“Shit, Hannah, I’m freaking out here,” I whisper.
I stare at our entwined fingers until my vision blurs and my nose starts dripping and I have to get up for a tissue.
And that’s when I see it. On her bedside table, there’s a to-go cup of coffee from Devil’s Advocup with the name Astrid scrawled on it in red marker.
A memory slides back into place. More than that—a whole day full of memories.
I remember the car accident.
Fuck—I know why we were in a car together on Saturday night.
She was in Devil’s Advocup.
I remember seeing her when I walked in. She was there with three of her dancer friends, but they were ignoring her to flirt with some baseball jocks. I was with a group of people I knew from Shoelace, recovering from a hangover and a little lost without Asher, who had such a bad one he wasn’t even up for coming out.
I remember how I sat down next to her on the long bench that lines one whole wall of Devil’s Advocup, because it was the only seat left in the house. I remember how my arm kept accidentally bumping against hers and how we both tried to ignore the awkwardness of it.
I remember how I couldn’t keep my perpetually bouncing leg under control. It knocked into her table and spilled half her drink onto the floor.
I remember how I apologized and struck up a conversation, all charm and jokes. Any other day I don’t think it would have worked, but something about that night had all the stars lining up, had all the sharp angles of her loosening. I remember being stunned by the crackling, campfire husk of her voice. More people squeezed onto the bench, and we had to scoot closer together. I kept my arm draped across the back, and I remember thinking how she fit just right tucked up against my side.
I remember how she actually smiled, just a little strum, and told me she was worried she was about to get ditched, that there weren’t enough seats in her dancer friend’s car if they decided to invite the baseball players out with them. How defeated she looked when she said she kinda just wanted to go home.
I told her I’d drive her. I blurted it out without thinking, because I didn’t want to stop talking to her. I told her I owed her a ride for spilling her drink. She texted her mom to ask if it was okay. I remember thinking how weird that was.
I remember how we walked to Thunderchicken with the lights of Houston twinkling in the humid evening air. Her arms were crossed over her chest, but we’d bump together every few steps. Her eyes were bright, and she was trying so hard not to smile at my stupid antics.
I asked her if she wanted to go to an open-air concert I’d heard about instead of calling it a night.
I remember how fast she shut down. She told me the concert sounded fun, but she couldn’t say yes. She told me she only dated dancers.
I remember how I quickly covered up my disappointment by saying, Oh, I wasn’t asking you out. I remember how the shame had flamed on her cheeks at that.
I wanted to take my words back. But instead, I heard myself explaining how I don’t really “date” at all.
I felt like we both knew it then. That there was no point even spending one evening together because we would just never work. I knew what kind of person she was, and she knew what kind of asshole I was, and it was obvious from first glance that we’d just clash.
I remember how the drive felt so awkward after that, all heavy and wrong. How she stared out the window, looking soft and sad in her pink-and-cream-striped cardigan, picking at the gum on my seat that had been there for years, blackened into the shape of Italy.
Up ahead, the traffic light at the corner of West Holcombe and Kirby blinked from green.
To yellow.
To red.
As we rolled to a stop, I remember how I felt like something important—a chance—was being thrown away.
The light turned green. As I let out the clutch and eased my foot down on the gas pedal, I remember thinking that the headlights approaching from the right seemed too bright.
I was weirdly detached from myself in the split second before it happened. All I could think was Huh. That car must be running the light.
And then the wall of noise slammed into us.
It dragged us sideways, smashed us, battered us, threw us forward.
And then everything was empty.
I press my face to the back of Hannah’s motionless hand.
I’m so sorry.
I can barely breathe. My mind is whirring, going over all the details of the wreck that have just bloomed in my mind. Guilt grows sick and twisted in my stomach.
“Bloody hell! What are you doing in here?!”
I jerk up at the sound of the voice behind me. My IV stand topples, and my efforts to catch it while stopping myself from falling are honestly fucking farcical. Hannah would have risen from the chair as graceful as royalty.
