It was raining again.
Of course, it was.
Moving my wary eyes around, I could feel the drip through the window crack — a tiny water song threading through the sterile hush of the room.
My hand — the only thing I could somewhat move well — twitched ever so slightly on the blanket as I reached for the phone relic tucked away, hidden deep against my ribs.
It was cold now.
Like him.
And I could not help but think:If I press it harder, maybe he'll breathe again. Maybe his heartbeat will wake up under my skin.
The door clicked open, and I heard soft footsteps echo on the clean linoleum flooring.
I could tell just by the soft scuff of her pink, worn sneakers that it was Maris — the nurse.
And sure enough, it was her."Good morning, Lena," she said softly.
Coming over to my side, she gently touched my hands, careful not to cause any more pain amidst the already existing thousand needles pricking all through me; only she didn't know it wouldn't make any difference.
Not at all.
Fussing with the IV drip, Maris started humming again.
I didn't quite recognise which song or tune it was exactly, but it triggered me. My muscles tensed, almost like I would throw up blood any second now.I hated the sound she always made.
Conceivably, she might hum because silence terrifies the living. It does not frighten me. For that is where my Zane remains.
"Doctor Elen wants to speak with you today, Lena. We're going to try speech again, okay?"
Her unexpected words caught me off guard.
But I couldn't respond, even though I heard her, and the sound she caused every time she set the needles and medical stuff back onto the metal tray with that loud thud.
I just couldn't.
It was so, so hard to process anything other than breathing past the devastation of what I'd lost, and what I had to keep breathing without.
But the word speech seemed to spike dead ice into my lifeless veins. I subconsciously tightened my grip on the phone beneath the blanket.
But what would they know?
They just wanted my voice back because they thought it meant I was alive.But my voice died in the rain with him.
Shutting my eyelids, I tried screaming — screaming so she would stop trying to pull my arms out from under my blanket.
Stop forcing me to have the plain breakfast with the thick apple juice she had brought for me.
Stop forcing me to live a life I so desperately wanted to withdraw myself from completely.
"Lena," she coaxed, softening her voice. "If you don't feel up to it, I can tell her to wait another day..."
I couldn't open my eyes.
At all.
I didn't want to. It was one of the only things I seemed to get my body to finally obey, other than sometimes being able to move my hands here and there.
When I didn't open my eyes even after she kept trying for some time, I heard Maris sigh quietly.
Not annoyed — not quite. Just tired of me.I wished I could tell her how drained I was of this life.
Wished she would know — or that someone who could help would have even a small clue — how badly I wanted to die.
To finally end things in this world I was trapped in so cruelly, and run straight to him.
Just when I thought she had given up, I suddenly felt her wiping a stray tear at my temple with a tissue — something very mother-like.
"He wouldn't want you like this, sweetheart. You know that, don't you?"And I —
My insides were ripping apart.
With blood gushing out everywhere, tainting itself in black and blue colours, adorned with the epitome gift of pain.
Yes, he would. Because like this, he's still here. If I come back, he will leave.
I wasn't sure he'd even want to see me... after I couldn't save him — yet here I was selfishly living, taking breaths that could have been his.
Ones I perhaps had snatched from him.
***
I was alone again.
The only spectator to the rattling hum of the rain outside.
The faint hallway machine beeped somewhere in the distance, its sound creeping into my room through the small space beneath the closed door.
Shifting my shoulders just the slightest bit to be a little more mobile, I wriggled the phone from under the blanket, close to my ribs.
But when I brought the phone out, I didn't immediately press play — instead, I pretended that I was hearing his voice anyway.
And I swear.
I could hear him.
"Don't open your eyes yet. Stay with me, Lena. Just for a while."Speaking to me in that same husky tone of his.
His crisp scent of musky wood filled my nostrils, and my eyes flooded with tears the exact second I recognised the smell — right as my brain registered it.
***
I didn't have an exact count of how long I stayed awake crying before I drifted half-asleep.
But I couldn't really tell if I was awake or not. It felt as though my body didn't know any better, either.
Beneath my eyelids — there it was again: rain hammering against the windshield of his car, Zane's voice cracking through the static of my fear, his eyes flicking to mine, then to the headlights behind him.
The flash.
The way the world split down the middle.
Strangulating sensations clamped my chest down a little too hard. Hard enough for it all to ache — ache until the exact moment that came before death.
My legs twitched sharply under the blanket — as I tried to run inside the dream, but all I could ever return to was drowning in the seatbelt all over again.
"Zane—" I choked on his name even there.
With my throat tightening, my hands curled into the sheets, nails half-mooning my palms.
I couldn't breathe properly for a long time — every gasp seemed to drag me closer to the night I kept trying to bury, yet inevitably yearned to trade my soul for, just to return to it.
His lashes were wet with rain and perhaps a bit of fear. The taste of metal was sharply vivid in my mouth.
The car behind us grew teeth every second we wasted. It felt like being hunted in the worst possible way, stranded with no way back.
I wanted to wake up.
I wanted him to live.
I wanted to stop seeing the exact moment I lost everything —
But my body jerked again, a desperate, useless flinch.
My pulse hammered straight against my ribs like it wanted out.
My skin was scalding hot, yet too cold.
If I could — only if I could scream, I swear I would.
But all I was allowed to do was shiver, sweat, and beg my sleeping self not to remember.
Not to remember the one moment that snatched my soul away from me and ripped my existence right in front of my blood-ridden eyes.
He was looking at me.
He was looking at me.
And then he was gone.
I opened my eyes with a jolt, panting. And before I could make anything out, there he was. In the dark, I saw his silhouette standing at the window again.
But this time, instead of looking away, he turned his head to me. Slowly. His eyes met mine.But they felt wrong.Too dark.Too hollow.
Lifting a finger, he placed it against his lips as if to shush me. His mouth moved ever so slightly, mouthing a word — but my incapability didn't let me hear or understand.
I was sure he said something — he just said something looking straight at me. His mouth — I saw it move.
My mind started spiralling. Racing endlessly again.What?What?Zane, say it.
Say you forgive me.Or that you've come here to take me.Say something, Zane.Say anything.Please.
I tried my best to scream.
But I never managed to bring one word out of me.All that escaped was thick air, filled with the same void that constantly hummed the same sad song of longing I had been drowning in for months.
A rasp so weak it burned me.
Before I could blink away the tears crowding my eyes — he was gone.
I curled around the phone — the only thing that held my lifeline tighter than I ever could in this moment.
The world could explode outside right now — and I absolutely would not care.
Zane, can you hear me? I swear I'll wait forever if you promise you're still here.