Page 43 of Here for a Good Time

FIFTEEN

Antonio lied when he said this was, and I quote, Pfft, easy .

“How the fuck did Antonio do this?” I yell. My skin feels raw to the point of numbness.

This is one of those situations where it feels like we’ve been at this for a solid twenty to thirty minutes, but the clock above the reception desk tells us that we’ve actually been alone for a whopping two minutes and fifteen seconds.

“I don’t know how much gasoline they poured outside,” I huff as another trail of sweat seeps down the side of my face.

The wind has significantly picked up, almost getting strong enough to knock over the lamps on the tables, and I assume the rain isn’t far behind.

“But if they’re going to start the fire before the storm arrives…

” I can’t finish the sentence. My determination from earlier is waning with every passing second.

An image of my body on fire pops into my head, and I start hyperventilating.

“Poe! Poe! Hey! Breathe!” Zwe’s voice clangs through the room. His upper body lifts as he takes a deep breath, and he nods, telling me to follow along. When he exhales, so do I. “Don’t give up on me now,” he says. “We can do this. It’s so easy. We know what we have to do.”

I want to argue that it would be even easier to give up now. I’m emotionally and physically drained, and my brain wants to shut down and go to sleep. If Zwe weren’t also here, I’d have thrown in the towel by now.

I test working both thumbs at the same time, but that’s making me only able to give 50 percent to each hand, so I return to only focusing on the right one.

The air is pungent with the smell of gasoline.

It’s slowly seeping into the lines between the hardwood paneling, which gives the whole floor a glossy sheen.

“I cannot believe—” I stop myself mid-sentence when one particular motion makes the rope dig into a soft part of flesh and sets off a flash of pain.

Aware that I don’t have too much time to spare, however, I immediately start working again, wincing through the rest of it.

“This whole time, you thought—” The stray hairs scrape along the side of my forefinger, but I’m getting close.

The rain is starting to pelt, so I begin shouting, “I! Loved! Vik!”

Zwe’s panting makes his laugh ragged. “I dunno, the guy—” He grunts. “—had a lot of money!”

I laugh, and am going to return a quip when my nostrils react to something.

Zwe’s already looking around, but we can’t spot anything.

At last, we make eye contact. We’re both thinking it, and we both know we’re thinking it, and yet we’re delusional enough to hope that if we don’t say it, it won’t be true.

I bite the bullet. “That’s smoke, right?”

“Yes,” is all Zwe says.

“Faster,” I say.

“Save it for the bed,” he says, and I make a sound that would be best described as a guffaw. “Maybe the rain will put out the fire before it gets to us,” he offers.

“Given how thoroughly they’ve planned this out—” I now know for a fact that I’m bleeding, because I can feel the blood dripping down my wrist. Still, I wriggle my fingers more rapidly.

“—I highly doubt that. They most likely started it right outside the building to minimize the chances of it spreading to the village before the storm puts it out. The fact that we can smell smoke means that it’s really close. ”

“God, I hate smart women,” he mutters, then throws me a wink. I roll my eyes.

We’re working so furiously that we can’t even talk anymore. I attempt to contort my thumb in a way that thumbs are not supposed to contort. In an agony-induced daze, I momentarily wonder if the pain of breaking my thumb would be either less than or equal to what I’m doing right now.

“I’m going to throw up!” I get out. I’m falling apart. I’m actually falling apart.

“You didn’t think blood, snot, and tears were sexy enough?” Zwe yells. “Going to throw some bile into the mix?”

I want to laugh, but I hold it in on account of my fear that that will be the thing that makes me vomit. “You know what they say, the wetter the better.”

Black spots start speckling my vision, and I close my eyes, diverting all of my attention to my breathing.

One thumb, I plead with myself. Antonio said that was all it took. One thumb. You can free one thumb.

“How’s it coming—” Zwe begins.

“Shut up,” I reply. Then, eyes still scrunched shut, I huff out each word, “Sorry. Can’t. Talk. Tired. Pain.”

“Okay,” he says.

One. Thumb. I recite it one syllable at a time, a steady metronome to remind me of the only thing I need to focus on right now. The only thing that will—

The tension around my entire right wrist goes slack. I fling my eyes open, half expecting to find that the reason my hand is free is because I died and am now a ghost.

But no, I’m still here, right alongside the trees that are thrashing in the storm, the smell of smoke and gasoline still the only scents permeating my lungs, several feet away from Zwe, who looks like he’s on the verge of passing out. I’m right where I was before—but with one big difference.

“I did it.” In my head, I exclaim it with unbridled glee. But by the way Zwe simply frowns at me, I’m guessing it came out significantly weaker. “I did it!” I yell as loudly as I can.

He blinks several times, like I’ve said the words in a language that he technically knows but is not in a current state to process. At last, he says, “Really?”

Again, I mean to pump my fist in triumph like you see in the movies. Instead, I barely manage to sling my right hand over onto my lap, the whole limb dangling like a dog chew toy that should’ve been thrown out ages ago.

“How about you?” I ask, wiggling my left hand free, too.

“I think I’m close, but I might need your help,” he says. We exchange the faintest smile to acknowledge that in any other case, that would’ve been a great That’s what she said line.

I bend over to untie the rope around my ankles—although I don’t necessarily bend so much as flop, and consequently topple onto the hard floor.

“Are you okay?” Zwe calls out.

