“I thought you and Zin would’ve gotten together a while ago, but that’s Zin for you. He’s always been the sensitive one. He can’t do the whole loving and leaving thing like the rest of us. I worry about him.”
“Why?”
“Because he loves you.”
I blink. “Loves me?”
“Oh, right. I keep forgetting that you can’t see his soul. Yes, he loves you. And you obviously love him. Your soul is as obvious about it as his.”
My eyes widen. “So he knows that I love him?”
“Of course he knows. It’s all over your soul. You might as well write it on your forehead.”
“Oh God.”
“Don’t look so horrified. You both love each other, and you’ve got almost four years before he’ll have to leave. That’s a lifetime for a relationship for someone your age.”
“What if four years isn’t enough?”
She shrugs. “That’s something you’ll have to figure out. Um, Carlo’s watching us. I think we should get out there.”
I go up to some customers to take their order, then I approach the bar. My eyes take Zin in like I’m seeing him for the first time. Our gazes lock. I fall inside that green. Fall into him, like that first time I saw him dance.
He breaks the eye contact. “Got an order?”
I clear my throat. “Chocolate martini and a Strongbow.”
“Gotcha.” His eyes are still intense—as he drops them to do the drinks, I catch a flash of amber.
♦ ♦ ♦
On my break, I head up to the balcony. I need to escape the crazy, to think.
I sit in the front pew, gazing down. I want to lose myself among those dancers, become one with them. Dancing is the closest I’ve ever come to losing myself. It’s the closest I’ve been to getting high, the closest I’ll ever be.
His footsteps startle me. As Zin approaches, his eyes pulsate like slow heartbeats. “You finally see.”
“I thought you said Jiang Shi couldn’t read minds.”
“We can’t. It was in your soul.” He sits down next to me, touches my cheek. I close my eyes. “I still haven’t scared you off, have I?”
“No.”
“When I kissed you, I thought you were ready. I thought you wanted this. Then you saw into your soul and got so upset. I didn’t want to push you.”
“Why would you want to be with someone with a soul like mine? How can you even look past it? It’s so awful.”
“Everyone’s soul has some damage. It’s unavoidable. In mine, I still carry the loss of my family, two hundred years later.”
“I’m sorry I freaked out on you.”
“Don’t be.”
His hand slips to my neck, cradling it. He’s going to kiss me.
If I let him, there’ll be no turning back.
Four years until he’ll leave me. Four years, and I’ll probably never set eyes on him again. Will I be strong enough to be with him and then let him go?
He gently turns my face to his, and I see his brilliant soul gleaming behind his eyes. I feel my soul quivering in my chest, rising. And I know there’s no choice anymore, only destiny.
A voice breaks out of the darkness. “Raven.”
We both jump. Carlo emerges from the shadows. “Your parents have been trying to reach you. Your brother is in the hospital.”
DARKNESS
I am going to be the strong one, I tell myself as the night flits by my window. I’m going to carry them through this.
When we get to the ER, there’s a lineup at reception, where a nurse is directing people. Seeing a sign that says INTENSIVE CARE, we head down a hallway, and then another hallway, and stop outside a door marked ICU.
A sign on the door directs us to a phone on the wall nearby. I pick it up and wait until I hear a voice on the line.
“My brother, Josh Burke, is in ICU. We’d like to see him.”
A minute later a nurse opens the door. She is fiftysomething, with kind, motherly eyes. “The Burkes?” We all nod. She ushers us inside. “I’m glad we were able to get in touch with you. When Josh was brought in, he was in cardiac arrest.”
I hear my mother’s intake of breath.
“We were able to restart his heart, but I’m afraid he’s now slipped into a coma.”
The nurse pushes back the curtain, and we see him. He may be hooked up to a bunch of machines, but to me, he just looks like he’s sleeping. He looks peaceful, more peaceful than I’ve seen him in so long.
