Текст книги "All It Takes"

Автор книги: Sadie Munroe

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Chapter 18

Ash

I ended up taking her to Gerard’s for dinner first, a little hole-in-the-wall pub in the next town over, not far from where I’d planned on taking her dancing. I used to come here, not to get shit-faced like I normally did at bars, but for the food. It has the best damn chili on the planet, and just like I thought she would, Star fucking loved it. Not the best first-date food, sure. But it has always been my favorite, and I wanted to share it with her.

We got a little booth in the back, eating and laughing and having a good time. I’d wrapped my arm around her shoulders, snuggling up against her as I tried to shove my nerves about going dancing deep down so they wouldn’t show. I’m going to look like an idiot. But that’s okay, I tell myself. You’re going to be with the hottest girl there. No one is going to be looking at you. Not when they could look at her.

And damn, does Star ever look good. I don’t know where she even got those clothes, but when she walked out of the bedroom in those tight jeans and that little leather jacket, it took everything I had not to suggest just staying home and doing some “dancing” on the living room floor.

Well, if there was room on the living room floor, anyway. Which there wasn’t. We hadn’t gotten that far in the clean-up yet.

Soon, I think as I follow Star out to the parking lot, my eyes following every curve of her body as she walks ahead of me. Soon.

“Come on,” she says, reaching back and snagging my hand in hers. Smiling, she raises her hand in mine and twirls her body underneath it like a ballerina. “You promised me dancing.”

I smile and pull her close, wrapping my free hand around her waist, and press a kiss to her temple. “Are you sure you still want to do that?” I ask. “Because I can think of a couple other things we can do. By ourselves.”

“Hey, mister,” Star says, laughing and shoving me away from her playfully. I laugh and fake a stumble into the side of her mom’s station wagon, clutching at my chest like she’s wounded me. “You promised me dancing.” She wags her finger at me. “And that means that we are definitely goi—”

“Well, look who came crawling back.” A voice cuts through the darkness, and it makes something cold shoot up my spine and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I know that voice. I know it extremely fucking well, even though I haven’t heard it in five goddamn years. My heart in my throat, I squeeze Star’s hand and slowly turn around.

Fuck.

She looks different. Her hair’s shorter now, up around her shoulders instead of trailing in curls down her back, but it’s still just as red. And her eyes are just as fucking cruel as they were the last day I saw her.

I take a deep breath, trying to brace myself, but my voice still sounds like a hormonal fucking teenager when I force it out.

“Hey, Gina,” I say, trying not to wince at the sound. “It’s been a long fucking time.”

My ex-girlfriend just smirks at me and cocks her hip out to one side as she crosses her arms over her chest.

“Yes, Ash,” she says, “it has.”

Star

This is her, I realize. This is Ash’s ex. The one that broke his heart and dropped him when the accident happened. The one who abandoned him when he needed her the most. I grit my teeth as I look her over. She doesn’t even glance at me, even though Ash and I are still pressed close together.

I want to rip her eyes out.

“I should have figured I’d see you around here,” she says. “After all, this is where you used to take me all the time.” Her gaze darts over to me finally, giving me a cold once-over before dropping down to where my fingers are linked with Ash’s. Then she looks back up at me and smirks before turning back to Ash.

“It’s my favorite restaurant, Gina,” he says. He’s gripping my hand so hard that I’m going to have bruises, but I don’t care. I squeeze back just as hard. I’m here. I’m his now, and he’s mine. This girl is his past.

And the past doesn’t matter. Not to us. Not anymore.

But she just scoffs. “This dump?” she says. “Not exactly fine dining, is it?”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re complaining about,” Ash says. “In case it has escaped your notice, you’re here, too.”

