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She was afraid. Mikey was trying to reassure her, but she wasn't listening. She seemed to be in such a state of distress that she couldn't physically listen.

‘Kota, you don’t have to go anywhere you don’t want to. You never have to go back to him. I swear, if that’s what you choose,you won’t be left out in the dark,’ Mikey pleaded with her in a soft, yet urgent tone.

‘He’s going to kill me like he killed her. And even if he doesn’t, he’s not the only monster after me. I’m not going to survive this. I’m going to die. Oh, god,I’m going to die.’

Her hysteria finally drew me the rest of the way out of unconsciousness, my eyes blinking open blearily. I could move now, but it was slow. Sluggish. It took more effort than it should have just to sit up.

I glanced over to see that a fresh glass of water had been placed on my bedside cabinet, ice floating at the top and condensation turning the sides opaque. I watched as a drop accumulated on the side and slid down, its pace slow and leisurely. I was jealous. My pace may have been slow, but it was anything but leisurely.

Dakota’s voice climbed even higher, and nothing Mikey was doing to try to help was working. They were just outside my door, which was still open a crack, just enough for me to see the way Mikey was embracing Dakota, like he could physically hold all her broken pieces together before they could fall off completely.

I was panting by the time my feet hit the floor. The effort it then took to stand almost knocked me right back out again, but I staved off the wooziness with sheer force of will. I stuffed my feet into my slippers and shuffled painfully over to the door. When I reached it, I wanted to smack my forehead when I realised I hadn’t taken a sip of the water before making this journey. My breaths were heaving, my throat was dry and raw, and it felt swollen as I swallowed the small amount of spit in my mouth in a feeble attempt to create some lubrication.

All it did was cut off my lungs for far too long, my entire neck aching after the effort. Swallowing had become harder and harder as of late, the action more like my throat was closing upthan pushing sustenance down, my tongue sitting heavy in my mouth like it was the first part of me to have died, and I was losing the will to keep trying.

When I finally succeeded in swinging the door open after a few failed attempts of my hand not grasping the handle properly, I was able to take in the full scene before me. Dakota was on her knees, her face twisted into a forlorn expression with wide, wild eyes darting in every direction like she was waiting for something to jump out of the shadows to devour her whole. Her hands were tangled in her short, red hair, and they yanked at the strands so harshly I feared she would tear her scalp from her skull.

Mikey had positioned himself beside her, with no sign of his usual timidness as he kept his arms wrapped securely around her. He was whispering soothing nothings into her ear as he rocked them back and forth, and it was such a powerfully intimate scene that I felt like I was intruding just by standing here. They looked like a couple. Albeit where one was drowning and the other was her life raft, keeping her afloat, but a couple all the same.

I decided it was best if I left them to it. There wasn’t anything I could do anyway. Not when I was about to collapse any second now with my legs struggling to hold up my weight, but more than that, I didn’t know them well enough to insert myself between them. I had only met Dakota a few times, and none of them were particularly happy scenarios. Her entire life was falling apart in the worst way, and I was nothing more than a stranger who had somehow gotten stuck in the middle.

So, I inched the door closed to give them a sense of privacy, glad that neither had seemed to notice me, and shuffled back to bed and the glass of cool water awaiting me.

My energy today was so depleted that I had nothing left to give after sipping at the water and tucking myself back in underthe covers. As soon as I was horizontal, my eyes closed and sleep dragged me under once again.

∞∞∞

The next time I came to, the sun was setting, and I wasn’t alone. There was another body in the bedroom with me, one that was more familiar to me than any of the guests I had inadvertently taken in.

His back straightened when he saw me move, his large, broody frame rising from the chair in the corner to perch at the edge of my mattress.

‘How are you feeling?’ Davey asked, concern lowering his gruff voice even further than usual.

I groaned, the sound weak and pathetic even to my own ears. ‘I’ve been better,’ I joked half-heartedly.

He grunted, unimpressed.

I huffed a shallow sigh. ‘Help me sit up?’

He did so without a word, hooking his hands beneath my arms and hauling me up. He steadied me with one hand while the other adjusted the pillows, fluffing them and stacking them to ensure I was comfortable. It wasn’t the first time Davey had taken care of me like this. He had been my parents’ best friend and had been there for me throughout all of my cancer phases since I was a kid. When my parents got sick, he stepped up when they could no longer help me. He helped me take care of them before both of us no longer had the capacity to care for them and ourselves. He had his family to take care of, and once I had made the decision to place them in a care home, I had ushered him back to where he truly needed to be.

I didn’t want to be a burden anymore. He deserved freedom from watching me constantly fade away, then bounce back, onlyto go through it all again. It wasn’t fair to him, which was one of the reasons I had chosen not to undergo treatment this time. I could have fought for more time, but there was no chance of getting better. I was going to die, and I was ready.

And I kind of hoped Kali and Chance would be there to greet me when I passed over. I liked the idea that I had people waiting for me, that I wouldn’t be alone. That I wouldn’t have to push people away anymore to keep from hurting them when I inevitably died.

People like Davey, who was watching me with a sheen in his eyes I knew he would deny if I brought attention to it.

‘Better?’ he asked, and both of us ignored the way his voice cracked.

I hummed my confirmation, but the sound was small, like a breath more than a voice.

‘I’ll get you another glass of water,’ he said after the silence between us ran on a little too long. Normally, I would have broken it with a joke, but I no longer had the energy even for that. My body was giving out quicker than I thought it would. When he left the room, I took the moment of solitude to feel sorry for myself. I had missed my short window of opportunity to do the things I loved the most one more time, and now I was going to be stuck in bed until my rapidly decaying body finally let my soul free.

When he returned, he settled back on the edge of the bed and, rather than pass the glass to me, he manoeuvred a straw in front of my mouth. I wrapped my lips around it and sucked only enough for a trickle to enter my mouth. I swallowed it down and rested my head back against the headboard, gulping painfully.

‘You need more,’ he said, but I shook my head.

‘I’m good.’