My parents approach on either side of the bed and touch his hands. His face is flushed against the white sheets, maybe from the heat of the room. Mom leans forward and whispers something in his ear. I wonder if he can hear her.
I touch his matted hair, feel the warmth of his head under my hand. I realize that I’m not angry at him anymore, despite what he’s done to himself, to my parents, to our family. What I feel for him is pure love.
We take off our coats. The nurse brings in an extra chair for my dad, and I sit on the edge of the bed. She closes the curtain when she leaves. Mom has silent tears on her cheeks, and Dad’s face is anguished. It’s hot and claustrophobic in here, like a tomb.
We don’t move from his side, not for the bathroom, for coffee, for a break of any kind. We watch the fluctuating numbers on the monitor.
I open the curtain a few inches to let some air in. My parents exchange seats so that my dad is at the head of the bed, leaning over and holding Josh’s hand.
“If he can just get through the night, maybe he’ll be okay,” Dad says.
“He’ll be okay . . . whatever happens,” I say. “I mean, even if . . . he’ll be okay.”
My parents look at me but don’t say anything. They look back at their son.
Dawn breaks. A nurse suggests we might want to do shifts—two can go home to rest, another stay with him. None of us are willing to leave.
Around seven thirty, I offer to get them coffee and some food. They nod.
“While you’re at it, could you call Emily?” Mom asks.
“Emily?” Josh’s ex. His high school sweetheart.
Mom nods. “She’d want to know.”
“Okay.”
Mom hands me her cell, which has Emily’s number programmed in.
I follow the arrows to the cafeteria. Before going in, I step aside and call Emily.
She answers. “Janet, is everything okay?”
“It’s Nicole. We’re at the hospital. Josh is in a coma.” The words feel strange coming from my mouth. I wish I could swallow them back, make it not real.
“Oh my God. Which hospital?”
“New York Methodist.”
“I’m coming right over.”
“We’re in ICU. You’d better tell them you’re his fiancée. Only immediate family can come in.”
“Okay. I’ll be there soon.”
I get in line for sandwiches. I check my watch, hoping I won’t regret leaving the room.
Emily is number seven on Mom’s contact list. I knew they were close when Emily was dating Josh through high school. I knew they still exchanged Christmas cards. I didn’t realize they still talked.
Emily was always a calming influence on Josh. She even stayed with him through their first year of college, when his spiral began. I’m sure she put up with way more than she should have.
When they broke up, Josh told us she was an unsupportive, naggy, snobby bitch. We never believed it—we knew Emily. We felt ashamed, knowing how he must’ve treated her.
And still, Emily is on her way to the hospital.
I return to the room a few minutes later. Nothing has changed. My parents haven’t moved.
Emily arrives just after nine o’clock. She and my mom hug. Emily has probably been more supportive of my mom through all of this than I have; in that one hug, I know it.
And I’m thankful.
I haven’t seen Emily in more than a year. She’s put on the freshman fifteen. I’m not used to seeing her in sweats and a mussed ponytail. She
was always carefully put together.
She hugs my dad, then me.
“Thanks for coming,” I say.
She frowns but says nothing. It hits me that she doesn’t see this as being helpful. She feels she belongs here.
Positioning herself beside my mom, she puts an arm around her shoulders. My mom updates her on Josh’s condition. Emily listens stoically, her eyes never leaving Josh’s face.
♦ ♦ ♦
Zin and I text back and forth:
JOSH IN HOSPITAL. WONT BE AT WORK TONIGHT. PLZ TELL CARLO.
WHICH HOSPITAL? ILL COME.
THANX BUT DONT COME. IM OK.
Shouldn’t I want to run into his arms like I used to? But no, he doesn’t belong here. He doesn’t know Josh, and he isn’t close to my family. It wouldn’t feel right to bring him here, not now.
Josh never moves except the slight rise and fall of his chest. His eyes don’t even move beneath his lids to indicate he’s dreaming. His vitals occasionally dip, then stabilize. We can see and hear every heartbeat, every falter, on the machine. I’m focused on the beats, willing the next one to come. I hold his hand as if my touch keeps him alive.
