My mom was gone.
My dad would ask for more money.
People would remember me as someone who was talented and died too young, but other than that, what had I ever really done?
I’d followed my dream.
And what did I have left?
I took a step.
The light was red.
I took another.
Looked up and didn’t care.
I was too numb to care.
I thought of Grace then.
Of how I had treated her.
Of the way she made me feel.
Of how I hated her truth because it made me realize I wasn’t okay, hadn’t been okay in a really long time.
Was I happy?
I laughed stupidly to myself. No. I wasn’t happy. I was surviving. I was trying. And it would never be enough.
So. Why. Fucking. Try?
I took another step.
A horn sounded.
Was this rock bottom?
She was right.
Damn it, she was right.
I hoped that Rae made her happy—that someone made her happy. I felt the tears then; I hadn’t felt them in a long time. The bitter way they burned my eyes before falling. The choking sensation in my throat as I tried to swallow. The inability to stop them from searing my cheeks—marking my skin.
Why was I crying?
It hurt physically, emotionally as tears slid off my chin onto the pavement.
And still.
I walked.
Horns.
Cars.
Lights.
It was over.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
Something slammed into me from behind. A car?
I fell to the sidewalk, my face scraping against the pavement. My eyes opened, and there she was, lying next to me.
Grace.
But her arm was bent at a funny angle.
Her head was turned to the side.
Her eyes were open. Her lips parted. “Are you okay?”
“G-grace?” I reached for her.
“Are you okay?” she repeated.
“Yes.” I swallowed the ball of emotion, unable to trust anything but my steady breathing.
She reached for me, but her fingers fell short as her arm kissed the pavement, her eyes rolled to the back of her head.
She was gone.
Chapter Thirty-Two
From the dead comes life…
Lucas
“No!” I screamed. “I’m not leaving her!”
Rae tried to pry me away from her body.
She saved me.
She’d always been trying to save me.
But she didn’t save herself.
Her eyes were closed.
I had done that.
I was the reason for that.
I would die this way.
Just watching her unmoving as she lay against the sidewalk, blood trickling from her mouth.
An EMT reached down. “She’s breathing.”
“She’s alive?” I shot up. “Is she okay?”
“She probably has a concussion.” The EMT started working on her. “She’s in shock right now. You need to pull back so we can—“
“I’m going with her,” I shouted in his face, not realizing I was being crazy until Rae pulled me back into his arms.
“Seureul jinjeong,” someone said nearby.
My heart seemed to stutter as the words registered. They wanted to sedate me?
“No!” I roared, lunging for her, fighting against the arms keeping me away from Grace. She needed me. I needed her.
Something sharp hit my arm. I struggled to keep my eyes open as I stared at her closed eyes and her too-pale face.
I jolted awake. Had that all been a bad dream?
I was in my bed.
Wearing pajama pants.
Everything was normal.
I checked my chest.
I felt my own pulse.
“Sleep quieter.” Jay groaned. “You’ve been out for like all day. It’s nearly night again; go to sleep. You were both exhausted and in shock. We had to check you three times because you weren’t waking up, dude.”
“Grace?” I was already throwing the covers off, shoving my feet in my slippers. “Is she okay?”
“In her room,” Jay said, then muttering about losing sleep under his breath, he sat up. “Don’t go to her.”
“What?” A chill spread through my body. “Why?”
“Because.” He looked disgusted as he gave me his back and whispered hoarsely, “You make her cry.”
My heart sank to my stomach then got eaten up by whatever demon still existed in my soul.
“I just…” I moved. “…need to see her.”
He sighed. “You’ll have to go through Rae.”
I was afraid of that.
I opened the door and made my way toward her room, through the eerily quiet and dark apartment. Rae was sitting just outside of it, sleeping with his shoulder pressed against the wall. He looked like hell, face drawn, dark circles under his eyes.
He protected her when I couldn’t.
She’d saved me when she shouldn’t have.
What a fucked-up fairy tale.
He was dead to the world, his head hanging low like he’d been sleeping for hours. I pushed open the door, breathing a sigh of relief when the motion didn’t disturb his position. Quietly, I tiptoed past him and shut the door softly.
She looked like an angel, lying in the bed, her blond hair spread like a halo around her head, her pink lips slightly apart. Her right elbow was bandaged along with her wrist, but she didn’t have a cast on. There were a few scrapes across her chin like she’d fallen forward when she pushed me out of the way, and her breathing was shallow. I assumed she had a concussion but hadn’t even asked—though I did see a bottle of pain medicine next to her bed along with a bottle of water.