoping for Meredith as hard as I can.
That’s probably why I still do this too. Sit by the window in her bedroom and watch the mainland. The water in the strait is rougher in the winter. I think the patrol boats have moved again.
I’ve started keeping a record of everything I see over there, which means mostly just notes like “three lights on at the south end of the shore at nine o’clock.” I have to wonder if
Something’s moving out of the mainland harbor. It looks almost like the ferry. Hold on.
* * *
It is the ferry! The patrol boats are letting it go by. I can’t see who’s driving it, even with the binoculars, but that’s definitely our ferry, cruising toward us across the strait. And not just that.
I can see you, Leo. Standing on the deck like you’re ready to jump in and swim if the boat doesn’t move fast enough.
Someone’s coming for us. I don’t know what that means, but it has to be good. Maybe they’re bringing us more medicine, or parts to fix the phones and electricity. Maybe they’ve got the vaccine. Maybe Drew’s there.
And you’re coming home.
I’ve got to go tell Tessa. I can’t stop grinning. In a little while, you’ll see it. I’ll finally be able to talk to you face-to-face, like I promised you I would. And then we’ll be one step closer to recovering the world we had before.
I could not have written this novel without the help of four excellent books on viruses and disease—Virus X by Frank Ryan, Deadly Companions by Dorothy H. Crawford, How Pathogenic Viruses Work by Lauren Sompayrac, and The Hot Zone by Richard Preston—which helped shape my conception of my fictional epidemic and the response that would follow. I am also indebted to Jacqueline Houtman for sharing her expertise in medical microbiology during the early drafts. Any mistakes in the science are mine, not the
irs.
Many thanks to Cyn Balog, Amanda Coppedge, Saundra Mitchell, and Robin Prehn for their invaluable feedback on the manuscript; to my agent, Josh Adams, for finding the novel the home it needed and for his unfaltering enthusiasm and expertise; to my editor, Catherine Onder, for loving the story I wrote while having the wisdom to see all the ways it could be made stronger; and to the entire team at Hyperion, for skillfully transforming it from words on a screen into an actual book and for helping it reach the hands of readers.
Much love to Chris and my family and friends both online and off, for your unwavering support and faith in me. I wouldn’t be here without you.
Megan Crewe, The Way We Fall
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