“Only because I saw you in the parking lot. Brenden and I are having dinner at the new French place across the street.” She tilts her nose up into the air like that’s supposed to mean something, like she’s better than us, somehow. Yeah, right. Ash has told me all about her. Little rich girl who wanted to walk the wild side, wanted to get her parents attention by getting into drugs and drinking. But she’s the one eyeing him like he’s the worthless one. “You remember Brenden, don’t you, Ash?”

Smirking, she takes a step closer, and Ash takes a step forward and tugs me behind him slightly, so that he’s standing between the two of us, the line of his back stiff as an arrow.

“They should have let you rot in prison,” she says. “You deserve it, after what you did.”

I lay my free hand on Ash’s back, trying to soothe him, but it’s no use. He’s tensed up completely, muscles coiled like he’s ready for a fight.

But instead of snapping back at her, like I expect him to, his muscles begin to loosen. As I watch, Ash almost seems to shrink in on himself, becoming smaller and smaller as this horrible woman goes on and on, telling him how useless he is, how terrible. Her voice is like the scraping of nails across a chalkboard. It’s killing him.

Then she draws her arm back, hand twitching like she’s about to take a swing at him, and I can’t take it anymore.

“Get the hell away from him!” I yell, stepping forward around Ash, and the girl jerks away from me, her eyes widening as I reach down and pull my phone out of my bag. I can’t help the smirk that starts to tug at the corner of my mouth as I turn on the phone and waggle the screen in her direction. “You lay one finger on him and I’m calling the police and having you charged with assault.”

She takes a step back, eyes darting back and forth between me and Ash, probably wondering who the hell I am. Good. Little redhead wasn’t expecting anyone to actually say anything, even after she spewed all that crap where anyone could hear it. I can’t imagine why. Did she think that she was so damn intimidating that she could just walk all over everybody?

I take a step forward and, hilariously, the girl—Gina, Ash said her name was—actually takes another full step back. “Yeah,” I scoff, dropping my phone back into my bag. “That’s what I thought.”

For a split second, she fumbles, her perfect little persona slipping for an instant before she manages to shake it off and pull herself back together. But it’s too late. I’ve already seen straight through her. She’s weak. The worst thing that ever happened in her life didn’t even happen to her. It happened to Ash. She’s had nothing that hard in her life, nothing she’s had to live through, to force herself to be strong just to keep breathing through.

But I have. And that makes me stronger than her.

Much stronger.

But she’s the one who’s crossing her arms over her chest and looking at me like she’s the queen of the world, like I’m beneath her. Like Ash is nothing more than a bit of dirt on her shoe, and I’m no better, having associated with him.

How wrong she is.

She whirls on Ash, what little is left of her fire flashing in her eyes. “Are you going to let this little bitch talk to me like this, Ash?”

I can feel as much as hear the breath Ash takes and blows back out as he comes back into himself, and I smile as his hand lands on my waist, pulling me closer.

“She can say whatever she wants,” Ash says, and I turn to look over my shoulder at him, feeling my belly flip at the warmth in his eyes when he looks at me.

I turn back to Gina, crossing my arms over my chest. “That’s right. And what I want, right now, is to tell you to go to hell. So guess what?” I take a step forward, feeling Ash’s hand drop from my side as I move into Gina’s personal space, and whisper, “Go to hell.”

I flick my hair over my shoulder and turn away from Gina, a grin spreading across my face. I can practically feel it as her glare burns into my back, smack dab between my shoulder blades, but I don’t give a shit. She abandoned Ash when he needed her.

He deserves better.

“Ash, call off your stupid whore,” Gina snaps, but I don’t even turn around to look at her. She isn’t worth my time. “You will listen to me or you will regret it!”

Ash is standing there, leaning against the passenger door of the car, grinning like mad. “I don’t think so, Gina,” he says, but he isn’t looking at her. He’s looking straight at me as he tells her, “You and I are done. For good. I’m with Star now, and she’s right. You should go to hell.”

Behind me, Gina’s still screeching at us, but all I can see is Ash and how good he looks. He grins at me, and lets his gaze wander from my eyes all the way down to my feet and back up again, the suggestion clear in his eyes. I give him a saucy little wink and watch as he throws back his head and laughs.

