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But things were moving so much faster than I had ever anticipated. Things had already been decided when I started posting, and it was already too late. All I managed to do was hurt you before you died, and even though it was the last thing I wanted to do, I did it, and now I have to live with it. I just don’t know how to live in a world where you don’t exist.
Please exist.
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eight
Before he starts, he stops.
He begins saying how he ended up joining the army, how poor he was, how his dad left before he was born, glossing over everything super quickly and not dwelling on the painful stuff, and then suddenly he stops talking.
“What?” I ask, thinking he changed his mind.
“You…” he swallows, looks towards the door. He heard something, didn’t he? My ears are immediately alert and I sit up.
“Is there someone out there?” I ask, dropping my voice.
“Might be.” Marco’s lips tighten. There are no windows in here, which is just as well, but that means that we have to stay silent for a bit, utterly motionless, ears cocked. It’s hard to discern which sounds are the rain and what aren’t. I wait him out, trusting that he’s trained to know when the enemy is approaching.
The enemy. My spine shakes with fear, and I try to control the chattering of my teeth so that Marco won’t notice.
“Listen,” he says, and his voice is changed. It’s his hard voice, all baritone and rumble. “Listen, you need to call your dad.”
And that is the moment.
I don’t think that actual death might be more of a shock. As far as I’m concerned, this is the moment that I actually die. That I feel that it’s the end.
He did hear something, didn’t he? It’s time. It’s time to say my goodbyes.
Marco’s eyes are on my face, never leaving my gaze as he pats his pocket for his phone. He dials a number, and holds it out to me. He looks scared, as if I’m a bomb that is going to explode any minute now.
“I’m here,” he says. “I’m here. It’s dialing.”
They might as well trace the call now, I think. Actually, they should. But Marco has been calling for backup for the past few hours, and the backup is here, and dead. So what’s the point in anything?
He hands the phone over to me and I drop it twice, my hands are shaking this bad. He still doesn’t want to move closer, but after the second time I drop his phone, he raises himself on his knees and crawls to me, holds the phone up to my ear.
“I’m here,” he says again, and the rumble of his deep voice is the only thing keeping me breathing.
My father’s secretary says: “Hello?”
Wow. Marco has her number. Not a generic palace number. The king’s secretary’s number. Very few people apart from me have that kind of access. He really is neck-deep in it, isn’t he? I don’t know how much realer things can get, but with every moment that passes, every single thing that proves Marco’s words breaks me further. Even when I don’t think I can break anymore.
I break more.
“H-hi,” I say, “hey, it’s Olivia, can I speak to—” but she’s already running, my ear filled with static as she is hurrying to bring the phone to my dad.
And then, his voice is here.
My dad’s voice fills my ear.
“Livy?” he says. “Baby? Are you alive, baby?”
He’s crying, and my dad never cries, unless we are watching Lion King or another one of our favorite movies (all of our favorite movies are crying movies somehow), but it’s still his voice. My dad’s voice. And I haven’t heard it for a while, and I haven’t wanted to hear it for a while, and now I don’t care about any of the things that happened, they don’t even exist, they are forgiven, forgotten, insignificant, and all I want is his arms around me and his voice in my ear.
All I want is my dad.
“Don’t cry,” dad says, because I’m not breathing, and he knows that when I’m crying too hard, I can’t breathe. “Or cry if you want, baby, I’m here. You’ll be ok, Livy, you’ll be ok.”
