Page 159 of Eternal

DAMIR

“Another Love” by Tom Odell

Present

T he hospital doors slide open.

I carry her inside, no stretcher, no ambulance. Only me and her, like always. I don’t even stop at the desk, I just shout: “Please, she’s been shot…”

Nurses rush, a gurney rolls. I try to lay her down gently, but I don’t let go. “Gunshot wound! Female, late twenties!”

It’s her birthday today…

I whisper, “Be careful. She’s … she’s special.”

She’s my eternal partner…

They pry her from my arms. I’m still holding her hand when they wheel her through the ER doors, then it slips from mine.

And I’m standing in an empty hallway, covered in blood that isn’t mine, holding nothing.

The hallway smells like bleach and old coffee, buzzing lights, vending machine hums beside me.

I sit there, blood dried into the folds of my knuckles, my shirt’s stiff, my face is numb.

I think I’m still holding her smell in my chest… jasmine and dust and something that was always alive.

The doors hiss open again.

Kat runs in first, her eyes find me. They drop to the blood on my clothes, then she looks around, as if trying to find her.

“Where is she?” Her voice cracks. “Damir. Where is she…?”

Vik’s close behind her, slower, staring straight ahead like he already knows.

Before I can speak, the doctor walks out.

His coat is too white, his eyes avoid mine.

“She was already gone when you brought her in,” he says. “We tried, but there was nothing… we couldn’t save her. I’m sorry.”

Kat lets out a sound I’ve never heard from a human being, it rips the air open.

She collapses forward, grabbing the wall, then the floor, her sobs scrape out of her like something breaking loose inside her chest.

Vik’s arms go around her, holding her, sinking with her.

And I’m simply there.

Watching. Floating outside my body.

Like it’s a memory already, like it’s not really happening, it can’t be.

The doctor says something else, I think, I hear it as if from behind a door.

It’s her birthday today…

Vik nods, Kat shakes, and I…I hear it again.

Nothing else sticks.

Just that.

She’s dead.