Page 67 of Wish For Me

CHAPTER20

Noelle

It’s the sirens that tip me from mildly concerned to freaking out. I’m at the back of the building and can’t hear the traffic from up here, but I hear those. He’s been gone a long time. Longer than the three blocks to get to the restaurant and back.

Maybe it was closed. Maybe he’s at the convenience store getting us chips and candy bars.

But even as I know those possibilities could be true, I rush down the hallway through the nave. I remember only as I’m tugging open the giant doors that I forgot my coat.

It’s probably not him. It’s so snowy out there, it’s probably a fender bender. But I can’t keep the dark, leaden dread from my chest as I run toward Violet Street, following the fresh tracks in the snow.

I don’t notice the snow clinging to my sweater dress; freezing my skin, the same way I don’t notice the screaming until I slam into a woman in a heavy coat, her arms open to catch me. She’s telling me to calm down and that I can’t touch him. I could hurt him if I touch him.

“Is he alive!?” I scream. I can hear those words. “Is he breathing?”

Leif is a crumpled mess on the ground. The paramedics are fitting something around his head, but even here I can see the way he’s lying is all wrong. There’s blood in a line down his face; blood in the snow, and something green, too. Something yellow.

“Our dinner,” I say. “Our dinner is ruined.”

“She’s in shock!” I hear the woman yell. Then the world goes dark on me.

* * *

I wake up as we’re arriving at the hospital.

“You’re okay,” the paramedic tells me, her voice a calm, hard line. “You’re okay, but they need to get him into surgery right away. You need to wait here.”

I’m all alone, so the paramedic stays with me. Her shift is over, she says. Her kids are grown. She holds my hand and tells me things likebreatheanddon’t think now.She keeps the blanket they gave me from falling off and holds me steady until the rest of them come in.

Finally five minutes later, or maybe an hour, Leif’s family arrives. I don’t remember calling them.

Leif’s parents are there first, their faces pale and wet and stricken. “Enzo’s parking the car,” they say, as if in a daze, and somehow, that’s what brings me out of my own shock.

“Here,” I say, my hands growing steady for the first time since I saw Leif splayed in the snow. “Sit down next to me.”

They sit on either side of me, replacing the paramedic who says something to them, pressing her hand on their shoulders in turn before nodding to me and disappearing into the night.

Griffin and Sasha sob on either side of me, each of them holding a hand. They hold onto me like I’m a buoy and they’re floating away. His mother holds me so tight her wedding ring aches where it presses against my finger, but I don’t let go.

I don’t let go.

They need me to be strong for their boy.

Our Leif.

My love.

I can’t stop thinking about Eleanor and James. About how I thought we’d escaped their fate.

Are you saying you think we’re doomed?

Eventually, Griffin comes around Sasha’s other side and they hold each other. I get up to give them space, stretching out my hands, which are my own again after hours.

It’s only then that I see the imprint of her ring on the inside of my finger and something ticks in my brain.

I come back with coffee for them, and when Sasha reaches for it, she says,thank you sweetheart.

I see the ring. Then I see them, and remember nothing is important now.

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