“How far out is the ambulance?” I ask.
Cyrus is still crouched on the floor next to Olivia. His forehead rests on the mattress and Olivia weakly raises her hand and touches his gray hair. “You have to be strong for me.”
He doesn’t lift his head, only shakes it. I rock with the sight. Olivia makes a shushing sound that pierces my heart.
“How far out is the ambulance?” I demand.
No one says a thing and, except for Cyrus, they all stare at me. My father, Hook and Olivia. Each one shares a haunted expression. The type where they know you’re the only one who hasn’t received news of a death.
“Pigpen called your mom,” says Dad. “She’ll be here in a few minutes.”
The world sways. “I didn’t ask that. I asked about the ambulance.”
“There’s no ambulance,” Dad responds in a low tone.
“Why the hell not?”
“The tumor’s grown,” Olivia whispers. “And the cancer’s spread to my blood.”
I turn away as my eyes burn and I prop both hands on the wall to keep myself up. What the hell?
“We found out not long after Emily came, but decided to keep it quiet.” Dad’s footsteps tap against the wooden floor and a heavy hand gently presses on my shoulder. “Olivia wants to die here, son.”
Shit. Just shit. “They said they’d do another round of chemo.”
“It’s over, Oz,” Olivia says.
I smack my hand against the wall and my palm stings. “It’s not.”
“Jonathan,” she whispers.
Fuck this. “No!”
Dad squeezes my shoulder and I recoil with my hands in the air as a visual stop. “This is bullshit!”
My gaze immediately hits Olivia. She presses a hand to her heart, like she did when she lowered herself to my height and explained that it was time for me to go live with Mom and Dad. Just like she did when she wiped my tears away and explained that this would always be my home. That I would always be her family.
Ten years later and when I tell someone I’m coming home, it’s not to the trailer down the way, it’s to here. Olivia is my home.
“Why are you giving up?” I beg. “You swore to me you’d never give up.”
Olivia closes her eyes. A single tear escapes and slowly slides down her cheek.
She’s giving up. The person I love more than anyone else is giving up on living. She’s giving up on me.
My insides twist and all of the building hurt bursts through into anger as I punch open the door in her room that leads to the porch. The cooler air of the night crashes around me as I clutch the railing and lean over.
She’s dying. The person I love the most in my life is going to die.
Emily
MY BODY IS set on something soft and then there’s the click of a lamp. The smell of leather overwhelms me when black gloves frame my face.
“Is she dead?” My voice isn’t my own. It’s too high-pitched. It’s too hysterical.
Eli fills my vision and my body starts to tremble. His hold on my chin is firm and gentle and it prevents me from jumping off the bed and returning to Olivia.
“No, Emily, she’s alive. This happens. Not a lot, but it happens.”
“So this is normal?”
Eli maintains eye contact, but he doesn’t respond, which is the worst type of answer. She’s dying. This is his mother and he should be with her and not me. “You should go to her.”
“No, I’m staying here.”
She’s dying. Olivia is dying. Her body is breaking down, no one can fix her, and I don’t want her to die—I want her to live. My lower lip quivers. “She’s your mom.”
“And you’re my daughter.”
I detest dead things. Dead things are cold and unmoving and terrifying, but Olivia is very much alive and I need her to stay alive. She may not be the cookie-baking type. She might scare me and act crass and rude, but I like her. I briefly close my eyes as pain rips through me. I more than like her, and I haven’t spent enough time with her. Not enough time...
“Dad’s with her,” Eli says and I spot the ache in his eyes. “He needs time with her. He just needs...time.”
Eli rarely refers to his parents as Mom and Dad. Instead, he uses their names, except when he’s hurting. I don’t know much about Eli, but I can tell an awful lot about him when he’s in pain and that’s not right. There’s something fundamentally wrong that I understand him better hurting than I do when he’s happy.
“Don’t you need time with her?” I ask.
He barely nods. “Mom understands I’m running out of time with you, as well.”
All of the emotions of Olivia and Mom and Dad and Eli and even Oz crash into me and I lower my head into my hands, but I bite my lip to keep from crying. Somehow it doesn’t feel like I have the right to cry. I’m not the one on the verge of losing my mom.
“Hey.” Eli lets go of my chin, settles on the bed next to me and wraps an arm around my shoulders, gently pressing so that I’ll lean into him. Because I’m a mess, I do, and feel worse that I’m letting him comfort me. “It’s okay, Emily. For tonight, she’s okay.”
I push down my hurt and rapidly blink to keep the tears away. Eli’s strong. Olivia’s strong. I can be strong, too, but as I go to pull away, Eli only readjusts us so that we’re sitting back against the wall with me still tucked close to him.