He’s Finn.
I can’t breathe as I hold his wet hand, as I hunch over him and cry and try to breathe and try to speak.
He doesn’t look like he was in a crash. There’s a bruise on his forehead and that’s it. He’s just so white, so very very white.
“Please,” I beg him. “No. Not today. No.”
I’m rocking and I feel hands on me, but I shake them away, because this is Finn. And we’re Calla and Finn. He’s part of me and I’m part of him and this can’t be happening.
I cry so hard that my chest hurts with it, my throat grows raw and I gulp to breathe.
“I love you,” I tell him when I can breathe again. “I’m sorry I wasn’t with you. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
I’m still crying when large hands cup my shoulders and lift me from the ground, and I’m pulled into strong arms.
“Shhh, Calla,” my dad murmurs. “It’ll be okay. He knew you loved him.”
“Did he?” I ask harshly, pulling away to look at my father. “Because he wanted me to go with him, and I made him go alone. And now he’s dead. I called mom and they’re both dead.”
Dad pulls me back into his arms and pats my back, showing a tenderness that I didn’t know he possessed. “It’s not your fault,” he tells me between wracking sobs. “He knew you loved him, honey. Everyone knew. Your mother, too.”
My mother. I choke back another gasping sob.
This can’t be happening.
This can’t be happening.
This isn’t my life.
I shake off my father’s arms and walk woodenly back up the trails, past the paramedics, past the police, past everyone who is staring at me. I walk straight up to Finn’s room and collapse onto his bed.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see his journal.
I pick it up, reading the familiar handwriting written by the hands that I love so much.
Serva me, serva bo te.
Save me, and I will save you.
Ok.
Ok, Finn.
I close my eyes because when I wake up tomorrow, I’ll find that this was all a dream. This is a nightmare. It has to be.
Sleep comes quickly and when I wake up, I’ll save Finn.
I wake up with a start, the memories from that night so vivid, so awful, so paralyzing.
Sunlight floods my room, exposing every corner, every empty corner.
I shudder and climb from bed, looking out the window. Dare and my father sit on the porch below, talking earnestly.
I throw some clothes on and slip out the back door and toward the road. When it starts to rain, I pull my hood up, but I keep going.
I have someplace to be.
I pick up the pace, jogging until I get to the cross and ribbons.
Gulping, I stand at the side, looking down at the ravine, at the broken trees, at the black marks and bent limbs.
My mother died here.
But I always knew that.
Turning, I cross to the other side, to the side facing the ocean.
Living things are broken on this side too. The bracken and bushes and trees. They’re bent and broken but still living. They thrive on the side of the mountain, coming back from the brink.
The viridem.
The green.
It’s still here, but Finn isn’t.
His car flipped down the side of this mountain and plunged into the water.
Staring out over the glass-like surface, you’d never know that Finn died there. But I do. I know it now.
And it’s too much to bear.
It’s too much.
I sink to my feet and pull my knees to my chest, closing my eyes, feeling the hot tears form beneath my eyelids. Focusing hard, I picture Finn’s face. I picture him sitting right next to me, right now.
“Hey Cal,” he would say. “Do you know that the sloppy handwriting of physicians kill more than 2,000 people each year—from getting the wrong medications?”
I shake my head sadly at him. “No.”
He nods, smug in his superior knowledge of strange death facts. “It’s true.”
“But that’s not what killed you.”
My voice is stark, and I realize that I’m speaking out loud. And I don’t care.
Imaginary Finn shrugs. “No. But everyone is just as dead, regardless of the cause.”
“I’m not ready, Finn,” I tell him weakly. “You can’t go.”
My body is like ice, my nerves like wood. He smiles at me, the old smile that I love, the one that lights up his pale blue eyes.
“I couldn’t help it, Cal,” he tells me seriously. “But you’ve got to deal with it. You’ve got to move on.”
“To where?” I ask him simply. “I can’t go anywhere without you.”
The pain in my voice is scalpel sharp, cutting through me with precision.
“You have to,” Finn replies. “You’ve got no choice, Calla. You have to.”
“Calla?”
The voice comes from behind me, from beside the road. Within a minute, Dare is sitting next to me, staring out to sea with me.
“Who were you talking to?” he asks, trying hard to hide his concern.
“Finn,” I tell him honestly. “But don’t worry. I know he’s not real. It’s just… you don’t understand what it’s like. He’s part of me, Dare. And he’s just gone. I don’t know how I’m supposed to live with that.”
My voice breaks and I cry and I feel weak. But I can’t help it. The tears just come and come and come.
Dare pulls me to him, against his chest and cradles me there, protecting me from the world, from my own sadness.
“Let’s go back to the house,” he suggests. “You don’t need to be here.”
Here where my brother died.
I nod, agreeing, complying, because the truth of it is that I don’t know where I should be. Not anymore.
I let Dare lead me to the house, and I let him prepare lunch for me, and sit with me on the porch until it’s time to eat again for dinner. And this is how my life is for the next several days.
I go through the motions and I feel like wood, and Dare and my father wait for me to rejoin the living.
43
QUADRAGINTA TRES
I’m dreaming again on the fourth day.
I dream that Finn and I are walking on the trails, doing yoga on the cliffs, swimming in the ocean, crab fishing. It’s always Finn and me, because he’s not in my reality anymore. He’s gone. But in my dreams, he lives.