“I’m fucked up. I—I have this voice inside my head that is constantly screaming at me.” He grips his hair like if he doesn’t, he’ll lose the rest of his sanity.
I lay my hand on his forearm. I want to ask if he’s tried getting help but that would make me a hypocrite. “And what does the voice say?”
With a shaky breath he says, “To leave this world—to leave this world so I can be with her again.”
A tear slides down my cheek, and I force myself closer to him. So, she’s not here anymore. She must have died. Oh god, what if… “She wouldn’t want that.”
His chest rises slowly and then drops. “That’s one reason I’m still here.”
I close my eyes, trying to suppress my horrid sob but I hiccup, no longer able to control the heavy flow of them now.
Fuck.
This time it’s Liem who wrapsmetightly inside his powerful embrace.
I curse myself. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to make this about me.”
With his thumb, he wipes my wet cheek. “Don’t cry, butterfly. This pain is only meant for me.”
My eyes lock with his, the connection so deep, so unbreakable.Butterfly.“What was her name?”
Liem hesitates as if giving me her name is spilling such an intricate, personal connection between them. It’s like giving something so meaningful away. But he breaths and when he lets go, he says, “Gracie.”
Danika
Nurses, doctors, families of loved ones either lost or fighting for their lives crowded the hospital lobby. A mother clung to, what I guess to be, her husband as if she’d die without him. Her sobs echoed through the emergency room despite the noises all around. My chest tightened for her, for whatever the reason.
I was given the news hours ago, but I couldn’t leave. Because if I left, it’d all be too real and there was no longer a home to go to or a family to be home for. They were gone. Just like that. Both are gone. My father. My mother. Everything I’d known was gone. Taken from me in the blink of an eye. The fire started in the basement. Something electrical they said.
Another hour passed and my throat was raw. I didn’t care. At this point, if I died, it wouldn’t matter, would it? I had no one.
A nurse who’d been casting frequent glances at me the entire time came over, but I didn’t want to talk to anyone, I just wanted to wallow and fade away.
“Hey.” She held out a Styrofoam cup for me to take. The nurse was gorgeous. Her features were the most beautiful andthe kindest I’d ever seen. “You should drink something.” Her voice was soft and high pitched like a real-life Princess.
My stare was numb and cold, but I took the cup from her and sipped the water because she was nice enough to go out of her way for someone she didn’t know.
The ice water felt soothing down my dry throat. Maybe it was her being kind, but for whatever reason, my shoulders shook, and my heart dropped into my stomach. And I cried.
The nurse sat in the empty lobby chair next to mine and held me while I did. Her scrubs brushed against my wet cheeks. She smelled like a summer day. Like the beach and fruit. It’s the most comforting scent and her warmth washed through my cold body.
With a sniffle, I wiped away whatever reminisce of tears were left. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“Don’t apologize. Whatever happened I’m so sorry.” When she didn’t get up to leave, I blurted out my confession, dropped every detail of the tragedy. The fire. The ambulance. The paramedic telling me they tried everything they could, but the smoke overtook them. They were burned and unrecognizable. They were no longer the mother and father I knew, but faceless dead bodies without a soul.
We part and she stared out in front of her as we take in the hustle and bustle of more people coming in. “Losing people you love, especially parents, is one of the most painful loses to go through.”
“I didn’t even have a chance to say goodbye.”
She shot me with a sympathetic smile. “Most tragedies end that way. You’re lucky if you get to have the last words with them.”
“Life’s a real bitch.”
She chuckled. But it wasn’t inappropriate, it fit, and I couldn’t help but smile inside even if it was only for a split second.
“Life is hard sometimes. But it’s moments like these that really test how strong you are. And I can tell that you are so, so strong. You have a full life ahead of you and your parents would want you to survive. To live.”
My bottom lip trembled as more tears fell. “But I don’t know how to live without them.”