It’s the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen. All at once, I want to throw myself at him, wrap my arms around his shoulders and my legs tight around his waist, and French the hell out of him. The need is like a hook in my belly, just below my navel, and it tugs me straight to him.

Oh, what the hell, I think. And then I do just that.

Ash

That was fucking amazing. I’d never seen Gina’s face look like that in my entire life. It had done some weird thing, like she’d sucked on a lemon while trying to shit a brick at the exact same time. And Star had been classy as fuck while she was putting Gina in her place.

It had been hot as hell, especially right afterward, when Star had wrapped her legs around me, pinning me to the car with her weight. She’d rubbed up against me like a cat, and it made me want to do all kinds of things to her. And judging by the things she’d whispered in my ear as Gina had let out a huff and stalked off, I’d be getting to do everything I’d pictured real damn soon.

Especially since one of the things she said was “You know what Ash? Fuck dancing. Why don’t you take me home and fuck me?”

Goddamn, I think, replaying the scene over again in my mind. So fucking hot. I need to drive faster.

Luckily the streets are pretty empty. But it isn’t surprising. It isn’t like Avenue is known for its nightlife. But even though the drive is going pretty quickly, it feels like I’ve already been in the car for an eternity. I’m half tempted to just pull over on the side of the road and pull Star into my lap. Get started on the fun a little bit early.

But when I look over, the suggestion on the tip of my tongue, Star just smiles at me, and my stomach does that weird flippy thing it’s been doing an awful lot lately.

Fuck, I’m in love with her. Every time I look at her, something moves through me, and all of a sudden I don’t give a shit that she lives two states away. I’ll follow that girl to the end of the earth, if she’ll let me. I reach over and lay my hand on hers on the bench seat between us. Her skin is warm and smooth beneath mine. My hand’s all rough and calloused, especially after all the work we’ve been doing on the house. But hers feels like silk. She flips her hand over under mine, and I link our fingers together. Then I tug our joined hands up, and, looking over at her, I press my lips to the back of her hand.

She squirms a little in her seat and a laugh bubbles up out of her. It sounds like music to me. “Watch the road, jerk,” she says, and I wink at her as she tugs her hand away, and I turn back to the road. The sun is sinking behind the horizon, and the light is getting dim. As we drive, the streetlights start blinking on one by one.

It’s a nice night.

But it’s more than that somehow. It almost feels like a beginning.

Star leans forward and turns on the radio, and as I drive she fiddles with the dials, finally settling on an oldies station. She leans back in her seat, and as soon as she’s out of reach, I reach over and switch it to a classic-rock station. Star turns and says, “Hey!” as AC/DC starts blasting through the speakers. I grin and glance over at her. She’s glaring at me, but I can tell by the smile that’s tugging at her mouth that she doesn’t mean it. Soon enough her glare fades and she rolls her eyes, reaching out and twisting the dial, turning down the volume to a much lower level.

The song ends and the DJ switches over to Metallica and, from deep in the caverns of Star’s bag, her phone rings. She leans forward, digging through it until she finds it, and sits back clutching the phone in her hand. But she doesn’t answer it right away. It just keeps ringing. I look over her. She’s staring down at the screen, her brow furrowing.

I reach over and touch her leg, but she doesn’t look up.

“Hey,” I say, glancing back at the road and then looking back at her. “What is it? What’s wrong?” I trail my hand up her leg to where her free hand rests. I lay my palm over the back of her hand, then trail my finger down until my pinkie is linked with hers.

She just shakes her head and touches her thumb to the screen, answering the call. Bringing it to her ear, she murmurs, “Hello?”

And that’s the last thing I see that makes sense. Suddenly, everything is a cacophony of noise and movement.