I’m lying sideways on a gasoline-soaked floor with blood-caked wrists, so “okay” seems like an exaggeration. “Never been better,” I reply.

“Poe!” Zwe yells. “Wake up!”

My eyelids fling open. I was on the brink of passing out, woozier than I thought.

Despite now having two free hands, being on my side on the slippery floor makes it trickier for me to undo the rope around my feet, although I attribute a large part of that to the fact that it’s tied in the kind of knot that would impress even the most veteran of sailors.

While I’m fumbling to untie the knot, my throat begins itching and closing up. I try to cough, but it’s like all of the oxygen is being suctioned out of the room. It’s only then that I look up and see the thin black fog that’s rolling in. Still no flames, but smoke means they can’t be far behind.

“Faster!” Zwe shouts.

I gulp, a new rush of adrenaline coursing through all ten of my mangled fingers.

I undo one knot, and then another, then another—but it doesn’t seem to end.

Now, in addition to the air getting harder to breathe, the whole room is getting hotter.

I feel like I’m in a sauna room that’s made of metal and has been cranked up to the max.

Wiping sweat off of my forehead, I look at the jumble of rope still binding my legs together. The knots have to end somewhere .

“Fuck! This! Fucking!” I gasp for oxygen with each word. “Stupid! Place!”

On the last word, the rope falls to my feet, and I flail about to kick it fully off. I know I have to get up, but I feel like a crumpled piece of paper.

“Run!” Zwe shouts. “Poe, go! Run!”

“You dummy,” I pant. Rolling myself over and onto my palms and knees, I crawl toward Zwe, wheezing with each movement. “I make a big, grand speech, and you think—” I gulp in some desperate oxygen. “—I’m going to just leave you here?”

“Don’t be stupid!”

“ You don’t be stupid!” I retort, still crawling. I glare at him through my blurry, still-speckled vision, then remember I shouldn’t be getting angry because I need to save my energy, then get even angrier at him for making me angry in the first place. “Shut. Up. Just shut the hell up.”

When I reach him, I begin working on the rope around his feet while he continues to work on his hands.

We go at it in tandem, each focused on our own tasks while the wind swirls leaves and bits of foliage in dramatic movements around us.

After several long moments, Zwe exclaims, “Got it!” He wriggles his shoulders a bit, and then his hands are working on top of, next to, underneath mine as we try to free his feet.

“Maybe you can crawl,” I suggest. I don’t want to bring it to his attention, but I’m certain he can see how trembly my fingers are. So trembly that I don’t think they could even hold a cup, let alone untie a series of complex knots.

He doesn’t respond immediately. And when he does, it’s not with words.

I’m attempting to pull out a particular loop when both of Zwe’s hands close around mine. “What?” I snap. I’m about to scold him for stopping when he gives me a soft smile, and my stomach twists. “No,” I say.

“Go,” he says.

“No!” I repeat.

“It’s okay. It’ll be okay.”

If I had the energy, I swear I would reach up and slap him. “It’s obvious that the smoke has gotten to your brain,” I say. “We’ll get that checked out when we make it to the hospital.”

I go to push his hands away, but he firms his grip. “You’re not—”

“No, you’re not.”

Aware of the timer, my mind starts scrambling.

I wonder if I can pick up this chair like mothers who suddenly find the strength to lift a tractor off of their child, but it’s one of those large traditional Chinese antique rosewood chairs that require several people to move in the best of circumstances.

I straighten myself from my prior hunched position, and although we’re not quite at eye level, with him bent over, I can lean into his face.

Which I do. Despite our proximity, the rain and wind have picked up so much that I still have to yell.

I turn my back on the storm outside and lean in closer.

“You are out of your fucking mind if you think I’m leaving you! ”

“And you’re out of your fucking mind if you think I’m going to take you down with me!” Zwe shouts back. “What is the point of both of us dying here?”

“The point —” While he’s distracted, I forcefully shove his stupid wide palms away and resume working. “Is that I don’t want to go home without you! I’m not going to! You really think you love me more than I love you, don’t you?”

“I do!” he shouts through tears.

“Well, that’s fucking arrogant of you!” Why won’t this damn knot untie? Why, dear God, why? “You are the most infuriating person—”

Warm, rough skin presses into each of my cheeks, and Zwe lifts my face, places his forehead against mine. I can smell the sweat and saltiness coating his face.

“ You are the most infuriating person,” he says with a smile. When he leans in further, I shake my head.

“If you’re thinking of kissing me right now, mister—” I warn. He cocks an amused brow at “mister.” “It’s not happening.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s really damn morbid. Think of all the therapy I’m going to have to have to work through the PTSD. And I won’t even be able to bill you for it!”

His laugh is rough. “You have so many books left to write. So much art left to share with the world. Your mom is waiting to hug you. You need to go. I’ll be okay.”

“I don’t care about any of that!” I try to sound firm, but I can’t hide what I am: scared.

“None of that means anything without you! Please, please, please don’t give up now.

I don’t know what I’d do without you. I don’t want to find out.

Please, Zwe, please don’t make me find out.

None of it would make sense without you.

I would spend every miserable day seeing you everywhere. Everywhere. ”

Zwe swipes at my cheeks with both thumbs. “I think it’s my turn to ask if I can kiss you now.”

I nestle my face into his palm. “I can’t say ‘yes.’ This isn’t how our story ends.”

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I wish—”

As though being sucked into a wind tunnel, I’m yanked backward, up and away from an equally shocked Zwe.