“Good morning, Mr. Jaworski,” Death says, offering him a warm smile.
“Michelle. A pleasure, as always.” Arnold glances at us together. “I didn’t know you and Drew were friends.”
“We’re not,” I say. “She’s helping me with a problem.”
“Rusty.” When Arnold says the name, every instinct in my body screams that I should be with him right now. “He asked about you.”
I take a tray and slide it down the counter. Alongside the pasta is a ghastly off-white concoction that looks like the end result of a bad case of E. coli. Steam rises from it, carrying the scent of garlic and onion. My traitorous stomach rumbles in response, and I can’t resist. “Some of whatever that is,” I say.
“Turkey tetrazzini. I didn’t know how to draw that.”
“Who would?”
Death coughs and slides her tray alongside mine. She takes a helping of the pasta, and we both grab some bread before Aimee rings us up. A knowing look passes between Aimee and Death, something that suggests that they’re intimately acquainted, but they don’t exchange a word that doesn’t pertain to the food or the cost of the food or the paying for the food, until we’re about to leave, and Death says, “Did you eat it today?” and Aimee nods yes. Death says, “Good for you.” That’s it. But Aimee beams like a supernova, blasting a rare smile out into the world for everyone to see, and for one shining moment, it’s the most beautiful thing in the world.
The cafeteria is tidy and clean, evidence of a slow lunch, and Death and I take a table in the corner. I pick at the turkey tetrazzini with my fork, taking a tentative first bite before digging into it with a ferocity that would make Arnold beam with pride.
Death is a fastidious eater. She spears one piece of penne with the curved tines of her fork, runs it through the pinkish sauce, and then sniffs at it before putting it in her mouth. She chews that one tiny bite carefully before finally swallowing. It’s a laborious process that she repeats ad nauseam until I finish my meal. The moment I rest my fork, so does she, making me wonder if she was only eating for my benefit. Does Death eat anything but human misery? Will she eat mine or must I carry it forever?
“Let’s start at the beginning,” Death says.
“The beginning of what?”
“Please don’t toy with me.” She pushes her tray toward the center of the table and folds her hands in front of her. “I’ve pieced together what I believe happened, and I simply need confirmation so that we may proceed.”
Blood rushes from my head to my stomach to aid in the digestion of the heavy food I just wolfed down, and I feel exhausted. The resolve I had only thirty minutes ago crumbles in the face of my weariness. I can’t remember the last time I slept without waking in the night screaming, or when my dreams weren’t filled with shattered glass and loss and tears. I’ve shouldered the burdens for so long now that I never dared to imagine what it might feel like to share them.
But here’s Death sitting before me, asking me to tell her everything. All I have to do is recite my story, let her take me away, and it will be over.
Only, I can’t.
There’s Lexi. There’s Rusty.
There’s the fact that I killed my parents. Directly, indirectly, they’re still dead. That burden is mine until the end of days. Until darkness consumes us all.
“I’ll tell you what you want to know,” I say. “But, first, you have to do something for me.”
Death narrows her depthless, feline eyes. “This isn’t a negotiation.”
“Everything is a negotiation.”
“I could call the police,” Death says. “I know you defaced my office. You could sit in a jail cell until you’re ready to talk. Is that what you want?”
“Maybe you should,” I tell her. “But you won’t.”
“Won’t I?”
I shake my head. “No. You want me to come with you willingly.”
Death’s face is stony. I can’t tell if she’s angry or upset or shocked that I called her bluff. She could fade into the wall for all the emotion she shows. “What do you want?”
“To see a patient. Rusty McHale.”
“He’s not allowed to have any visitors except immediate family.”
“It hasn’t stopped me before.”
Death purses her lips. “I know. And your friend Steven has been suspended for allowing it.”
“That’s not fair!”
“This is a hospital, Andrew, and there are rules.”
I do my best to stuff my anger down, down into my toes. Negotiating with Death requires calm.
“Please. I need to see him.”
