“I think… I think I’m OK now,” I tell her. “Temporarily, at least.”
“Good,” she says. “I’d like you to come back in three days, no matter how you’re feeling. Clear?”
“Yes ma’am.” I give her a mock salute and leave her office, ruffling Xaph’s hair on the way out of the clinic. He seems to be living in the corner, in a nest on the floor surrounded by children’s books. One of them is Ben’s. They’ve clearly been talking.
I decide to have a shower before heading home. I’m not particularly dirty, but I rarely turn up the chance for hot water, and I could do with clearing my head. I borrow some contraband shampoo from Scarlet and turn the water to nearly scalding, scrubbing my face clear of salty tears. I spend way longer than I need to in there, standing in the steam, breathing in carefully.
Stepping out and into my clothes, I feel a little lighter. Fresher, brighter. The world is still a dark and cruel place, but it’s not too much trouble to exist in it.
That feeling of levity quickly dissipates the minute I exit the room. Nick is standing in the corridor.
“Hi,” he says.
I bristle slightly. “We have really got to stop meeting like this.”
“I saw you go in. I’ve been waiting for you.”
“What for?” I ask bluntly, while at the same time thinking that’s a long time to wait for someone you feel nothing for. It reminds me of a time before I knew him, before I really knew him, when I waited on a fire escape for an hour to give him a message.
I suppose, though, if you don’t get uncomfortable…
“I have something for you,” he says. He presses something into my hands. It’s a diary. Thick, well-worn, stuffed with loose paper.
“What is it?”
“It’s a diary.”
“Oh, gee, Lilywhite, do you really think so? I meant, what’s in the diary? Who does the diary belong to, why are you giving it to me–”
“It’s mine. Or it was. Julia gave it to me as a coping mechanism, after your supposed death.”
My throat tightens uncomfortably. “And you’re giving it to me because…”
“Because I’m hoping it’ll bring you a sense of… peace, I suppose.”
Peace is beyond me, maybe forever. “You mean closure?”
“If that’s what you want.” He pauses. “I am sorry, for what occurred at the gym earlier.”
“Are you?”
“What?”
“Are you sorry? If you can’t feel anything, how can you feel sorry?”
“Because I know that’s what you want me to be.”
I pause, trying to process this.
“If you don’t want the diary, I can dispose of it–”
“Why haven’t you already?” I look behind him. The door to his room is open. It’s a blank slab of grey that used to be a fire of colour. It’s as bare now as the Institute. “You got rid of everything else.”
“I was persuaded to hold onto a few things. I didn’t really care, one way or the other.” He holds out his hand. “If you want me to take it–”
“No,” I say, clutching far more tightly than I meant to, “I’ll take it.”
Nick nods shortly. “It’s not… completely nothing, you know. That I feel. Everything is numbed and dulled, but I can still feel some things.”
“Like a punch to the face?”
“More like a fragment of the pressure,” he explains. “And I still… I still have memories. I remember you slipping away from me. I remember I didn't want to let you go. But despite what you said about me, I'm not perfect. I never did have your strength.”
My eyes itch. “I… I really hate you, you know that?”
“You don’t,” Nick replies. “And I’m as sorry as I can be about that, too.”
Chapter 52
I take the diary home, racing up to my room and stuffing it under the pillow like a guilty secret. I am afraid of reading it. I’m afraid of not reading it. I’m terrified and anxious and hopeful and desperate all at once, although I can’t work out what I’m hopeful for.
I can’t read it yet. I don’t trust myself not to become a bawling, blubbering mess of tears. I have to wait until after bedtime, until I’m certain everyone has gone to sleep, so I can be alone with Nick’s words.
That time takes forever to come. I go through the motions of the dinner routine, eating, chatting. I sit up with the others while Abi sketches and Scarlet reads to Mi from one of his medical textbooks. I watch Gabe and Ben play cards. I read him a bedtime story and tuck him into bed. Gabe, of course, feels everything, but I ask him not to question me. I let him assume it’s because of what happened in the gym. If I tell him it was, he’ll know I’m lying. I don’t want to lie to him, but I don’t want to share this. This is mine, all mine.
Finally, Scarlet departs. Mi sees her to the door and I use their disgusting display as an excuse to head to my room. Gabe shuffles off with his brother shortly after. I hone in on their breathing, waiting until I can be sure they’re asleep. If Gabe hears me… he will not be able to stay put.
Their breathing slows, soft, irregular. I retrieve the diary from underneath my pillow and open the first page with a trembling hand.
Dear Ashe,
It's been ten weeks now since your death, longer than the length of time I knew you for. That's crazy, isn't it? How can someone who was only a part of your life for such a short amount of time reverberate into every other moment? You cling to my past and shadow my future. I am not sure I will ever escape you. I'm not sure I want to.
I’m not sure I want to escape him, either. His words go on. He tells me that he sees me, talks to me. He bemoans the way I changed him, the way he can’t stuff himself into the shape he used to be. Oh God, the feeling I know well. He fixates on my last words to him, and there, in messy, scrawled black and white...