♦ ♦ ♦
One day blends into another, with no beginning and no end. We do shifts, with one or two of us going home to sleep for a few hours. Since I’m used to staying up all night, I stay during the darkest hours while my parents go home, and then I get some sleep in the morning.
On the fifth day, the news comes.
His brain function is nonexistent. The doctors want us to consider taking him off life support.
Tears blur the sight of my family collapsing.
♦ ♦ ♦
He’s already gone. He slipped through our fingers while his heart kept beating.
My mind is transported to two summers ago, our family trip to the Grand Canyon. We’ve stopped at Yavapai Point to watch the sunset. Mom and Dad stay close to the car, while Josh and I trek out a little ways to a point where there is no guardrail, and the canyon is surrounding us. I stay several feet back from the edge, while Josh walks up to it, and I have a sudden fear that a gust of wind might carry him away.
“Josh.”
He takes a step back, with a sheepish smile. I don’t think he wanted to be that close to the edge either.
We look out at the canyon’s breathtaking hugeness. All the anxiety I carry within me seems to melt away. School, drama, grades—none of it matters anymore. It’s just me and the canyon and the orange sun and my brother beside me. A blissful stillness washes over me.
“Gives perspective,” I say.
“Yeah.”
We’re silent for a long time. The sun is mostly behind the mountains now. The colors go from sand to faded grays and dusky reds.
I close my eyes and listen to the wind whipping against rocks. I don’t think I’ve ever really heard the wind before.
I sigh, opening my eyes. “Makes you look inside yourself. It’s soothing.” I turn to Josh, whose eyes are fixed on some distant point.
“Did you ever look inside yourself and see . . . nothing?” he asks.
“No. Did you?”
He nods. “I tried meditating a few times. I thought it could help me still my mind. Sometimes my mind just won’t stop. . . . I didn’t like where it took me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. Something in me just felt . . . empty. Like there was no purpose, no point to anything. Like there was no me.” He’s looking at me now, searching my face for understanding.
“Well, maybe you just didn’t go deep enough.”
“But what if that’s who I am?”
“You’re not empty, deep down. No one is.”
He doesn’t look convinced. He turns back to face the canyon, swathed in the fading gray of dusk.
♦ ♦ ♦
My parents won’t even talk about disconnecting Josh’s life support. Not yet. But they can’t avoid the question for much longer.
We know he’s already gone. But the idea of disconnecting him, the finality of it, is unbearable. It would mean he was gone forever.
The clock reads 8:37 p.m. I’m not sure what day it is. Emily and I walk the halls. Every footstep feels heavy, like walking through snowdrifts.
“Thanks for being there for my mom.”
“She was there for me, too.” Emily tries to smile. “She told me about your dancing, that you’re part of a breaker group. That’s awesome.”
“Thanks. You should stop by Evermore some Friday or Saturday night. Sometimes we battle other groups.” I try to think of something else to say. “How’s college?”
“Stressful, but good. I can’t believe I’m almost half done with my undergrad. Have you chosen a college yet?”
“No.”
“Did you apply to Columbia?”
“Not my thing, even if I could get in.”
She looks surprised. “Well, it’s a great school and it means you can stay close to home—um, if that appeals to you.”
She obviously knows that I’ve been doing everything possible not to stay close to home this past year. But there’s no judgment in her eyes. “You’re an amazing person, Nic. Your mom told me about what happened to you recently. She said that when you were in the hospital, you were the one who helped them keep it together. You’ve been the same way these past few days. In fact, you’ve always been that way, ever since I’ve known you.”
I’m not sure what to say to that. It’s the opposite of how I feel. The only reason I’m calm is because I don’t want my parents to worry about me. I’m a train wreck inside. Whenever I look at Josh, it hurts so much I could scream.
