Opposite of Always(58)

I won’t leave Kate’s side.

I’ll be right there for as long as it takes, as long as she needs me.

I won’t let her go.

The eternal Crunch to her Cap’n.

And then I hear a discombobulating shrill. Up ahead, red flashing lights falling horizontally against the dusk.

A goddamn train!

I swear I can’t recall the last time I saw a train on these tracks. These tracks that divide our town into two even halves, like a jacket zipper.

I contemplate going around the wooden arms.

I inch the car forward so I can see just how far away the train is, how much time I have to make it across the tracks.

But then the train blares its get the hell back horn again and I have to throw the car in reverse, cursing my luck, cursing every locomotive ever built and every track they’ve ever railed along, cursing the whole misshapen world.

Because time, there’s none to waste.

I lay into my horn like a wild man, because dammit, what else can I do?

The train takes its sweet-ass time.

And the faster I honk the slower it goes.

FML.

I bust an illegal U.

“I’m looking for Kate Edwards, please,” I say to the elderly man at the front desk. And it’s a different room number than last time. Ninth floor.

I wonder what that means.

If it means anything.

I can barely breathe by the time I make it to Kate’s room.

I stare at her from the doorframe, my lungs too flat, too stuck together for decent air, like when you try to peel open a plastic grocery store bag. She doesn’t look deathly sick exactly, whatever that means. But she’s somehow paler, smaller.

“Hey you,” she says, her face perking up.

“Fancy seeing you here,” I say, stepping into the room, closing the door behind me. “Nice outfit, too.”

She looks down at her hospital gown. “This ol’ thing?” She grins. “Just something I picked up on a business trip to Paris last autumn.”

“Très chic.”

“Je vous remercie.”

“Impressive. You speak Fran?ais?”

“Um, no, I just exhausted all of the French I know.” She scoots herself up in bed, fluffs her pillow to sit up taller. “I’m not contagious.”

“What?”

“You’re a million miles away.”

“Oh,” I say, realizing I’m still barely just inside the door. “Right. Sorry.”

“It’s okay. I guess I was just hoping for a kiss, or even just a—”

But I don’t let her finish. I close the distance between my body and her bed in record time. Plant my lips against hers, and leave them there for what I hope to be forever.

But then she pulls away ever so slightly.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“Um, I can’t breathe.”

I look back at the door, panic in my chest. “Should I get a nurse? A doctor?”

“Not that kind of can’t breathe,” she explains, smiling. “The good kind.”

“Well, then,” I say, leaning in for more. “In that case.”

I pull up a chair. The nurse brings us cups of ice, and I open the nonalcoholic champagne I’d snagged as I was leaving the house. There wasn’t time to pack up dinner, or even cake, but it’s something.

We toast.

We talk.

We even laugh, swapping stories about horrific summer-camp romances and nightmare part-time jobs.

I couldn’t tell you when I fall asleep.

Only that I awake to the sound of nurses barking orders to a pair of patient care techs, and that overhead, on the PA system, this announcement shakes the entire hospital: Rapid response, room 918.

Rapid response, room 918.

Kate’s room.

This room.

“Folks, we’re going to have to ask you to step outside the room, please.”

Which is when I see Kate’s mom sitting up in the chair behind me.

“Wait, what’s happening? Is she okay?” Kate’s mom shouts, jumping to her feet.

“Please, we need you both to clear the room.”

I don’t feel my legs move, but somehow I’m out in the hallway peering into Kate’s room through the blinds, her mom and I stepping aside for a handful of docs, and people with breathing masks dangling from their hands, and a machine on wheels that I think reads heart rhythms.

“Kate, we’re still here,” I call out to her as another doctor swings open her door. “Kate!”

But my voice shrinks into nothing.

A pissed-off headache erupts between my temples.

An ocean roars in my ears.

My eyes lose focus.

I reach out for the wall to steady myself, only I miss, or the wall’s moved, or— “Kate, I’m not going anywhere,” I try to call out, but my words are hostages inside my head. “Kaaaaate!”

It’s no use. A million blades corkscrew into my spine and my kneecaps melt into my ankles and my head detaches from my shoulders and—





The Charm of Third Times





Things Happen in Threes


And I wouldn’t believe it if this wasn’t the second time.

If I didn’t hear the familiar thump of partygoers.