Page 120 of Set the Moment
“Ignore him, he’s been going on a serial texting spree lately,” I say, laughing at my own joke as I turn to Daisy.
A muscle in her jaw tics a bit before she smiles brightly at me.
“I’m a little dehydrated…Want a drink?” she asks, stalking over to her bag just as my mouth dries.
Damn it, we have been working for hours. When was the last time I ate or drank water?
“Sure, I’ll take anything you got!” I reply, turning on the music we’d been using for practice just as Daisy approaches with two bottles of pink liquid in hand.
Thanking her, I take the bottle she’d had for me, and gulp down its entire contents with a sigh.
I needed that.
Daisy watches me carefully, her eyes dancing with joy as I smile at her. She’s been awfully cheerful this past week, hopefully it’s a guy. I’ve been dying to go on a double date with someone lately.
“All good?” I ask looking back at her as I stretch my limbs once again, eyeing myself in the mirror.
In my reflection, I watch as Daisy nods, her lips pursing as she repeats my words, “All good.”
Gulping, I’m about to go back into our routine, but freeze when I can't swallow my spit. I try again, struggling to swallow as an itching sensation travels through my body and I tense up. My tongue feels like it has fur on it, itching and scratching the roof of my mouth as my neck begins to burn.
“What’s wrong?” Daisy’s voice vibrates throughout the room, the sound everywhere and nowhere all at once.
“I-I don’t know…I can’t…” I swallow, but my tongue thickens and my face itches yet again.
“Call Jace…His numb…My phone,” I wheeze, my lungs closing in on themselves as a fiery sensation travels all through my body.
What is happening to me?
Why can’t I—
“Sienna? Are you—”
I don’t hear her next words, or anything after that.
I don’t see when Daisy calls for an ambulance, or when she walks away. I don’t hear her packing up her stuff and leaving me on the floor as my body asphyxiates itself.
I don’t hear the paramedics shouting at one another to get a dose of epinephrine ready for me. I don’t hear their curses when they can’t find my veins or even their sighs of relief when they finally stick.
I don't hear any of it.
I don’t see any of it.
Instead, all I see and hear ishim.
Jace’s laugh when I fake an attitude after losing a round of Mario Kart that he’d clearly cheated at. His lazy smile in the morning when he wakes up and I’m already awake, staring and analyzing him. Because when Jace Heart is asleep, I’m at peace. I see Jace running after me as kids, chasing me through my uncle's backyard in the summer. I can hear the way he says my name when he’s pissed off at something that involves me, but never at me. Jace isnevermad at me. I can see him at his first hockey game, the one I begged my uncle to record since I wanted to be there for him but couldn’t physically. I hear Jace’s snarky retorts and sexual innuendos. I can picture our life together, him and I somewhere down south because we both hate city life. He’d be there for everything, forme, and I’dalwaysbe there for him.
Scientists believe that in the last minutes of life, your brain plays seven minutes of your happiest moments. You see the people and memories that meant the most to you, the ones that count.
You recount everything, the moments both big and small. Your brain sets the moments in a way that brings you peace even when death looms to claim your soul.
In my last seven minutes of life, all I could see was him.
forty-eight
Jace
Ihatehospitals.