Everything around me spins, turning upside down again and again and again. Beside me, Star is screaming, and there’s the sound of metal against metal. Tearing. Cracking. Shattering.

And then, suddenly, everything stops. The chaos is gone. And then there’s nothing but silence and stillness and pain.

So much pain.

And then all I can see is darkness.

Sometimes, a single second is all it takes.

And everything changes.

Chapter 19

Ash

I try to open my eyes but I can’t.

I can’t focus.

All I can see is flashes. Flashes of light and of darkness. All I can hear is the thunder of my heart and snatches of voices. But they’re all talking over one another and it’s like I’m in a dream, like they’re all out of order, out of sequence. Or that I am.

“—other. We’re his pa—”

“—e’s crashing. We need to in—”

Someone’s crying. Sobbing. I want to reach out, to move.

But I can’t.

I’m trying so hard that the shock of the jolt, of my body jerking without my permission stuns me and I start to fall back in on myself.

“—eed to get—”

“—epped for sur—”

I try to follow the voices, try to make them make sense, but it’s no use.

They’re fading.

Everything’s fading.

No.

No.

No no no, I think. I try to scream it but the words won’t come out.

The light is gone now. The voices, too.

Fuck, I think as I slide into the darkness.

It’s happening again.

Star

When I wake up, I do it slowly. I’m groggy. Sluggish. I feel like I’m deep under water, and it’s a struggle to fight my way to the surface. To consciousness.

But slowly, I edge my way back, bit by bit. And finally, finally, I open my eyes.

The first thing that filters through my hazy mind is just how incredibly bright everything is. Walls gleaming white in the sunlight that filters through the window by my side, bits of metal catching in the light, sending off little glints that dance like fairies across my vision.

The second thing is the pain.

Everything hurts. Every last inch of me aches, and as I breathe in, I feel a shooting, stabbing pain in my side. I try to squeeze my eyes shut and breathe through it, but I can’t quite stop the whimper that escapes my lips. Struggling, trying not to scream, I shift myself on my side and lay there, exhausted, just breathing. In and out.

In and out.

The machine next to me lets out a beep, and, once the pain has faded into the background, I open my eyes.

I’m in a hospital room.

What the hell happened to me? I wonder. How did I even get here?

And then . . . Oh god.

Ash.

Where’s Ash?

I try to surge forward, to pull myself out of the bed, but I can’t. The pain is so bad I want to scream and I have to grit my teeth and ease myself back down, and wait for it to pass again.

My heart is thundering in my chest.

Where is Ash?

I open my mouth to call out for someone. Anyone. But the haze that keeps threatening to envelop me is too great, and I can’t quite get the words out. I still, squeezing my eyes shut and try to concentrate. I can do this. I have to do this. I suck in as much air as I can, and let out a yell before I collapse back onto the mattress. A moment passes, two, and I’m lost in the whirling, dizzying cloud of pain that surrounds me. There’s a noise from the other side of the door, and my eyes blink open just in time to see the doorknob begin to turn. I reach out with my left hand to grasp the edge of the bed and push myself up into a more upright position, but as I set my hand down, my hand begins to hurt. Bad.

I look down and my heart catches in my throat. And as soon as I lay eyes on it, the pain hits me in full force. My hand is wrapped in gauze, my fingers are trembling, from the pain or the fear, I’m not certain. But there’s something wrong.

My hand is too small, too narrow to be my own.

I turn my hand over, palm up, just to be sure, and my throat starts to close up as I realize what has happened.

My pinkie finger, the one I’ve linked with Ash dozens of times as we made promises to each other, is gone.

It’s just . . . gone.

Ash

I hear them talking before I open my eyes. My parents. I can’t make out what they’re saying, but I know their voices better than anyone’s. And that’s definitely my mother.

I groan before I can stop myself, and try to turn over to go back to sleep. It’s early—what the fuck does she think she’s doing, trying to wake me up at this time? But as soon as I shift, I can feel it, the pain, and I fucking jolt.

