I heard a shout: “Kami!” I turned and saw Cameron. Something happened inside me: My bones seemed to melt, something told menow you can rest, and darkness clouded my eyes as I hit the ground and my body took the rest it so sorely needed.
Please, God, I thought.Please, God, don’t let me wake if he’s not here with me.
After that, I remember nothing else.
* * *
I woke up in the hospital. My brain played a trick on me. For a moment, I thought I was in my bedroom with the same silly problems as always: Did Taylor still hate me? When could I hang out with Thiago again? How would I do on my physics exam?
Then I saw where I was. I scanned the room, recallingeverything that had happened, and I felt my chest clench with the same pressure as earlier, but more intensely now, because I knew Thiago’s life was on the line, and Taylor was badly wounded.
I sat up and felt a sharp pain in my arm. An IV. I tore it out and started to get up.
“What are you doing?” my mother asked, walking in. “Kamila, you can’t do that!”
“Where is Thiago? Where’s Taylor?” I asked desperately, ignoring my mother’s efforts to pacify me.
“They’re being operated on—both of them,” she replied with concern on her face.
She looked like she’d aged ten years. Her eyes were red and swollen, and that meant she’d been crying. I couldn’t help but assume things were worse than she was letting on.
“Mom, I need you to be honest with me. What’s going on?”
“Nothing, Kami. Just relax, OK? I was with Ms. Di Bianco. A neurosurgeon is working on Thiago. The bullet didn’t pass directly through the brain, and that’s good news, but the operation will take hours.”
“Where is he? I want to talk to his mom,” I said, now standing face-to-face with her. She must have known it was pointless to stop me, so she led me to the waiting room. Katia Di Bianco, whose own daughter had died in her arms years before, was sitting there, praying that a couple of deranged murderers hadn’t taken her two sons’ lives.
When she saw me, she called my name and stood to hug me tight. I could feel her body trembling against me. “Are you all right, honey? I saw you pass out.”
“I’m fine. How’s Taylor?” I asked, despising the world for being a place where hatred, evil, and violence existed. My voice was bitter—how could a tragedy like this happen?
“They’re operating on him. He has two broken ribs and ahematoma, but they said he’s going to be fine in a couple of weeks. Thiago, though…” She burst into tears and let out a deep sob.
As a reflex, my eyes filled with tears, too, but I managed to reassure her: “He’ll be all right, Ms. Di Bianco. Just you wait.”
“God willing,” she said, looking over my shoulder. “Your mother’s so lucky to have both kids alive and well.”
I felt terrible, almost ashamed that I had made it through unscathed, and I wanted to run away, flee that terrible reality. It felt like I was on a train, speeding faster and faster, and the only thing I wanted to do was get off before it crashed.
My mother was holding my brother, who had fallen asleep in her arms. It was a crime for a boy so little to have to see the things he’d seen.
Ms. Di Bianco couldn’t lose another child. We couldn’t lose Thiago now, not when there were still so many reasons to live, so much for me and him to share…
Not even twenty-four hours had passed since we’d been in bed together, wrapped in each other’s arms, kissing, exploring each other’s bodies, giving each other pleasure and starting to truly love one another—because when that happens, you can feel it. You know it’s real. You know this is the person you’re meant to be with, you can sense the trust taking root deep within your heart, real, palpable.
I had felt that, I had seen our future, and I didn’t need to go out with him for years to find out all the little details about him, his best virtues and worst defects, because I already knew him.
Because he was my missing half, my soulmate—call it what you want. He was the one who had made me the happiest girl in the world, the one who drove me crazy, who had consoled me in the bottomless pit of pain, protected me, and given himself to me, body, mind, and soul, and you know how I knew this?
Because I was the very same for him.
We sat in the waiting room for hours. First, they told us about Taylor. The surgery had gone well, and they were bringing him out of anesthesia. He would need to rest, but he’d soon be back on his feet.
I was relieved. They took us back to see him. He was breathing on his own, he was battered and bruised, but he was still Taylor, my Taylor, my best friend.
Thiago, though… A doctor told us he’d gone into cardiac arrest, but they’d managed to revive him. His life was hanging by a thread, and they hadn’t finished his operation yet.
For ten hours, they tried to save him. Ten hours to stop the blood loss, extract the bits of bone lodged in his brain, and remove the damaged tissue. They told us he’d been lucky: The bullet had traveled partway along the bone and hadn’t penetrated the skull very deeply. They had performed what they called a decompressive craniectomy, which meant they removed a section of bone to keep the brain swelling from killing him. The surgeon, looking exhausted from so many hours’ work, continued, “The upcoming days will be crucial. If the inflammation goes down, we can replace the bone. After that, it’s wait and see.”
