He takes a shallow breath. She clutches his hand.Stay with me.
Tears spring to her eyes as the memories flood her heart. “You will always be there, too, making the absolutely mad decision to invite the woman who pulled a knife on you to lunch.”
“Best decision of my life,” he mumbles. He doesn’t open his eyes.
She chokes out something between a laugh and a sob. “We are still standing on the Rialto Bridge.” She strains to hold back her tears, to keep her voice steady. “Still exploring the world under one grand glass roof. Still counting the stars over Lancaut. Always. Even when you’re gone.” Her voice breaks. Tears spill down her cheeks, soak through Oliver’s shirt to his skin. “You don’t have to say goodbye to me, Oliver. Because you and I will never end.”
Oliver struggles to open his eyes. When she looks into them, something in her glass heart cracks, like it knows this will be the last time. Because he knows it, too.
“No goodbyes?” he whispers.
She places a soft kiss on his forehead, kisses his lips and tastes the salt of her own tears. Of his. “Never.”
Beatrix doesn’t remember leaving Oliver’s room. She doesn’t remember coming down the stairs or sitting on the faded sofa next to Zoë. Doesn’t remember who put the crocheted blanket over her shoulders, though it is Theo who hands her a mug of tea, just how she likes it. Did he ask her? Did she tell him? She wraps both of her hands around the oversize ceramic mug, lets the heat of it warm her. It’s scalding, but she doesn’t care. This pain is different, at least.
Theo sits in the low armchair next to her. “How is he?”
“Sleeping.” That much she remembers. Remembers the panic that swelled inside her as his eyes drifted closed, the urge to wake him, to keep him with her. She takes a sip of her tea. It burns her tongue. She still feels cold and hollow, like everything has drained out of her.
There is nothing left to do but wait. Again. Still. Wait for that inevitable moment when Oliver leaves her for good. Leavesthemfor good. Because Zoë and Luke and Theo are all gathered in the living room with her, all drowning in their own thoughts and memories of Oliver.
He would hate to see them like this. If he were here, he’d take her hand in his or tip his forehead against hers, and he would say,Talk to me, Bea. And she would.
She swallows painfully against the lump rising in her throat. “I picked Oliver’s pocket at the Globe. Did he tell you? That’s how we met.” She speaks her memory into life. It feels good to share it with the others, to make it more real. “And when he tried to ask me to lunch, I pulled a knife on him.”
Zoë laughs. The sound is foreign in the heavy silence, too warm and bright: a ray of sunshine breaking through the storm clouds. Beatrix welcomes it.
Luke shakes his head, slouched in the far corner of the sofa across from her. “I called bullshit when he told me. No way is he brave enough for that. He said he wasn’t in any danger.”
“He didn’t think I’d use it?” Beatrix asks.
“Oh no, he did,” Zoë confirms. “He just knew that even if you stabbed him, it wouldn’t kill him.”
“I did point out that it would still hurt like hell,” Luke says.
Zoë catches Beatrix’s eye. “He said it would have been worth it.”
Beatrix shakes her head. He would say that, wouldn’t he? “Well, I didn’t stab him. We had lunch, and I overcharged him for a tour of London.”
The corners of Zoë’s lips curve, and she glances across the coffee table—cluttered with fast-food wrappers and half-empty cups—to Luke. “I met these two at freshman orientation. I was a very high-strung freshman. I was taking way too many classes, for starters. Oliver always knew when I was stressed, when I was having a bad day, when I needed someone. It was like this weird sixth sense. I thought he was the most empathetic person I ever met. Turns out, he just knew how to count.”
Beatrix furrows her brow, missing something. Luke tries—and fails—to stifle a laugh.
Zoë rolls her eyes. “I had this bad habit of chewing on the ends of all my pencils while I worked. When I was done using them, I’d stick them in my hair. But if I got frazzled, I’d forget, find another pencil, then stick that one in my hair, too.”
“Rinse and repeat,” Luke adds.
“The more pencils in my hair, the more stressed I was. I didn’t even realize it. Oliver figured it out.”
“She got up to seven once,” Luke says.
“I was writing my thesis proposal, and let’s just say it was not going well. Oliver stayed up all night with me in the lab until I figured it out. He had no idea what I was talking about. He just knew that I needed to talk it through, needed someone there to keep me going.” Zoë’s eyes shine. “He was my someone.”
She brushes her tears away. Beatrix takes her hand and squeezes it.
“As Oliver’s oldest friend…” Luke begins. Zoë rolls her eyes. He swallows, and his smile falters. “I don’t know what to say. I mean, I’ve known him since we were seven. He was my first friend when I moved here. I truly can’t imagine what my life would have been like without him. And I can’t imagine what it will be like when he’s gone.” He blinks back the tears in his eyes. He glances at Theo. “He told me once, after he lost his mom and dad, that he hated when people told him it would get better.”
“He told me that, too,” Beatrix says.