Jesus Christ. Everything fucking hurts. What the hell happened to me?

“Ash?” Mom’s voice cuts through the haze. “Ash, are you all right, honey?”

Why is that familiar? Why have I heard those words before? Well, almost. I’m pretty sure there wasn’t a honey attached to it last time.

What the fuck happened?

I grit my teeth and force my eyes to open. There’s a flash of white, and then my vision clears. I’m in the hospital. Jesus.

All at once, I’m back there. I’m back in Gina’s car, weaving back and forth completely wasted. I’m back at the crash, at the car I tried not to hit but did, anyway. I hear the horn, the scrape and scream of metal against metal, and then I see the white of the hospital room, the dark uniformed figure, reading me my rights before I’m hauled off to holding. To the courtroom. To prison. It all hits me all at once, and then over and over again. It won’t stop.

It won’t ever stop.

Crash.

Scream.

Darkness.

Light.

Crash.

Scream.

Darkness.

Li—

A hand lands on my shoulder, jostling me hard enough to jerk me back into reality. I blink my eyes open, even though they feel heavy and I’m sluggish under the weight that’s pressing on my chest. What the fuck happened? Why am I here?

I must say it out loud, because Mom’s face comes into view, and I feel her cool hand rest on my forehead. It feels good, relaxing, but I shake off that feeling. I have to. I have to stay awake. Stay alert.

“It’s okay, honey. Everything is going to be all right.”

“What—what happened?” I ask, trying to pull myself up into a sitting position even as the room starts to spin around me. Mom’s hand is on my shoulder almost immediately, trying to push me back down against the pillows.

“Mom?” I say, desperate. I don’t remember. I don’t know why I’m here. “Mom, what happened to me?”

I manage to keep my eyes open long enough to see her glance behind her, and I hear the sound of footsteps against tile, and Dad appears beside her. They’re silent for a moment, doing that weird mental communication thing that all parents seem to be able to do, the ones that stay together, anyway. But I’m fighting against the pain and the drugs—goddamn, what the fuck do they have me on? I feel like I’m flying—and I need answers before I pass out.

“Mom. Please. What’s going on?”

She sighs and turns back to me, and I see her eyes are filled with unshed tears.

“You were in an accident. The car you were driving was hit.”

Fuck.

Star!

“Star,” I say, instantly more awake than I had been a moment ago. My hands are pulling at the blankets, trying to get them off me so I can sit up. “Where is she? Is she okay?” I fight back a wave of nausea as I swing my feet over the side of the bed and start to climb down. My parents’ hands are on me at once, trying to push me back, but I just shove them off. I need to find her. I need to make sure she’s okay.

Holy fuck. What if she’s not? What if she’s dead?

I think I’m gonna puke.

“Ash! Ash, stop!” Mom says, her fingers gripping the flimsy-ass hospital nightgown I’m wearing. I don’t remember putting that on. I reach up and start prying her fingers off. I need to find Star.

“Let me go,” I say, pulling her hands away. “I need to see Star. I need to know if she’s okay.”

“She’s fine.” Dad’s voice comes from the edge of the inky blackness that’s hovering all around the edge of my vision. I shake my head, trying to clear it, but all that does is make it start to spin even worse. I lean back against the edge of the bed, and feel his warm hand come down on the back of my neck. “Ash. Did you hear me?” he asks, his voice deep and close. “Your friend is okay. She’s banged up, but she’s alive.”

Jesus Christ. Relief spreads through me like a tidal wave.

Holy shit.

I lean forward, resting my throbbing head in my hands for a moment, trying to get the fog to pass. My entire body’s shaking and I feel like I’m freezing and sweating my ass off at the same damn time. I don’t remember feeling like this before. Not even the last time I was in the hospital.

But my relief is short lived. I feel like only seconds have passed before my body is thrumming again. I open my eyes to see both of my parents staring down at me, concern written all over their faces, clear as if it were tattooed right there on their skin for everyone to see.

