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This is it.
This is where it ends.
This is how I die.
“Avery,” Rome says softly. “We’re getting out of here. We are.”
I shake my head. I think I might even laugh. “If you’re saying that for my benefit, stop,” I reply. “And if you’re saying it because you actually believe we might get out of here? You’re not as smart as I thought you were.”
Rome’s stricken face appears above mine. It’s annoying, the way he’s stopping me from staring into the dark. I try to push him away, but he doesn’t budge.
“I’ll get you out of here,” he says. “Even if it kills me.”
Lies, I think to myself.He’s lying, and he doesn’t even know it.
“Do you think they’ll bury us together?” I ask coldly.
“Stop talking like that,” Rome snaps. “You have to hold on. You have to hope.”
That sentence snaps me out of my inertia. I sit up, lunging for him, grabbing at his t-shirt. “Fuck you,” I mutter. “How much hope can one person have? Just accept that this is it for us. It’s easier, trust me.”
Rome’s blue eyes widen. He reaches out a tentative hand, tucking my crazy hair behind my ear. Something cracks inside my chest, something that I thought wasn’t there anymore. It’s grief, I think. All the things I’ve held inside. And not just from this hellish experience. From years and years ago.
“I just want my mom,” I whisper. “Or my sister. You know? I was always so scared of dying, and now I’m not. Because maybe I’ll get to see them again.”
I don’t really believe that. I might be Catholic, but the life I’ve lived has largely taught me that death is death. Whatever afterlife there might be, my soul hasn’t been privy to the wonders of it. I wish I could believe that there was something after this, somethingbetter, but my logical mind doesn’t let me. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
“You’re not going to die,” Rome says urgently. But I can hear the lack of conviction in his words.
“What if I want to?” I ask him.
His shoulders slump. Maybe he’s tired of trying to give me hope. Maybe he’s got none left, either.
* * *
Sometimes things are almost … normal, down here. You would think that you'd die in a place like this, but both of our hearts keep on beating. We fall into a routine. Like everyone, we only really need basic things to survive: food, water, shelter. After the first few weeks, as the weather started to turn colder, he began sleeping right next to me, his arm wrapped protectively around my waist each night.
A rich girl like me has never been without everything, except what it takes to survive. Rationed food, dirty water, a bloodstained mattress, and a body that refuses to give in, no matter how often it's forced to bleed.
And it is forced to bleed. They want me to prove I’m alive over and over again. Over and over and over until it almost makes me laugh. How fucked up is that? That I’d laugh at that kind of pain? It’s just another way to mark the time. It takesso much timeto split my skin. To coax out the blood. It takes so much time for Rome to bandage me up again.
My idea nags at me. More than that. It becomes my obsession.
What if I don’t want to be alive?I used to think that being here would be better than being dead, but now that I’ve said the words out loud to Rome, I’m pretty sure that’s not true. Being dead wouldn’t be fun, but it would be peaceful. It would be dark and safe and such a fucking relief. Our captors wouldn’t be able to demand any more proof of life from me. I wouldn’t have to watch Rome try and stuff down his fear while he bandages up another wound. I would just be nothing. Nobody. I would just begone.
One morning - hell, it could be midnight, and I wouldn’t know the difference - I lie next to Rome in the half-light and take stock of my options.
At this point, one thing is clear: it’s us, or it’s them. Escaping with Rome is a pipe dream. He can keep that dream, if he wants. I have other dreams. Waking dreams. Waking nightmares. I don’t know what’s real and what’s pretend anymore. Everything is a dream and a nightmare. I can’t tell where the edge of reality stops, and the hallucinations begin.
Rome rolls over, watching me. I watch the ceiling. He puts his hand in mine and squeezes. I drag my fingers along his palm. Above me, on the ceiling, clouds roll over. A blue sky. A yellow sun. The heat of a nameless private island. How fucked up is that, a private island? I’ve been to so many of them, and not a single day on the beach in a couture bikini has come to anything.
It all comes to nothing. Nothing matters.
But Rome isn’t nothing.
He squeezes my hand again.
“What are you looking at?”
