Chapter Nineteen
The truck is barreling closer,closer, closer and there’s no stopping it. I hear the sound of bullets whizzing over head. I hear Simms telling me to run. I hear the firefighters yelling for their wives and children, frantic with fear. And loudest of all, I hear the screams.
So many screams, ringing out in the air.
Screams I’ll remember for the rest of my life.
Screams that—
“Come on, love. Wake up.”
There are arms around me, holding me close. Tethering me to the real world. Keeping the horror at bay.
“Shhh. You’re okay, Emilia. You’re okay.”
My feverish screams die out as consciousness returns with a jolt. My heart is pounding double-speed. Carter’s arms are still wrapped tight around my body.
“You’re okay,” he repeats in a soothing voice. “I’ve got you.”
I crane my neck to meet his eyes, whimpering softly. “The truck…”
“I know, love. But it’s over now. You’re safe.” His hand strokes my hair. There’s gravel in his voice. “I promise. I will keep you safe.”
There’s no room for doubt in his tone. He means every word.
My heart expands. I pull in a gulp of air and try not to focus on how close my face is to his, or how good it feels to be pressed against the hard planes of his body. I hate myself for even noticing. For being able to feel anything at all besides grief or loss or pain.
By all rights, I should be dead right now.
How can I possibly be thinking about this?
Perhaps that’s precisely the problem, though: Ishouldbe dead. I came so very close. And there’s a part of me — a recklessly off-the-rails part, the part that’s still a little numb and a lot shocked by everything that’s happened— whispering dangerous things in my ear. Things about living life to the fullest while I still have a chance. Things about holding on to the people who matter most, before I run out of time.
I survived.
I survived when, by all accounts, I should have died.
I survived and I am home, I am here, in his arms.
My soul is a husk of bottomless grief. My mind volleys wildly between contradictory feelings from one moment to the next. Sorrow for those who were lost, coupled with an unbearable sense of relief that I did not share their fate. Above all, guilt. Guilt for living. Guilt for the selfish surge of joy I feel in realizing I am still alive.
I know from my courses there’s a technical term for this.
Survivor’s guilt.
But just because I can slap some textbook label on myself doesn’t help me wade through my conflicted feelings any faster. Nor does it help me understand why, at this vastly inappropriate time, a time of loss and lament and letting go… more than anything, all I want to do is lose myself in Carter’s strong embrace and never resurface again.
I look at him, and the pain lessens.
Not much.
But enough that I can breathe again.
It’s strange — Carter and me, here, together. A silent room, snow drifting down outside. It’s like we have slipped into some alternate universe.
Was it only a day ago we’d decided to be enemies?
How distant that feels, now. How acutely absurd.