“But you—Are you okay? Can you be—I mean, Luca and?—”
“I’m okay,” Christian assures me. “Go.”
I nod, my heart going a mile an hour and chest heaving. “Yeah.”
“You need to breathe,” Julian says at my side, his hand firm on my shoulder. “What’s going on?”
“He’s in love, you jackasses!” Luca slurs.
Nico shakes his head and pushes water into his face. “Drink this.”
Christian and Julian grumble at Luca’s behavior, but I can’t even understand the words they say. My mind is telling me to run, shouting at me like I need to save Natalia’s life.
“How the hell did he drink this much?” Christian mutters. “I thought there wasn’t any…”
“I think he spiked his own drink,” Nico whispers. “I think he was just missing Elena… Obviously, this was not the way to handle it.”
“I’m sorry, Christian,” Luca mumbles. “I swear…I’m—I’m s-sorry. I didn’t mean to drink, I didn’t?—”
“You’re being an inconsiderate asshole,” Julian grits at Luca.
Christian growls. “I can’t be here right now. Lana!”
“I’m here!” she shouts back, and Christian follows the sound of her voice.
“You should go, then,” Julian says, bringing me back to our conversation. “If you feel like this…”
“I feel like I’m about to have a panic attack,” I heave, my heart beat loud in my ears.
“You should go,” Nico says. “Breathe first, then go. I would go if it were…You know.”
“Yeah,” I rasp, my voice hoarse and shaky. “Thank you. I’m—Just tell them I said bye, yeah?”
“Yeah, go, go.”
I’m nearly out the door with my coat barely on my shoulders when Christian tosses me a bottle of water. “Drink it and breathe.”
“Sorry about?—”
“If it were Lana, I’d be there by now.” He chuckles, his girl coming toward him. “So, go.”
With that, I get into my car and go. The road becomes a blur, my hands on the wheel and foot on the pedal taking me to her from muscle memory alone. The only thing I have to remind myself of is to breathe because for some reason I’m terrified of what I might find when I get to her apartment.
As I switch the car into park just across the street from her apartment, I’m remembering the night she died. All of that hope I had the night before I walked into her hospital room disappeared the moment I heard that flatline.
It’s impossible to forget the sound of a flatline when you know who it’s attached to. You hear it in silence. But instead of ringing, it’s that sound in your ear instead. Sometimes, when a truck backs up, I mistake it as a sign of death. One similar tone, and my heart drops.
Right now, I feel my heart dropping and the sound of a flatline, and I need to get to my girl because it feels like claws are tearing my chest apart—rabid beasts who want me to lose someone else.
This girl though, she isn’t a flatline. She can’t be a flatline, she’s a lifeline. She’s the thing they attach to dying patients to bring them back to life. I know because she did that to me.
So, I run. I jump out of my car, sprinting and locking it behind me. A couple I’ve seen around town and in my restaurant hold the door open for me, saying quick hellos. I opt for the stairs because fuck the elevator.
I hear that beeping again. The long, monotonous noise that shouts at you when it doesn’t detect a heartbeat.
I take the steps two at a time, sweat gathering at my hairline and my upper lip. I manage to get to the third floor in record time, I think. I sprint the short distance from the stairwell to the other end of the hall where 3B is and pound on the door, holding my breath.
And when the door opens, my eyes land on the girl who restarted my heart.