“I need to see her,” I force the words out, clenching my hands into fists as I struggle to stop shaking. “I need to see that she’s okay.”

I reach down and brace my hands against the edge of the mattress, and try to work up the strength to get back on my feet. My mother’s hands are on me again in a heartbeat. “You can’t,” she says, trying to push me back onto the hospital bed. “You’ll hurt yourself.” Her voice is firm but her hands are gentle. Too gentle. I push past them easily.

“I don’t care,” I say. “I have to find her.” God, she doesn’t even have any family left. Both of her parents are dead and she’s never really talked about any of her foster parents. She’ll be all alone. I can’t leave her all alone. I make it all of two steps away from the bed when I feel the painful tug and look down. My left arm is in a cast, and the other is hooked up to about a million different wires. Fuck. How bad had the accident been? I reach down and, using the half-numb fingers on my broken hand—at least, I’m assuming it’s my hand that’s broken. It’s hard to tell when the cast starts close to my fingertips and goes nearly all the way up to my elbow—I tug the little heart-rate monitoring clip off my finger and then reach for the IV line.

“Don’t touch that!” my mother snaps, reaching out and batting my hand away. “You need that medicine right now.”

“Fine,” I say, and reach out with my good hand and grab the IV pole next to my bed. It’s not hooked up to anything else, and it wheels freely toward me when I pull it. Good. With my other hand, I reach up and start pulling off the monitoring sensors they’ve attached to my chest. Beside me, a machine starts beeping like it’s doing some sort of end-of-the-world countdown, but I don’t care. Finally free, I start heading toward the door.

“Ashley! Get back here! You need to rest.”

My mother’s voice keeps getting louder with every word, but nothing she says is going to stop me. I feel a smirk start to pull at my lips as I limp forward out the door. I don’t even need to turn around; I know that behind me, Mom looks like she’s about to blow a gasket, and Dad’s looking helplessly around the room. They’re never going to change. “At least let me get you a wheelchair!” is the last thing I hear from the room as I turn and start hustling down the hallway.

The hospital is surprisingly quiet. I keep expecting nurses to jump out of nowhere and drag me back to my room, to have doctors rushing by with gurneys of people bound for emergency surgery, shoving me out of the way. But it’s calm out in the hall.

I don’t know where I’m going. For all I know, Star could be in the room beside me or on the other side of the fucking hospital, if she’s even in this hospital at all.

A million thoughts run through my mind at once as I approach the counter of the nurses’ station. What if my parents were lying? What if Star isn’t okay? What if she didn’t survive the crash?

Fuck. I need to find her. Right now.

I take the last few steps a little too quick and hit the counter with an amount of force that I really didn’t intend, and the pressure slams through my chest and makes black spots swirl in front of my eyes all over again. Fuck. I’m more hurt than I thought. I can hear the rapid clip of footsteps coming up behind me, and I know my mother is hot on my tail, so I have to make this quick.

“Hey!” I yell, leaning across the deserted counter, hoping against hell that there’s someone in the room behind it. “Hey!”

A second later a guy in pale blue scrubs hustles out, his eyes widening when he sees me. “You, Nurse-Dude. I need to know where my girlfriend is.” I’ve never called her that before, but damned if it isn’t true.

“Uh, sir? I think you should be in bed,” he says, blinking at me like he’s never seen a fucking beat-up guy before in his life. Some shitty nurse he is.

“Not gonna happen, asshole,” I say, and lean farther over the counter, shrugging off my mother’s hand when it hits my shoulder. “Star Collins. S-T-A-R C-O-L-L-I-N-S. Look it up in your little computer there and tell me where she is.” The guy looks back and forth between me and my mom, and for a second I think he’s going to piss himself.

