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“911, what’s your emergency?”

“My boyfriend’s just had a seizure and he’s not waking up.” The words tumble out in a breathless string.

“Is he breathing?”

“Y-yeah, yeah he is.” I dart back into the bathroom, checking his chest for movement. Shallow, but visible.

I answer the dispatcher’s questions, her patient reminders that I’m doing great feeling like condescension. They have no idea what we’ve been through, not really. The morbid truth is a secret I have to keep locked up tight.

It feels like an eternity before the paramedics arrive. Sunday’s barely lucid, but he still tries to bat them off when they manhandle him out of the bathtub and onto a stretcher.

Moving on autopilot, I collect Sunday’s battered bag with his spare clothes and follow the navy uniforms out of the apartment, numbness spreading through my veins. The bag is the same one he had in college, now held together with safety pins and bad stitching.

I settle into the back of the ambulance, staring at his pale face and clutching the bag against my chest.

Hours bleed into each other, the stream of light coming from the hospital turning from orange to dark. People come and go, a constant rotation of ill and injured that do little to distract me from my churning thoughts.

The hard plastic of the waiting room chair digs into the backs of my thighs, deadening my legs. I still clutch Sunday’s bag to my chest like it’s a buoy, the tattered black fabric keeping me afloat.

I absentmindedly spin the pin badges adorning the front pocket. Some are newer; others, like the ones he collected in high school, are tarnished and chipped. There’s even one that I gave him, which—after seeing all the sentimental items he’s hoarded—I’m not surprised he still has. The black enamel is worn down, but you can still read the writing: somebody’s goth boyfriend.

A sad smile tugs at the corner of my mouth.

We can try again.

We are already on that path, but I fully accept it now. When this is all over, that final barrier comes down. Maybe this time it will work, and we’ll grow together, filling in all the gaps and making new memories that block out the painful ones.

I trust him. Above everything, I really do. It might have taken him years to apologize and tell his truth, but all the best bits about Sunday are still there. He’s still a big, lovable idiot. Still caring, and a secret romantic at heart.

My hand floats to my throat, to the bruises wrapped around it. The torture in his eyes when he realized what he’d done… He’s always handled my body with the same care and attention he puts into his intricate work. Hands that look like they were made to tear the world apart but touch me so unbearably gently.

“Mr. Parris?” the doctor calls, and my head snaps up. I’m on my feet in seconds, moving toward her. “Mr. Mourning is stable now. He’s still quite tired, but you can come and see him.”

A tide of relief flows through my system. I mutter a vapid question asking what happened, knowing full well they probably won’t have found anything. Such is the nature of the paranormal, adept at hiding in plain sight.

“In all honesty, Mr. Parris, there’s nothing too unusual. Sunday is a little dehydrated, and his ECG showed an accelerated heart rate, but his MRI came back clear. You mentioned he’s never had a seizure before?”

“Never,” I say carefully, hoping that my tone stays even. The doctor doesn’t seem to notice, bustling ahead of me and pushing a door open to a semi-private room. I flick my eyes to the left and then the right, quickly assessing the others in the room, but no one seems to be vomiting. My shoulders sag with relief.

The doctor hums. “Well, we will keep him in overnight, just to monitor him and get his fluids up, and then he will be discharged. We recommend that you continue to keep an eye on him at home, and if anything like this happens again, we will do more tests. At this stage, there is nothing else we can do.”

Nothing else we can do.

That sentence leaves a sour taste in my mouth. How true that feels right now.

The doctor gestures to the bay, and I duck around the privacy curtain to find a pale-looking Sunday hooked up to an IV. The hospital gown looks all kinds of wrong on him, somehow managing to diminish his tattoos, turning the usual deep black into a sallow gray.

“Babybell,” he rasps as soon as he sees me, giving me a dopey smile and making a weak grabby motion with the hand that isn’t taped up.

I throw a quick look over my shoulder to make sure the doctor is gone, then draw the privacy screen closed before kicking off my chucks and crawling onto the hospital bed with him.

It’s completely inappropriate to be straddling him in public like this, but I just need to touch him. I need to feel his heart beat against my chest, to feel his breath on my face. I need to know that he is real and tangible, that I haven’t lost him yet.

“Baby…” he rasps, and I can’t help but collapse against him, pressing my forehead to his.

“I’m so sorry,” I croak back, my heart aching over the fact that I failed him.

I press my mouth to his, because I can’t bear him telling me that it’s okay when it’s not. He kisses me back, slow and soft, his hands coming up to rest on the side of my thighs. It’s not long before his kisses turn greedy, his tongue slipping into my mouth, his hands roaming to bury into the globes of my ass.