Page 96

“Yes, because of the CF. I won’t be climbing mountains in a few years.”

“So? I don’t need to climb mountains. I need to be with you.”

I turn to face him. “Wait until I’m bedridden, praying for a transplant that might not even work. And that’s if I get one, which I probably won’t because it should go to someone younger.”

He meets my gaze. “I. Don’t. Care.”

I open my mouth to protest, but he leans toward me, locking eyes.

“If you’re in that bed, Nic, I want to be sitting beside it. No, I want to be on my feet, advocating for you, and when it’s too late for that, I’ll be holding your hand until the end.”

My eyes prickle. “That sounds very romantic, but the reality—”

“The reality is that I know what I’m getting into. I’ve done my research, and I understand.”

“We’ve talked about moving in together.”

“Sharing a condo says I’m just hanging around until the first sign of trouble. That isn’t what I want.” He lifts the ring. “In sickness and in health.”

“I…”

“If you don’t want to marry me, say so. I’ll survive. Maybe. Hopefully.”

He gives me puppy-dog eyes, and I knock my shoulder against his.

“Can we talk about it?” I say. “I want to be sure you really do understand everything that’s going to happen to me. This can’t be a grand romantic gesture, Anton. Proving your love by caring for a woman with a terminal condition.”

“If you felt, for one second, like I was martyring myself, you’d pack my bags and kick my ass out, no matter how sick you were.”

“I would.”

“This isn’t a grand gesture, Nic. It’s a hope.” His face comes to mine. “A hope that you’ll grant my wish, and let me have you for as long as I can, right down to the last second.”

I lean in and kiss him, and relief floods me. A relief that comes from my current self, reliving that dream.

In it, I look at Anton, and I am absolutely certain I am not misremembering. No smooth-talking con artist proposed to me that day. It was my Anton, as sweet and awkward and goofy as he’d been as a teenager.

I know people can do horrible things and their loved ones never have a clue. But in my gut, I cannot look back on this Anton and see a boy who murdered a teenage girl.

Does that mean hecouldn’thave done it? Not unless he wasn’t in his right mind. Not unless he had literally been possessed, and was left only with the most subconscious awareness that he had a reason to feel guilty about Patrice and Heather.

Is that the answer? I don’t know. What I do know is that it’s not just my gut that believes him, but my brain.

What reason would a sociopathic Anton have to marry me? He had his own money. He wasn’t getting any of mine even after I died, and he made sure of that himself.

I brought nothing to the marriage except my cantankerous self and a whole lotta baggage, and he gave me the best years of my life.

Tonight something toppled that chair. In my dreams last night, Anton did that to me in the cafeteria. That should mean it was him… except he’d never done anything like that even in play. Oh, some guys could. They’d pull a jerk move like that and then claim they were just goofing around, like they would with their friends. But that had never been Anton’s style. Not tipping chairs, not poking at me on a staircase, not moving a bath mat under me.

Did I do it to myself? Echoing the dream?

Something nudges at me. Someone who did once topple a chair I was in. Goofing around. Acting like it’d been a mistake. Saying they only meant to startle me.

Who did that? I tug at the memory, but nothing comes and instead the proposal dream returns, Anton and me in that forest. I let myself drift, enjoying the peace of the mountainside and the relief of knowing—

I freeze.

This isn’t the mountain forest.