Blame The Weeds (gxg)

28

No one can hurt you quite like someone you love. Physical, mental, emotional, all of it. What Luke did hurt because of our bond. Those strings tied to our ribs would never break for all the distance in the world. It was like an open wound, like an ongoing risk. I had no idea what the threshold for this pain was, but a goodbye would take me one step closer to that edge. So I seized the wheels, the skin on my palms melting on the rubber.

"Sugar, if you keep stopping us, he'll be gone before we arrive," said Zoë.

Closing my eyes, I focused on my heart thrumming fast and light like a hummingbird's wings. "I need a second."

"You've had enough of those," she said, smacking my hands off the wheelchair.

And on we went.

She insisted on wheeling me across the wing this morning. After laying on my side for so long, I woke with sharp pains that made walking difficult. Zoë had said it was temporary and felt bad for acting as the catalyst last night, but I would've gladly done it again to see Freya. The thought of her was enough to make me smile, and more than enough to break my heart. I'd told no one about last night. It was for Freya and me. And Zoë.

"Cheer up, sugar. This is exactly how it should be," she said. We turned a corner, dodging a few gurneys. "You'll be leaving tomorrow, getting all better, and Lukas is gone within the hour. Clean and simple. We've all done our jobs here, including you." When I tried to stop the wheels again, Zoë was already there to stop me. We rolled forward and forward and forward until I was in front of room 74B. The door looked like mine. Just as narrow, just as closed.

When I'd woke this morning, Rue insisted I finally visit. In a moment of weakness, I asked Zoë to take me. But I couldn't say goodbye to Luke—it wasn't something we'd ever done. When I'd stay up night after night, staring out at the stars wondering if he was out there looking too, I never said the word.

"I'll be right out here, sugar. When you're ready, press the button on the handle of your chair and I'll come to get you."

"Wait—"

Zoë turned the handle.

And there he was.

Luke's back was covered in a green sweater as he sat hunched, facing the far window. The back of his head was the same. But his blonde hair was even shaggier, like a messy halo around his head.

I put a death grip on my wheels. Zoë shoved me inside anyway. Everything hammered—my heart, muscles and shaking hands—yet I managed to shakily wheel myself around Luke's bed until I had the perfect view of his profile. Surely, he knew I was there, but his blue gaze was fixed out the window. Gulls caught the breeze in the blue.

"I thought you wouldn't do the surgery," I said quietly. "I never...told anyone that." What I didn't say was that a part of me, however small and shameful, had hoped he wouldn't.

Keeping his eyes on the birds, Luke said, "I never wanted to die. I thought..." He stared at a point a million miles away. "I thought everyone would be better off."

My throat seized. "Luke, how could you—" He shook his head and I shut up.

"I didn't want to talk, or eat, or do anything. But then I woke up from the surgery and it hurt so badly, but a better kind of pain." Luke's hand moved to his neck, wrapping a fist around a silver chain and cross. "Rue kissed me this morning. It was so warm. I started thinking...I'm glad I didn't miss it." He brushed a hand to his abdomen but still wouldn't look at me.

One summer, Ida and Frank had fought horribly. Ida had left to stay with her sister that week and Frank locked himself in his room with a bottle of scotch. So, we decided to build a treehouse. In the rain and the heat, we earned blisters and slivers, sunburns and bug bites. We endured because it would be our spot. On our final day hammering the ladder, we glimpsed the most spectacular sunset we'd ever seen. I'd never forget our little place. Just because we'd grown up didn't mean we never built that treehouse.