I hear them shuffle out, and the door softly closes. Their muffled voices float in from the hallway. The doctor’s saying something, but I can’t hear clearly enough to know what.
And then Devlin explodes. “No! We are not doing that! You will not stop feeding her!”
My heart stops.
Oh my gods, they want to stop feeding me. That’s what my family was saying earlier about the doctors. That’s why they were all crying.
If I can’t come out of this, break through the wall that I’m trapped behind, the doctors will let me die.
I’ll lose everything,everything, and worst of all, Devlin.
And our life together has only just begun.
I’m here,I try to scream.Don’t go. Devlin, please! You’ve got to hear me. Please help me. Somebody help me!
37
DEVLIN
“They’ve given up on Blair,” I tell Hands when I get home.
He signs,What?
I slump into a kitchen chair and fold over, resting my elbows on my knees. “The doctors want to stop feeding her. No way in hell am I going to let that happen. I’ll bring her here if I have to—set up a bed, have nurses around the clock—whatever it takes.”
Hands’s finger deflate over the hill of his body.I’m so sorry.
Tears fall from my eyes and drip down my chin. “They’re trying to convince us that she’s already gone, that she won’t ever come back because there’s no brain activity. But Hands, I will not?—”
My voice breaks and so do I. I sob like I haven’t done since my parents died. My entire body shakes and convulses.
How dare they. Wanting to let her die. Blair’s inside her mind. I know it. She has to be. I just can’t reach her.
When the tears stop, I sit up and press the heels of my hands into my eyes for a moment. I exhale hard, pushing out all the oxygen in my lungs. “The bookshop.”
What about it?
Hands plucks several tissues from a box and offers them. I take the fingerful and blot my face. I wad up the tissues, gulp down several breaths and fall back on the chair.
Thinking about something besides Blair helps, and if I talk fast, maybe I won’t break down again. “The magic is broken, and the place is a mess. I told Clara that I’d try to help. I think there may be a way to stabilize it. It won’t work long term, but it could last a few days. It’s the least that I can do.”
And then sadness overwhelms me again. It comes in waves, ebbing and flowing. At the hospital it’s easier to keep it in check, to be strong for Blair’s family. But when it’s just me and Hands, I can’t hold up pretenses any longer.
“Hands, this is my fau?—”
He grabs my fingers and shakes them. When I look up, he signs,Stop. This is not your fault. You can’t blame yourself. Blair knew this would happen, and she wanted to be with you. You wanted to be with her. You’ve got to stop guilting yourself.
That’s easier said than done. But Hands is right. Blaming myself isn’t going to help anything. I have to stop. Got to focus on something else, at least for a few hours, give myself a task. If I can’t save Blair, then maybe I can save her family.
“You’re absolutely right. Now, the bookshop.”
Hands waits a moment before replying, studying to make sure that I’m okay.
I roll my eyes. “I’m fine. Not fine, heartbroken. Destroyed. But the bookshop needs stable magic, something to bring it together and focus it.”
There’s a long pause because Hands knows what I’m suggesting and he doesn’t like it. But right now I don’t care. I want to be reckless. I want Blair back.
Yes, it’s an absolute miracle that she lived at all. The truck hit her, but it didn’t run over her. That’s the only thing that savedher life. She broke so many bones—pelvis, leg, arms, cracked ribs.