Death’s icy visage cracks. She stares at me over the table, which seems to be growing longer and longer, putting distance between us, an impassable gulf. Before she even speaks, I know what her answer will be.
“I’m not doing this for you,” Death says. I hold my breath, unable to believe that my plan has succeeded.
“But you’ll do it? You’ll take me to Rusty?”
“Against my better judgment.” Death stands up, and I swear I hear her tired bones creak. “However, after, you and I are going to talk.”
As I follow Death from the cafeteria, I’m not sure what terrifies me more: explaining to Rusty why I never came, or explaining to Death why I never left.
I am the enemy.
Mr. and Mrs. McHale are red eyed and hawklike when I walk into Rusty’s room. Mr. McHale’s frown deepens, drawing tight lines on his forehead. Mrs. McHale coils, ready to strike. Though they don’t move from their seats, they both lean nearer to Rusty, as if they’re forming a protective barrier around him. To protect him from me.
I avoid looking at Rusty.
“Mr. and Mrs. McHale,” I say softly.
“Why are you here?” Rusty’s mother asks. “Why is he here?” she asks Death.
Death wears a friendly smile, even though it’s probably killing her to do so. Rusty’s parents falter and glance toward the door, almost like they’ve been waiting for some excuse to get out of this stifling little room.
“The boys need to talk,” Death says. “It will be all right.”
Mr. McHale shoves his hands in the pockets of his chinos and levels a rimy glare at me. I shiver, and he leaves. Mrs. McHale follows. Neither spares a word for Rusty.
“You have ten minutes,” Death says on her way out the door.
Rusty lies in the bed with a single white sheet pulled up to his chest. He’s thinner than I remember, his gaunt cheeks stretched tightly over his bones. But even broken, he’s still the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen. And he hates me. He doesn’t even look at me. He keeps his hazel eyes focused on a point just over my shoulder.
I catch my reflection in the glass of the television mounted to the wall. “I look like shit,” I say, trying to defuse the tension. “My hair hasn’t been this long since the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of high school.” I’m not sure if Rusty is listening, but I have to try. “My dad spent three months referring to me as ‘the hippie formerly known as son.’ ”
Rusty turns away from me. I’m losing him.
“Lexi died. I’m not sure if you heard that.”
Silence.
“I thought you and I could run away together, but I’m no good for you. Everyone I love dies. That’s the truth.”
Rusty offers me nothing.
“Trevor’s gone too. Back to his life out there. We had a funeral for Lexi. Burned that wig of hers I told you about. Fuck, Rusty, I wish you’d met her. She was so brilliant.”
I think I see a twitch in his lips, but it’s probably just my imagination.
“I had to make a deal with Death to see you. I think she’s going to take me away. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me, Rusty. I’m scared.”
No, there’s definitely something. Rusty’s eyes flicker. It’s a little thing, but it’s something.
I swallow; my throat is dry. But I keep talking before I lose my nerve. “Meeting you changed ever
ything. I built a family here—Lexi and Trevor, Arnold, and the nurses in the ER—but I never wanted to leave the hospital until I met you. For the first time since my parents died, I wanted something for myself. A life . . . with you. And I thought we could have that, but then Lexi died and I realized that if we left together, you’d die too. I just couldn’t bear the thought of being out there. Alone.”
I count to ten in my head to give Rusty a chance to respond, but he’s still staring over my shoulder when I reach the final number. I turn to leave. This is the last time I’ll see this room. The last time I’ll see Rusty.
“Fuck you.” The words are so low that I almost miss them.
“Rusty,” I say, and he screams, “Don’t say my name!” in this scratchy yowl that tears at my ears and shatters my heart because I feel the ache of every second he spent waiting for me. Every single one of the seconds that passed that I didn’t come, bottled up and stoppered inside him, flung at me like a thermite grenade, and now Rusty’s not the only one on fire.
“You promised you’d come.” His voice is smaller than I’ve ever heard it, and I don’t know if it’s because the infection is making him weak or from the damage I caused by not keeping my promise.
