The security guard is already on his radio. I can hear it, but it feels far away and distant, like I’m submerged underwater, watching this horror unfold through glass. The guard kneels beside me, checking for a pulse, and when he finds it, it’s faint.
“Stay with me,” I whisper, brushing hair from Mateo’s damp forehead. “You don’t get to leave. You hear me? You don’t get to leave me.”
The tears won’t stop. They stream down my face, falling onto his chest, my hands trembling as I hold on to him like he’s already slipping away. The paramedics arrive seconds later, though it feels like a lifetime. They pull me back gently, lifting him onto a stretcher, spraying something into his nose, and then covering his mouth with an oxygen mask.
“We need to go,” one of them says urgently.
I follow them out of the room, my sweater soaked with sweat and tears, my legs numb beneath me. I don’t remember taking the stairs and I don’t remember speaking to anyone. I only remember the sight of his lifeless body on that cold tile floor and the unbearable thought that I might never hear his voice again.
That I might have waited too long.
That I might have cost him everything.
My hands still shake as I climb into the ambulance beside him, gripping his hand tightly.
“Don’t you dare give up on me,” I whisper, leaning down to press my forehead to his. “I love you. God, I love you. Please, please fight.”
But he doesn’t respond, and for the first time since I met him, Mateo Sanchez is completely and devastatingly lifeless.
Epilogue
Mateo
It begins as though I’m falling.
Not the kind where you trip and stumble. No, this is heavier, slower, like slipping beneath dark water, deeper and deeper until the light above is nothing more than a faded blur.
My chest burns and my throat is tight. My limbs are weightless and useless, twitching with delayed commands. I can hear something, a voice? No, sobbing. A familiar woman. It’s Vaeda.
I try to move. I try to breathe, but everything hurts.
Regret swells in my gut like a tide I can’t stop. I didn’t want this. I just wanted the pain to go away, for the ache inside my chest and the storm in my mind to quiet long enough for me to think. To sleep. To not feel like I was splintering apart, molecule by molecule.
I should have stayed with her. Should’ve waited. Should’ve heard her out for what she was trying to tell me. Instead, I acted like the broken boy I swore I’d stopped being. I thoughtI was past that darkness. Past needing something to numb the chaos.
I wasn’t.
My vision swims, and I catch flashes of bright lights and movement. The scream of a siren somewhere distant and sharp. Pain slices through my belly and ribs. I try to cry out, but nothing comes. My mouth is dry, and my tongue feels swollen and heavy.
“Come on, Mateo.”Vaeda.
She’s really here. She came. I want to open my eyes and tell her I’m sorry, that I didn’t mean it, that I don’t want to die. That I wanted her to love me, not to bury me.
I feel her fingers threading through my hair, her lips against my forehead. She’s shaking, or maybe I am.
“Stay with me,” she whispers. “You don’t get to leave. You hear me? You don’t get to leave me.”
I see her for a moment, or maybe it’s a memory. Her in the hallway, the first time she really smiled at me, her in the rehearsal studio, cheeks flushed from dancing with her hands on her hips, and her whispering my name like a prayer. I want to speak. I want to tell her she’s everything, but I’m fading.
My heart, which once beat to the rhythm of music and her laughter, stutters, then slows.
There’s more shouting. Male voices now. Firm, clipped commands. Something about vitals, Narcan, oxygen. Yet none of it touches me.
The world narrows as her hand finds mine, her tears dripping against my skin, and her voice breaking.
“I love you.”
I try to squeeze her hand, but I can’t. I try to hold on, but I’m slipping under. Darkness curls around me like a wave.
And then…
Nothing.