So much of my focus was on Hannah that I didn’t see the person slipping through the gap in the curtains. I finally get the IV stand to behave, then I lock eyes with them.
“Oh my god, Leo?”
I’m about to ask how she knows my name when I see the fire-engine-red strands of hair poking out of the Rosie the Riveter bandanna.
It’s Astrid.
She’s a lot shorter than I expected, but she looks ruthlessly capable in her enormous clompy boots, retro overalls, and black-and-white-striped shirt. I shrink a little inside.
“Everything okay in there?” someone calls from outside the curtains. Shit. One of the nurses has heard the scuffle. My heart feels electrocuted in my chest.
“Fine!” Astrid blurts. “Just stubbed my toe.”
We wait for the nurse to ease out of alert mode, and then Astrid starts hopping up and down.
“Oh my god!” she whisper-squeaks. “I knew you were awake—I was in the waiting room when they came to get your mom. You actually look like you’re in one piece!”
She grabs me, turning me this way and that to inspect me for signs of injuries, and then she flings her arms around me and hugs me. I stand there stupidly with my own arms glued to my sides, because she’s … kind of a lot.
I clear my throat. “Uh, you’re Astrid, right?”
She beams, eyes glinting with mischief. “So you spent enough time with Hannah that she told you about me, eh? My, how juicy.”
How much does Astrid actually know? And how does she know it? It’s fucked up, because I still don’t even know which parts of Hannah are real. If I misstep, I’ll sound like a creepy stalker, and if I say anything about the empty Houston … I’ll sound like I’ve lost my mind.
“So?” Astrid presses. “Did you put the moves on my girl in the coffee shop, then?”
I cough. “Did she text you before the accident and tell you that or something?”
“No. I was trying to piece everything together in the waiting room. Kept trying to talk to your sister, but fat lot of good she was. Just wanted to pretend it wasn’t happening. Hannah’s mom said you were giving her a ride home, and we got the specifics of the accident from the police. Believe me, Hannah and I will be having words about her not texting me about you right away, but I suspect she was just waiting until she got home to dish.”
“Right,” I say, mind whirring.
“Well, juicy or not, you are not supposed to be in here, mister,” Astrid says.
“I know. I just— I had to see her.” It comes out more broken than I’d intended.
“Ohhhh,” she says. It’s one long syllable, and on her face there’s this dawning realization that there’s a heart in front of her that’s nearly as broken as hers.
“I’m sorry,” I say, trying to sound less destroyed. I think about how Astrid must see me right now. Hair a disaster, face a crumpled mess, on the edge of a total breakdown in my mint-green hospital gown. “I know you’ve known her for way longer than me. We just kind of had—”
I go silent. I don’t know how to put it.
“A moment?” Astrid supplies.
“Yeah. You could call it that.”
She whistles. “You know, the nurses have been gossiping. It seems you were saying her name over and over before you finally came around.”
“I was?”
No one told me that.
“Mmm-hmm. Leo Sterling, whatever will you do with your reputation when everyone finds out about this?”
I give her a weak smile. “I won’t tell anyone if you don’t,” I say, but it feels hollow.
Astrid rolls her eyes. “Right. Well, you better get out of here before you get caught.” She starts poking me toward the end of the bed, but I have to ask.
“Astrid, wait—how bad is it?”
She sighs. “It’s not great, chuck. Coma aside, the broken arm isn’t brilliant for the ballet stuff.”
I startle. “What broken arm?”
“Er, it’s in a bloody bright green cast, mate,” she says. She pulls Hannah’s blanket back gently, and there it is, a hard cast on her right arm.
“Shit,” I murmur. I thought she’d just had that arm crossed over her chest like some sort of sleeping fairy-tale princess.
“Apparently they ran out of all the decent colors,” Astrid says.
“Is anything else broken?”