I think I'm going to love you until the day I die, even if that's fifty years from now.
I am never going to stop missing you.
He loved me. Of course he did. But to see those words, to hold them, to know beyond any shadow of a doubt.
He. Loved. Me.
And now he doesn’t.
I tumble, crying, through the rest of the extracts. Dozens upon dozens of entries, good days, bad days, terrible ones. Days that felt close to ordinary, akin to hopeful, and days where he felt he’d rather not wake up the next day. Every word is both a cut and a balm. I feel the Nick I knew, the Nick I loved and missed beyond all rhyme and reason, in every line.
2nd April
I never told you that I loved you. I keep replaying every moment I ever had with you in my head, thinking it must have slipped out somewhere... but it didn't, did it? It seems impossible, the words should have poured out of me.
You, resting in my arms, that night in the hotel.
I love you.
You, busting into that compound to save me after I'd been taken prisoner.
I love you.
Your face, glittering above mine as you watched over me in the garage.
I love you.
You, crawling into bed with me to keep me warm as I recovered.
I love you.
The two of us, curled up together in my room, the first night we were together. The second, the third...
I love you.
You, sleeping on the hospital bed beside me, the night after we both caught fire.
I love you.
You, climbing out of the van, disappearing down the hill.
I love you. Safe safe. Come home.
Why didn't I say it? What stopped me? Fear that you didn't feel the same? That you weren't ready for it? I know you wanted to take things slowly, to begin with, but I could have told you after you rescued me, right? You said you were falling for me. I wouldn't have scared you away then...
The things I would have said if I could have our time again.
I know why I didn’t say it when I watched you walk away. It’s because it sounded too much like goodbye.
And I coul
dn’t let you go.
I stop reading at this point, because I'm crying too hard to see the words. Anything anyone else has ever felt for me is eclipsed by this paper proof. And yet this time he talked of having over... we could have again, if he were to get off the drug.
But what was it Mi always says?
We don’t get to know ‘what if?’
Life only moves forward.
The diary is drawing to a close. I’m losing my time left with him. It’s almost like I’m watching him die. Every page is another breath closer to his end. Somewhere, a clock ticks. Maybe I shouldn’t continue. Maybe I should stop now, always have a few moments left with him–
But these are Nick’s words, and I must hear them.
He recounts trying to save a man infected with the pax, and knows he’ll succumb to it himself. He isolates himself in the infirmary, awaiting the inevitable. It’s hard to read. He never expected I would read these words, so he holds nothing back about how much pain he’s in. It’s like I’m back in the garage, watching all over again.
1st March
So, here I am again, pax-ridden, stuffed away in the infirmary. Not sure if I’ll have much strength to write. They’ve put me in a private room so Mi can occasionally come and give me some blood without alerting the others. I’m more comfortable, but I’d prefer to be back in that garage, wheezing away on that bunk, far away from pain meds but next to you.
I miss you.
2nd March
Ben comes by often. Brings me little gifts, hand-made board games that are impossible to play, and lots of rather unflattering “get well” cards. One has a really bad drawing of you, distinguishable only by your wild hair and exaggerated slit pupils.
“Sometimes her face makes me happy,” he said. “And sometimes it makes me sad.”
“Me too, bud.”
He looked at the picture. “It's not very good.”
“It's perfect. She'd love it.”
“I'm worried I'm going to forget what she looks like. What she really looks like. Abi said she'd draw her, but she hasn't.”
His little face screwed up. He blinked several times, trying not to cry, I think, but also staring at the picture, trying to make the crayons burst into life, imagining you as you were.
“Bring me that sketchpad, there.”
I drew your face, the curves of your cheeks, your neck. The lines of your nose. Your lips. Your wild hair. Your impossible eyes. You came alive under my fingers.
This wasn't the first time I've drawn you. I sketched the designs for the graffiti in the city, helped Abi paint them. But this is different. Personal. Intimate. You, not the Firebird.
“Wow,” said Ben, looking over my shoulder, “I didn't know you could draw like that!”
Neither did I. It's like you were staring at me.
“You like it?”
“She's perfect.”
Yes. She was.
Ben placed it on the side table next to his cards.
“Don't you want it?”
“Oh yeah, of course. But not right now. I think you need her more.”
I swallow hard at this, unable to imagine a time where I won’t need you.
A piece of paper slides out when I turn the page. Nick’s drawing. He never gave it back. I stare at the image, transfixed. I didn’t know Nick could draw like this either. I’d only even seen his comic-book work before. The clean lines, the blocks of colour. This is something else entirely, almost real. Love laces every line. I’d clutch it to my chest, but I’m too afraid of damaging it. It’s already been well-thumbed, the pencil blurred in places.
3rd March
You know what sucks? We never got to that stage where there were things I didn’t like about you. I can’t be like “I miss you and your stupid singing” or anything like that. You never got the chance to annoy me. That’s not fair. You told me once that you thought I was perfect –I’m not– but I feel the same way about you. I don’t even mind your temper. It didn’t phase me.
