Page 92 of Not Today, Satan
I drop Alex on the front lawn, and he groans as his body slams into the grass. He’s barely conscious, his eyelids quivering rapidly, but I bend and whisper in his ear. “Remember me, Alex. Remember I saved you when I should’ve let you die. You owe me a confession. My father will be waiting to collect it.”
By the time the emergency vehicles screech to a stop in front of the house, I’m in the sky, rushing to Nate.
He’s still in bed in a too-tight gray T-shirt with letters on it that spell “U.C.L.A” in yellow.
My mother must’ve changed his clothes. These are already drenched in sweat. Shivers course through his body, and he thrashes and kicks off the blankets piled on his legs.
Oh, Nate.
This isn’t the boy who told jokes in my check-in line. Who dug glass out of my back and called me beautiful. The boy who kissed me over and over in an ice palace.
And now that I’ve let Alex live, I’m not sure I’ll ever see that boy again.
My throat aches and my chest tightens as I take his hand. “Nate? Can you hear me?”
He doesn’t reply, but I continue, “I found him. The person who killed Gabe. It was Alex, your foster brother. I saw his soul, and it was awful. He has no remorse for any of it.”
My mother stands in the doorway but says nothing. I push a lock of hair off Nate’s face and stroke his cheek the way I did before I’d kissed him the first time. “I should have killed him, Nate. He belongs in Hell. I almost did, because I think that might’ve saved you, and all I wanted to do was keep you here with me. But I couldn’t do it. I kept seeing your face, and I knew how you’d want me to do the right thing.”
Tears fill my eyes, blurring him until they fall down my cheeks and pool on his shirt. My body shakes with the effort of holding myself together.
Even if he’s not fully here, I refuse to break into pieces while he’s still with me. There will be all the time in the world to fall apart after he’s gone.
For now, he needs the girl who carried him unconscious across a bridge.
“The thing is,” I continue, “I don’t know if saving him and losing youisthe right thing. But I did get him to confess, so it’s in the universe, and I have to hope that’s enough.”
I clasp Nate’s hand, warming it with my own. “I wish you could tell me everything will be okay. Even when we were trapped in lots or running from souldiers or driving a boat across a river of blood, I always knew it would be okay because you were with me, and that was all that mattered.”
I lean forward and kiss him before sliding next to him and lowering my head to his chest.
His heart beats far too fast against my ear, and a tear slides down my face and pools on the L on his shirt.
“Thank you for believing in me when no one else did,” I whisper. “You saw good in me even when I couldn’t see it in myself. You taught me to see the good in others, too, and I’ll be forever grateful to you for that. It turns out, falling for you wasn’t drowning like I feared. It was flying. I love you, Nate. I’m sorry it took me so long to realize it.”
I don’t want to lose one moment with him, but I haven’t slept since Mom found me on the bench, and despite my attempts to force my eyes open, I drift in and out of consciousness. My mother comes and goes, the only sounds announcing her entrance the squeak of the door and the patter of her feet on the carpet.
At some point, Nate’s breathing slows, and I lift my head. “Nate?”
He moans, and his body jerks beneath me, then goes still. His heartbeat stops pumping against my palm.
No. No, not yet. I’m not ready.
“Nate?” I whisper again.
With a blink, his body disappears from my arms, and my tears puddle on the empty mattress where he’d just been resting.
What the—?
I feel for him but only encounter air.
He’s not gone, he’s not gone. He’s not gone.
I cry out, battering the bedsheets until my mother folds me in her arms.
I scream and try to push her off me, but she holds fast until I dissolve against her, sobbing into her shoulder.
She holds me as the day turns to night outside the window. The room darkens, but I don’t allow her to reach for the lamp on the bedside table. I’m comforted by the shadows. They remind me of home.