“My parents and sister died, and the little boy in the ER died, and Lexi died. I couldn’t bear the thought of you dying too.” My heart hurts when I look at him. “I did it for you.”
“You’re a fucking liar,” Rusty says. “You only thought about yourself.”
“Everyone I love dies.”
“Everyone dies, full stop. Everyone. Even your precious Patient F.” There’s so much malice in Rusty’s voice that every word is a whip, peeling off strips of my skin.
I step toward the bed, but Rusty flinches, so I step back again. “I thought you’d be better off without me,” I say. “I thought everyone would.”
Rusty closes his eyes and doesn’t open them for what feels like a long time. When he reopens them, he says, “I thought that too.”
Fragments of thoughts float in my brain, things I want to say right now, but I clamp my mouth shut when I see that desolate look on Rusty’s face. It’s so like the look I draw on Patient F’s face when he travels to his past.
“AJ Crawford was the one who did it,” Rusty says. “The one who told me that I didn’t matter. He told me in the hallways, in the locker room, in class, on the Internet, with his fists, and when he spit on me. I kept waiting for someone to tell me that he was wrong. But he wasn’t wrong.”
I start to disagree, but Rusty flashes me a look indicating that he will tolerate no interruptions.
“I lit myself on fire, Drew. I stole a bottle of rubbing alcohol, and I stole a lighter, and I lit myself on fire.”
Rusty throws it out there like a slap, but I say, “I know,” and there’s no way I can look at Rusty right now, but I feel his eyes boring into me. “I think I’ve always known.” Now I have no choice but to look, and he’s killing me with those eyes. With all the fire of all the days he spent hating himself. I want to go to him right now, but there’s a distance between us so wide, I’m not sure I can bridge it.
“You knew?”
“Yeah.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“It wasn’t my secret to tell.” If only I could go to him and take his hand and kiss his lips, maybe this would all be better, but I can’t. Or he won’t let me. “I hate those boys for making you feel like dying. They should have been the ones to burn.”
Tears stain Rusty’s voice. “I wasn’t just trying to kill myself. I wanted to feel on the outside the way I felt on the inside. I wanted everyone to see what they did to me, to see the damage they’d done.”
“Rusty—” I step toward him. To hold him, to kiss him, to tell him that everything is going to be okay, even if that’s a lie.
“Fuck you, and fuck your pity.” Rusty falters, and I move back again. We’re both on our own. Rusty has to go on without my help . . . and he does. “I don’t remember jumping into the pool. I don’t remember much except screaming.”
“I heard you when you came into the ER.”
Rusty’s eyes narrow, but he ignores me. “I kept begging God to let me die. Every time I opened my eyes, I prayed for the end. All those doctors and nurses trying to keep me alive when all I wanted to do was die. When I opened my eyes and saw you, I thought you were Death, coming to end it all. Only, you didn’t. I don’t remember exactly when I started wanting to live more than I wanted to die, but hope crept into me the way you crept into my room.” Rusty looks away. “Too bad it was all fiction.”
Part of me wishes that I’d told him I knew sooner. Maybe then I could have helped him. Maybe then he would have let me. Instead, I say, “That guy was wrong, Rusty. You do matter. And the world needs you in it. More than it needs me.”
“I don’t believe you anymore.” Rusty turns his head away; it’s a dismissal. No matter how much I want to, I can’t travel into the past and prove to Rusty that he’s worth a hundred of those assholes. I can’t go to that party and stop him from trying to kill himself.
There’s nothing else to say, nothing else to know. “I should have come.”
“Maybe I was wrong,” Rusty says. “Maybe it is you the world would be better off without.”
I can’t argue. I should have died in the car accident that took my parents and my little sister. There’s nothing for me inside the walls, and there’s nothing for me out there. There’s only one thing left to do.
I cross the distance to the bed and kiss Rusty fast, before he can push me away, because I need to remember what his lips feel like and what they taste like and how his top lip has this ridge that I slide my tongue over. And it’s done before he can do anything but kiss me back. Though the kiss is stolen, it’s mine all the same.
“Good-bye, Rusty.” I stop at the door and look back. “Iloveyou.”