Ben comes to visit him again. Nick’s in no mood to talk, so Ben read him stories. The extracts get shorter, more frantic, more desperate. He asks for Nemean. His handwriting gets neater after that.
6th March
Takes more than one dose to get addicted, right? And Julia will monitor me. I know I joked with you before that she was my ‘designated adult’ but really she’s much more like a mum. It sucked to lose my parents when I did, but I am so, so lucky to have her. To still have her.
I wish I still had you.
The entries get shorter and fewer.
7th March
You’d be so proud of Ben.
8th March
Mi’s kinda bossy. You ever noticed that? Also I’m pretty sure he and Scarlet are together now. She comes by a LOT and as she can’t see me unless she’s in a hazmat suit… yeah, she’s not coming by for me.
OK, I’m definitely sure they are together but do NOT ask me how I know that. Mi has super-hearing. He knows the walls here are not thick, right?
They are very cute together.
I miss you.
9th March
Honestly, I wish they’d be less cute. I don’t resent them, well… you know.
Or you would.
I haven’t heard back from my grandfather. Guess that means you’re really gone, huh?
10th March
Missed a dose of Nemean. Liked it too much. Feel like death.
Sometimes I want to die. I hate that I’m not allowed to. I hate having to be in a world where you’re not. It’s not fair it sucks and I hate it.
12th March
Back on the Nemean. Julia’s insistence. I was getting pretty dark. I don’t want to see her upset. I’m just going to take it. I don’t want to fall into that hole again. It’s too dark, without you. Everything is too dark.
13th March
I'm losing you. You're falling away from me.
I need you to go. I need you here.
I want... I want to sleep.
And then one final, short sharp entry:
Ashe... I'm sorry.
Chapter 53
The following morning, I march back to Phoenix Project HQ. I leave before anyone is really up, not being able to stomach the idea of talking to anyone right now. I arrive way too early to realistically be let in, so I pace around the tunnel, trying to calm down, not doing a very good job of it and only just managing not to start punching the walls.
Finally, I try the door. Someone lets me in. I barge past them and head straight to Nick’s room. He’s up, just. He’s pulling on clothes. He looks up as I enter, but doesn’t have time to say anything before I crush him up against the wall.
“What the hell was with that diary?” I hiss.
“I–”
“What did you mean by giving it to me? Did you want me to… to keep feeling for you? To keep holding on for some magic cure?”
“As I said,” Nick blinks, “I thought it might give you a sense of closure.”
“Well it didn’t!” I press him harder into the wall, whatever good I think it’ll do. The tears rise within me like bile. Go away, go away, don’t let him see your weakness!
It’s no good. I can feel my resolve cracking like dried paint, easily chipped away. I let him go.
“I loved you,” I say softly. “More than I ever thought I could ever love anyone. More than I loved Gabe. And… and I still love you more than him. Which is not fair to him or you but it’s also not fair to me. I’m powerless. I can’t shut anything off or on and I hate myself for it. I hate myself in a way I haven’t in a very long time.”
Yet another thing I feel responsible for: my own emotions. Ah, to be like Eve after all. Eve the fearless, the careless.
Except you never were. You’ve always loved, and always been afraid as a result. Accept it.
Nick says nothing. There’s nothing he can say.
“Forget it.” My voice sounds like sandpaper. “I don’t even know why I came.”
I t
urn to leave, but before I can reach the threshold, a hand fastens around my wrist. For a moment, I imagine him pulling me into his arms, pulling me into him, holding me in the way he should have the day I returned. Kissing me. My flesh trembles at the very thought.
Of course, he doesn’t. But neither does he let go.
“Why… why did you do that?” I ask, trying not to look at him.
“I… I don’t know.” His voice wavers, only slightly. “Some weird instinct, I guess.”
I turn back towards him. There’s a glint in his eyes from the overhead lights, it makes him look almost like he used to. I lower my eyes, unable to gaze at him, and press my forehead against his chest. I want to break it open, to release the person trapped underneath. But I cannot.
Nick’s arms circle round and incase me.
“Why… why are you doing that?”
“An experiment.”
“An experiment, huh?” I look up at him, his blank face inches from mine. It is as close as we have been in months. So desperately close and so impossibly far away. I cannot help it. I tug his face to mine and kiss him the way I imagined kissing him when we were reunited.
Only, in that dream, Nick kissed back. Now I might as well be kissing rubber. His skin is tough and unyielding.
I pull back. “In one of Ben’s fairy tales, that would have worked,” I tell him. “But there is no magic in this world. There never has been.”
◆◆◆
I borrow a bow from the armoury and take Xaph out hunting along the old road. It’s as good an excuse as any to keep me occupied, and I feel better for doing something nice for him. He really comes alive in the woods, disappearing into the trees and swinging from branch to branch. Sometimes a rustle is all the indication I have that he’s up there at all. He spooks all the birds, but I manage to catch a squirrel. This part of the wilderness isn’t the most abundant, anyway. It’s too close to people. There’s better game in our part of the woods, where Gabe promised to take him, but I don’t feel like the hike and I did say we’d go together.
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