“Sir, really,” he says. “I’m going to have to insist that you return to your room. The doctor will be in to see you shortly—”

“Fuck that,” I snap, and push myself off the counter. The hallway spins around me and I have to stop for a second and breathe through it, get my feet under me again. After a second, I shake it off and open my eyes. There’s probably a dozen people in the hallway now, and every single fucking one of them is staring at me.

“Ash—”

“No,” I say and start walking—limping—down the hallway. “I’ll find her myself.”

I’m booking it down the hall, and I can hear my mom and the nurse whispering behind me, but I couldn’t give a shit if I tried. I pull in a deep breath and start yelling for Star. Everyone who’s got their eyes on me seem to jerk in unison, and a couple people actually turn and scurry back into their rooms like rats. Good. Stay out of my way.

“Star!” I yell, but other than my mother and the nurse, the hallway is silent. Fuck. Where is she? I move faster, half pulling the IV stand and half using it for balance when my knees start to get weak. My right thigh is aching like a bitch, but I don’t look down. If I see it, whatever it is, it’ll just hurt worse.

“Star! Baby, where are you?” I say, my voice dropping low. The hallway is fucking spinning around me, and I have to squeeze my eyes shut for a moment. I’ve got the IV pole in a death grip, but it isn’t helping. If I don’t sit down soon, I’m going to be going down, anyway. I have to find her.

“STAR!” I yell, my voice booming down the hallway. And for long, terrible seconds, there’s nothing, and I can feel my body start to shake again.

“Ash?” I whirl around at the sound, afraid for a second that I’ve imagined it. But then it’s back, louder this time. “Ash!”

Holy shit. It’s her. It’s Star.

I turn down the hallway to my left, limping as I try to keep as much weight off my right side as possible, booking it toward the source of the sound.

“Star!”

“Ash!”

I skid to a stop and turn to my right. There she is. Holy shit. I feel hot and cold all at once, and my throat feels like someone’s got their hands around it, and they’re wringing the life out of me. But fuck, it doesn’t matter. It’s her.

“Jesus,” I say, the word barely making it out past the stranglehold on my throat. I don’t know how I did it, but suddenly I’m right in front of her. She’s got tears streaming down her face, and I reach out with my busted hand and touch them, wipe them away, just to be sure that she’s real. She lets out a sob and reaches for me. One of her hands is bandaged up like a mummy, and she’s all black and blue, but she’s here. She’s here and we’re okay.

“Oh god,” I fall forward and gather her up in my arms. The IV pole catches on something and goes tumbling to the floor. I feel it jerk the line attached to my arm, and it hurts like a bitch, but I don’t care. I’ve got her in my arms. I can’t stop shaking.

She’s crying, but I realize that I am, too. Big, nasty sobs that I press into her hair as I try to breathe through the ache in my chest. I feel like I’m dying. I press my lips against her ear, and try to take in enough air to force words out, but I’m shaking so bad. We both are.

“Ash . . . ” she says, and her voice is a fucking whimper and I can’t . . . I just . . .

“Jesus Christ,” I say against her hair, pulling her closer even though I don’t have to. She’s pressed as close as physically possible. Any closer and we’d be inside each other’s skin. My face is wet, and I can’t get the tears to stop, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t fucking matter. She’s alive. I pull back just enough to press our foreheads together. “I love you,” I say, and I press my mouth to hers. “You hear me, Star?” I ask as soon as I break the kiss, because she needs to hear it. I need her to hear me, to understand. “I love you so fucking much. Don’t leave me, okay? Whatever you want. Just don’t leave.”

My eyes are squeezed shut, but I can feel her nod against the side of my face, the wetness of her tears against my skin. Her body is wracked with sobs, and I pull her closer, wrapping both of my arms around her back, even though every inch of me hurts. I want to wrap myself around her and her around me, and just get lost in her existence. I hear my mother come up behind me. I recognize the sound of her voice, but I can’t make out what she’s saying. All I can hear is Star as she cries, as her breathing slowly calms down enough for her to speak.