“Andrea!” Lex shouts, grabbing my face so I’ll look at him.
It snaps me out of my torpor, and I notice crimson droplets on his jaw and neck. When he pulls his hand away, I see it’s covered in blood, and my heart drops into the depths of my stomach.
“You’re bleeding!” I cry out, my own hands moving up to look for the wound. Did I not save him in the end? Fuck, why is my arm so heavy?
“It’s not mine,” he says, frenzied.
He repeats those same words, over and over again as he shifts us around. I’ve never seen him so scared, so crazed. He’s so distraught, tears gathering in his gray eyes, some of them falling down his cheeks. His moves are clumsy, frantic, as he arranges us so I’m lying between his parted legs, my head resting on his thigh.
Bertrand is on the phone, demanding an ambulance, and Larry, the concierge, is hovering around us like a maniac, as panicked as everyone else.
“Lex, you’re hurting me!” I protest when he presses onto my chest.
“I’m sorry. I need to apply pressu—No, stay still! I’m so sorry, Andrea… This is all my fault.” His words make no sense, a litany of apologies and pleas.
Then I feel it. Pain. Not from his hand pressing on me. Something sharp and cutting under the crushing pressure of his palm and fingers. I look down and see that my blue dress is stained with something thick and dark, making the fabric look black. But on Lex’s skin, the sticky fluid is bright red. There’s so much of it.
The bullet missed Lex by lodging itself in me.
Into my chest.
Panic like I’ve never experienced before tunes out every single thought. All but one.
“Baby, I don’t want to die,” I beg, meeting his eyes.
“You won’t. I won’t let you. Look at me, Andrea. I forbid you to die. You can’t abandon me.”
“Please… don’t let me die. I can’t—” Helpless sobs force me to stop, tears flowing down my temples.
He looks up from me to bark orders at the two men with us. But I barely make out his words. I can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t move. My limbs are heavy, like I’m being swallowed by the ground. My eyelids seem to weigh a ton, too. Everything turns blurry, but I try to fight it, to stay right here with him.
I just turned twenty-seven. I can’t die. But then, Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Amy Winehouse… They all died at twenty-seven, didn’t they? Maybe I’m part of that curse, too.
But I had so many more years ahead of me. I don’t want to die yet. My family, my friends, my app… and most of all,him.
I don’t want to let go of him. I can’t.
“Andrea!” Lex shouts. “Look at me! No, don’t close your eyes. Keep your eyes open!”
I try.
I really do.
But as much as I want to keep looking at him, I’m suddenly so tired. The most tired I’ve ever been.
But it’s not darkness that welcomes me when I let myself drift into oblivion. It’s a series of flashes. Me, young and innocent, playing in the front garden with Kate and Rafa. Then, spending time with my dad, learning more about computers, exhilarated by this new knowledge. I see my mom being silly and dancing with me in the living room to whatever trendy song is on the radio. Then a game of Scrabble with Maria Carmen, and the chancla she throws at me when I’m caught cheating on my phone.
And then I seehimin that elevator, the stranger who would become my entire world. I see us falling in love, us in Seoul, us being reunited, us being so impossibly happy together… And children, with curly hair and gray eyes, the ones I might never meet.
No, I can’t die. It’s impossible.
Our story just began.
Chapter 21
Andrea’s hand is slack in mine. But I won’t let go, still desperate to feel it move, tighten, or anything. I held it the entire ambulance ride to the hospital, and they had to physically force me to let her go so they could take her to the trauma room. But ever since they wheeled her into this room in the ICU, I haven’t let go.
I stare at her hand in mine, finding it smaller than I ever did. So petite. So fragile. So pale. She did her nails before we left. She even asked me to help her choose the color. The pretty shade of blue is already chipped. Damaged, like the rest of her. At least there’s no blood around hers, unlike mine, despite washing my hands while they were operating on her. I should go handle that, but it would require that I let go.