“No. And there’s nothing on her brain scans. The doctors keep saying, All we can do is wait. There’s still so much we don’t know about brains, blah, blah, blah.” She pulls herself straighter and sets her jaw. “But you woke up. So she will too.”
I wonder if she’s thinking the same thing I am. That Hannah deserved to wake up instead of me.
My guilt is turning into panic now. A gray-green poison searing through my blood. I lean over, bracing myself on the cold rail at the foot of Hannah’s bed.
I was driving. And it was my idea to offer her a ride home.
If I hadn’t, she wouldn’t be here.
“This is my fault,” I mumble. The words are out before I can stop them, but they were so low and broken maybe Astrid didn’t hear.
No such luck.
“It wasn’t your fault, actually,” Astrid says gently. When I don’t respond, she pulls her phone out and starts tapping around. “Here, look.”
On the screen there’s a news article about the accident.
“See?” she says. “The police said it was an electrical fault. All the lights at that intersection turned green at the same time. It’s no one’s fault, Leo. It was just a freak accident.”
I scan the article, but it doesn’t take the edge off the guilt. My heart still feels achy and swollen in my chest.
“Listen,” Astrid says, even softer now. “You really do need to get out of here before you get caught.”
I nod, but I can’t move.
She sighs and picks up her coffee cup. “Look, it’s almost time for Hannah’s mom to take over sitting with her, so I’ll walk you out. Unless you want to meet her?”
At the mention of Hannah’s mom, my body pulses with fear. What are her parents thinking about all this? Fuck, what a disaster.
“I’m good,” I squeak.
Astrid cocks her head. “Are you scared? Don’t worry, they like you.”
I snort a laugh. “Sure.”
“No, seriously. Like I said, you kept saying Hannah’s name before you were properly awake. You were so worried about her that they nearly had to sedate you. Trés romantic, mate.”
She laughs at my terrified expression. “All right, another time, then.”
As we sneak back out of the ICU, Astrid carries my IV stand for me. I’m starting to get why Hannah loves her so much. We push out into the fluorescent hospital hallway—
—and run smack into Hannah’s parents.
I stumble. The universe has got to be kidding me right now. It’s like it heard how scared I was and thought it’d have a laugh.
The urge to flee is intense, but Astrid grabs my arm and rises to the occasion.
“Look who I found,” she says, all bright and cheery and English.
I give her parents the most apologetic, freaked-out, deer-in-the-headlights, please-don’t-hate-me look. I’m glad I’m still wearing my hospital gown and have a patch of gauze on my forehead, because it seems awful to be up and about when their daughter isn’t.
Hannah’s mom’s mouth opens, then closes. “Are you—”
It’s no use. She can’t get the rest of her question out.
“Yep, it’s Leo!” Astrid crows. “Leo, these are Hannah’s parents, Conrad and Eliza.”
And then, absurdly, we’re all shaking hands.
Astrid starts babbling something about how they’ve spent so much time with my mom and Gemini that they all feel like they know me. I’m grateful; she’s like a yappy little British Chihuahua.
“Well, we’re so happy to see you up and about, Leo,” Hannah’s dad finally says. “And we really have heard a lot about you. My wife and your mom bonded in the waiting room last night.”
I can’t think of two people who would be less likely to bond than Eliza Ashton and my mother, but okay. Mrs. Ashton gives me a little smile, and there’s none of the icy ballerina tightness I expected to see there.
“Your sister showed us some videos of your gigs,” Hannah’s dad says. “They were awesome.”
I dredge up some of my signature Leo Sterling charm, because it suddenly feels so important that Hannah’s parents like me.
“Aw, thank you,” I say. “I love doing them. Hannah told me you guys used to listen to some of the stuff I cover?”
Her dad brightens, just a little, and then we’re having an actually awesome talk about Guns N’ Roses and Whitesnake and the Scorpions. Guy knows his stuff, and I can tell he’s impressed that I do too. Hannah’s mom is looking at us with the tiniest strum of a smile.
