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“We need to move him upstairs. I don’t want to leave him on this floor,” says Tommaso. “Charlie and Leo, you two pick up his feet. The girl and I will carry his arms.”
Suddenly, I’ve been conscripted to assist, and I feel relieved that I can at least play a small part in keeping Marcello alive. I didn’t know how much longer I could sit there watching as the man who has haunted my daydreams disintegrates in front of me.
Tommaso and I lift his arms, and Charlie and Leo follow suit. Marcello is at least one-hundred-and-eighty pounds of solid muscle, so lifting him is excruciating even with the help of three men. We head towards the stairs, and I dread the ascent.
My arms feel like they’re going to pull right out of their sockets as we drag him upward. It takes an eternity, but eventually, we reach the master bedroom where I’ve spent nearly every waking hour since arriving here.
When we place him on the bed, his blood smears the white sheets, creating a macabre painting along the place that separated us as we slept together.
“Here, take that picture down from above the bed and hang the saline on the nail,” instructs Tommaso, hanging me the saline bag with a grave heaviness in his eyes.
I take the bag and hang it with as much care as I can as my hands shake. Marcello groans a little, but it’s the most we’ve heard from him since he passed out. I want to believe that he’s calling for me in his mind, but I can’t get my hopes up too high.
Once Marcello appears to be stable, Tommaso and the other men decide to head outside to guard the house until he wakes up. There’s no telling what those maniacs in the SUV will do if they feel like they didn’t hit their intended target, and Tommaso is convinced that they’ll come back to finish what they started.
I lie next to Marcello with my hand on his muscular chest. I breathe in the same rhythm that he does, even if it’s just to connect us a little bit more. I’ll stick by his side until he tells me to leave, and I hope he never does.
For the next seventeen hours, I listen to his heartbeat every half-hour, tracking his heart rate and watching carefully for any changes. He’s going to be in recovery for a long time, but if there’s something I can do to keep him from getting worse, I’ll do it in a heartbeat.
The other men stay downstairs through the night, and I’m left alone with Marcello for the entire time.
I watch his breathing, feel his pulse, and check the perfusion in his fingers as Tommaso told me to. I’ve never felt this close to being someone’s caretaker. If anyone had told me I would be doing this for Marcello, I would have never believed them. It feels like an immense privilege for me, and I’ll never take it for granted. I can only hope that he recognizes how much I care for him after he wakes up.
Until then, I’ll remain by his side.
ChapterTwenty-Five
MARCELLO
Every inch of space around me is pitch black, darker than anything I’ve ever seen in my life. I’m floating, and while I’m daunted by the unfamiliarity of this strange experience, I’m completely at peace with it. I’m in a cocoon of infinite darkness, enveloped in the warmth of the vast ocean of death.
There’s no pain, only radio silence. I can’t feel any part of my body, and for a while, I wonder if I’m just trapped in my head.
The blackness is endless, and time doesn’t exist here. The complete eradication of time leaves me free to swim through the cathedrals of my consciousness forever. It’s a gift I never thought I could begin to deserve.
“Marcello?”
Who the hell is calling for me?
“Marcello, I need you to open your eyes for me. I’m begging you.”
I refuse at first. Even though I’m unaware of who or what exactly is asking me to open my eyes for them, I’m hesitant to do so in the event that I’ll be pulled from this place.
However, the voice itself coaxes me from the edge of the void. Once I begin my descent back to the land of the living, I’m unable to stop.
It was nice while it lasted.
My eyelids flutter at the blinding light streaming into the room. I don’t want to open them at all. My head is killing me, but the pressure in my chest is excruciating. Why couldn’t I have just been left alone?
“Oh my god, I’m so happy you’re okay,” says a soothing female voice coming from my right. I feel a cool hand on my cheek, and for a moment, I forget that I’m annoyed about being summoned back at all.
“What the fuck,” I mutter, still refusing to open my eyes until someone draws the blinds shut. I have no idea why I’m in so much pain, but I’m resentful of the fact that nobody is doing anything about it.
“Am I dead?” I ask in a state of delirium. “Or... was I dead?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t have the credentials to call the time of death. What’s important is that you’re here with us now,” chirps the female voice.
It’s June.
