Maybe I imagined it because dying men were selfish.
But I heard it.
Don’t leave me.
“I already did,” I tried to say.
It came out as nothing.
Her fingers pressed against my wrist, over my pulse.
Same place Brett Harrison had touched her years ago.
Same place I had fastened the mother-of-pearl cuff.
The symmetry of it was so damn cruel I would have laughed if I had any blood left to waste.
“I need you to stay with me,” she said. “Do you hear me? Stay.”
I wanted to tell her I was trying.
I wanted to tell her I finished school.
I wanted to tell her I built something.
I wanted to tell her I proposed to Georgia and still saw her face every time I closed my eyes, which was a rotten confession for a dying man and worse for a living one.
I wanted to tell her Daniel Ducati seemed decent and I hated him anyway.
I wanted to tell her I wasn’t noble.
I was scared.
I had always been scared.
Of wanting her.
Of ruining her.
Of being wanted back.
But the world was narrowing.
The lights stretched.
The voices blurred.
Destiny’s face was the only thing left.
Not the mask.
Not the scrubs.
Not the nurse she had become.
The girl in the desert.
Fire behind her.