Before my words hit him, I run.
“Iloveyou,” I say as I leave Rusty behind.
Death yells my name as I sprint past her. My real name. I ignore her. Mr. and Mrs. McHale watch as if they knew all along that this would happen. Nina is with them. I am not welshing on my deal with Death. Not really. She’ll get what she wants, but it’s going to be on my terms.
Doctors and nurses hug the walls as I dash through the brightly lit maze. I don’t look back to see if Death is chasing me because, let’s face it, Death has been chasing me since the day I arrived. I think I’ll welcome her eventual embrace, but I’m going to make her work for it.
I run all the way to the roof of the parking garage. Stopping only when I feel the sun on my face. This—this is as close as I’m ever going to get to heaven. For a few minutes, I just stand with my toes dangling over the edge, basking in the daylight one final time.
“What are you doing?”
I expected Death, but it’s Father Mike’s voice at my back instead.
“I was supposed to die in the crash.” The ledge is barely wide enough to stand on, and I have to concentrate to keep from losing my balance. “I thought I could hang on to my parents by staying here, but all I’ve done is hurt people. I have to do this.” I glance over my shoulder to make sure Father Mike isn’t going to try anything funny.
Father Mike takes a tentative step toward me, holding his hands out so I can see that they’re empty. He’s sweating down his temples. Beads of perspiration pool on his brow. “God saved you.”
“God is a fairy tale, Father.” I look out over the edge and wonder if it will hurt. It doesn’t look that far down, but I know it’s got to be far enough. “Any god that would save me over Cady has got his priorities royally fucked up.”
“Fair enough,” Father Mike says. “And I can’t explain why you lived and not her, but this won’t solve anything.” He takes another step toward me but retreats when I sway forward. I won’t let him close enough to pull me down. This is going to happen.
When I’m sure that Father Mike isn’t going to come any closer, I look bac
k toward the horizon. “Look at it all. There’s so much out there. So much to see and do and experience. But not for me.” I run my hand through my hair and try not to remember the night I first came to the ER, but here at the end I can’t stop the memories. “After that first night,” I say, “I thought I had to stay here because this was the last place my parents were alive. I thought if I lived, they’d go on living too. But that’s stupid, isn’t it?”
“No, Andy. It’s not.”
I flash Father Mike a wry smile and nearly lose my balance. “Don’t patronize me.”
I don’t bother turning around, but when Father Mike says, “I’m sorry,” he sounds chastened.
“The thing is, I had it all wrong.” The memory of my father, his arm dangling limply over the side of the gurney, forgotten as they worked on my mother. Of Cady drowning in her own blood. “I died that night.”
“Andy—”
“Death wasn’t late to get me. She was there. Only, I was too dumb to see her. Death hasn’t been looking for me, I’ve been looking for Death.” I turn around, all the way around. I point my feet toward Father Mike and smile. “I get it now. All my excuses, all my fears, they were just ways I kept myself from seeing the truth.”
Father Mike inches closer to me. There is panic on his face, though his voice is exceptionally calm. “This isn’t the end of your journey.”
“All I have to do is let go.”
I hold my arms out and begin to lean back. Death storms the roof, flanked by police. I think I hear sirens in the distance, but I no longer care.
“God’s not finished with you yet, Andy.”
“My name isn’t Andy or Andrew or Drew.”
“Please!” he begs.
“Tell God it’s my turn to drive.” Death and the officers will never reach me in time. Father Mike lunges forward, but it’s already too late. All my debts are now paid.
I am Ben Fischer.
It is the thought that I cling to as the days and nights pass in a blur of tests and needles and doctors whose names I can’t remember. The sun rises and sets in the window near my bed. The blinds are open. My left arm is broken and my right leg is mangled; the bones tore through the skin of my thigh. I heard one of the nurses talking about my spleen and some swelling in my brain, but my head aches and I try not to think too much. Every time I do, pain splits my skull and doesn’t relent until a nurse pushes more drugs into my IV, sending me back to sleep.