Still, there’s something churning under the surface of this whole weird-ass conversation. Not quite blame, maybe just sadness. They’re trying so hard to keep it under control. It’s a level of chill I wouldn’t have expected from any parents, especially hers.
I’m suddenly so grateful that Hannah made sure her mom knew I was giving her a ride. At least they knew she wasn’t with some rando.
“I should probably get back to my room,” I say after a while. Hannah’s parents nod, and Astrid rolls my IV stand back to me.
“Hey, um—can you keep me posted?” I ask her. “Maybe tell me when she wakes up? I’m on the ninth floor. Room 908.”
“Of course,” Astrid answers.
Hannah’s parents smile at me as I go. I manage to keep up the impression that I’m in one whole piece until I’ve turned the corner.
Then I duck into an empty stairwell and sink onto the steps. I suck in air like I’ve got a collapsed lung.
They were so … nice to me.
I don’t deserve to be the one awake and walking around. Sure, Astrid told me about the glitching light and flat-out said it wasn’t my fault. But I was driving. And everything I touch turns into a disaster. I fuck everything up.
I bury my face in my hands. I still don’t even know if all my memories of Hannah are even real. This is such a mindfuck.
And Hannah has a broken arm. What does that mean for her dancing?
My chest feels so, so tight. The guilt is acid in my veins. I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. Have I ruined Hannah’s life?
And if she doesn’t wake up—does that mean I’ve ended her life?
How would that even look? I don’t want to picture it, but I can’t stop the images from coming. Someone telling me in soft, kind euphemisms that Hannah just couldn’t hang on. Hearing her mom wail, seeing the smile slide off her dad’s face and break all over the floor. Me, numb and floating outside my body, watching as everything collapses around me.
The fear of losing Hannah builds and builds and builds until it’s a screeching crescendo that fills the stairwell. If something happened to her, it’d be the worst FeelBad in the world.
I have spent my whole life avoiding things that hurt. Feelings that suck. Pain, grief, hard shit.
W
hen I was alone with Hannah, I finally had someone to hold me, and she made the emptiness bearable. If she doesn’t wake up—
Fuck. I can’t do this. I can’t be here. I promised her I would feel my feelings, but this is too much. Seeing her like this is more than I can handle.
I stumble up the stairs to the next floor. I stagger out of the stairwell and tear down a dark hallway, my already-useless sense of balance so destroyed that my shoulder bangs into the wall. Something falls over and crashes to the ground, but I don’t look to see what it was.
I just run.
I can’t breathe. I can’t move.
Leo’s gone.
I’m lying on the stage, curled up in a ball around the pain. I’ve been here for hours. I’m wrung out, my eyes swollen, head throbbing.
I’ve got to get up.
Dancing was what got me through those first five days without him, so I close my eyes and think of the “Danse des petits cygnes.” I call up the music in my mind, the steady bassoon beat and the piping oboe melody.
I chant the words as I move my hands. “Entrechat passé, entrechat passé, pique passé.”
When I open my eyes, I’m back in my living room. The world outside is slick and dark and terrifying. The room looks exactly the same, only Leo’s not here with me anymore. It’s like a punch in the stomach, how much I miss him.
Shaking, I pull myself to my feet.
I stumble through my dark house and down the stairs to the basement. I sink to my knees in front of my bag of dance gear, numbly sifting through my pile of pointe shoes. It feels like I’m moving underwater as I tie the ribbons, as I scrape my matted hair up into a bun, as I rise onto pointe.
There’s a reason I kept all this stupid imagination stuff in. Why I planned my life around something steady and reliable. None of this would have happened if I hadn’t gone to the bookstore that day. If I’d never left my house, I could have coped. The emptiness only feels this unbearable now because Leo’s gone.
I grab the barre tight. Pull my spine up. Turn out. Neck long. Chin high.
Dance.
You & Me at the End of the World Page 21