“Even when you were really young, you knew who you were,” she says. “Life didn’t intimidate you. You took things as they came. Josh was never like that.”
“I wasn’t as easygoing as all that, but next to Josh, who stressed over every little thing, it must’ve looked that way. He was always such a perfectionist. He couldn’t handle being anything less than the best. I think it’s part of what drove him to . . . you know.”
“I know. Remember the time he placed second at the state Math Olympics? To him, it was a total failure. He put on a good front, but he was so insecure. I tried to help him. He never listened.”
“You helped him a lot. He’d have gone off the rails a lot sooner if it weren’t for you.”
She sighs. “I don’t know about that. When things started to get really bad, I bailed. I just couldn’t take it. He could be so angry sometimes. But I keep thinking that if I’d hung on a little longer, he wouldn’t have gotten so self-destructive.”
“You can’t think like that. You stuck by him longer than most people would have.”
She presses a tissue against her eyes. “I tried. I just wish . . . ”
“You did everything you could. At some point you had to save yourself from him. We all look back and wonder if we should’ve done something differently. But there’s no point.”
The despair on her face is a mirror of my own. “I thought it would work out somehow,” she says. “I thought he’d eventually go to rehab, get better, and we’d pick up where we left off.”
“We all hoped he’d give rehab a go. Whenever any of us tried to talk to him, it would end up a shouting match. By the end, he hated me.” The gravity of it hits me. My brother will die hating me. My last memory of him will be of his angry taunts that night at Evermore. I feel sick.
“He loved you, Nic.”
“A long time ago, maybe.”
“Not so long ago. Even when we were starting college, he’d sometimes brag to me about the wise things you’d come up with. Like you were the oracle of knowledge.”
“Seriously?”
She nods. “He had a lot of respect for you.”
The tattoo on my back prickles. I look up. Carlo is standing at the end of the hall.
“Can I meet you back at the room? I’ll be along in a couple of minutes.”
“Sure.” S
he heads back the other way.
Carlo and I approach each other. His black eyes are grave. When his arms encircle me, I fall against him.
“Zin told me what’s happened. He said your brother is on life support and the doctor has advised that it be disconnected.”
I nod, taking a step back. “My parents don’t want to remove it yet. I don’t know how long—” And then all the tears I’ve been holding back come out in a flood.
“Shh . . . I want to help.” His voice is so soft that I can barely hear him above my sobs.
“There’s n-nothing you can do. His brain function is gone. Once it’s gone, you c-can’t get it back.”
“Your brother’s life does not have to end.”
My mind kicks in. I step away from him. “Don’t say it. Please. It’s not an option.”
“I know the concept of immortality is difficult for you.”
“It’s wrong. Taking souls . . . it’s almost like murder.”
“Man has always survived by putting his own survival before that of others. Don’t forget, we take only the souls of people who are near death. Do you feel we’re all murderers? Is that how you see us?”
“I didn’t mean that. But I still don’t want my brother to be . . . ”
“You prefer that he dies?”
“I don’t want him to die! But if it happens, his soul will live on. He’ll be with God.”
“I urge you not to let your reservations deny your brother another chance at life. I can give you the old Josh back. The one who was kind.”
The one who was kind. He knows how much I want the old Josh back. So much it’s tearing me up inside. But at what cost? If I give in, would Josh thank me or hate me?
“Why do you care about my brother?”
“I care about you. That’s why I’m here.”
His black eyes take hold of me, and I know it’s true. He cares about me. He knows I love Josh. He knows I’d do almost anything to bring him back.
But what right do I have to sentence Josh to eternity on earth, to survival by taking souls? I can’t. I won’t. I won’t be responsible for altering the destiny Josh created for himself. Who am I? I’m not God.
Neither is Carlo.
“Thank you for the offer, Carlo. But my answer is no.”
Before he can say anything, I turn away and head back to the room. I expect him to follow me, to keep trying to change my mind. And maybe I want him to. But when I look back over my shoulder, he’s gone.