I drag in another breath. It feels ugly. My chest rattles with the effort, every inhale a knife to my lungs. I press my cheek into the dirt. It’s cold and wet. The smell of earth clogs my nose. I choke on it and pull my head up, but the world tilts sideways. My vision going hazy.
The world is soundless but for me. My gasps. My wretched sobs. The wet drip of water falling from my sleeves, my hair, my chin. No birds. No breeze.
Just me.
Alive.
I repeat it, mouthing the word. My lips tremble but I force it out, a croak this time.
"Alive.”
I curl forward, forehead to the mud, rocking until the shuddering eases enough that I can breathe again.
I wipe at my face, and my hand comes away filthy, streaked with mud and spit and snot. I don’t care. I’m shaking too hard to care. My body is one giant tremor, rattling bones against skin.
I close my eyes as tears fall freely, but the blue is still there. Not the lake. His eyes. Noah. My constant. He's the light guiding me through darkness, calling me home. Calling me back to myself.
I cling to it—not to pull him down, but to hold myself up. I suck in air again. My chest still aches, but it moves. I can move. I sit back onto my heels. The mud squelches under me. My hands hang uselessly at my sides. My head tips back, and I stare at the pale sky until it blurs.
I’m alive.
Still here.
Not erased.
Not Kyle’s.
Noah’s.
Blue’s.
Mine.
My arms feel like sandbags, but I lift one and press my palm to my chest. The heartbeat under it is frantic and wild, but it’s there. I bow forward and press my lips to the back of my dirty hand, tasting earth and salt. A sob slips out, but it’s not all despair.
It’s relief.
43
GABE
It was never you.
You never did a single thing to deserve any of it.
44
NOAH
The bed is empty when I wake.
For a second, I think maybe he’s in the kitchen, or the bathroom, or just up earlier than me. But the sheet on his side is cold.
My stomach tightens.
I push myself upright, listening. There’s nothing. No footsteps, no kettle, no faint shuffle of Gabe moving around down in the shop.
“Gabe?”
