Fingers pried at my wrists, pulling my hands away. “If you won’t believe what I’m telling you. Look.” She nudged my chin up, angling my head at the heart rate monitor hooked permanently to Sully’s sculpted chest.

It shimmered in my tears.

Faint squiggly lines. Muted blips and beeps.

“See? His heart is still beating. Your shock is making it hard to believe me, but it’s true.”

Pika left my shoulder and flew to his master. He didn’t unleash his rambunctious terror upon Sully but twittered softly and fluffed up his feathers before nesting on Sully’s chest.

His slightly breathing chest.

I moved.

It was as if I’d been struck by lightning, infected by electricity, and enduring a bolt through my heart.

Crawling like a madwoman, I closed the distance and kneeled by Sully’s side. I snatched his hand and pressed two fingers against his wrist. I closed my eyes and sniffed back my agony-laced hope and waited.

Thud-thud.

Thud-thud.

Thud-thud.

And then, I did the most embarrassing thing of all.

I convulsed with sobs of relief.

Snotty and wet.

Wild and loud.

I wept.

I wailed.

I cried harder for hope than I had for an ending.

I cried until a migraine attacked me, dehydration made me weave, and Louise plucked me from the floor and guided me to my place beside Sully.

The moment I felt the softness of his bed and smelled his sea and coconut scent, I plastered myself alongside his unconscious form.

I shivered.

I sighed.

I slept.

* * * * *

The second time I woke, sunlight had replaced midnight, leaving my world topsy-turvy. Stealing days I hadn’t known and scrambling the calendar of how long Sully had been asleep.

Unlike all the other days of waking after a fitful night, snatched seconds, and repeating nightmares, I felt rested.

Heavy and hurting but rested.

Sitting up, I groaned as my head pounded and my eyes felt twice their usual size. I needed to wash my face from the stickiness of grief. To rinse my mouth out from my sobs.

The thought of a shower made me glance at the bathroom.

The fear of Sully crashing again made me crush closer and rest my hand on the strong pulse in his throat. To run my fingers through his thick hair and bask in utter gratefulness that he was still alive.

Breathing and sleeping and alive.

“Don’t scare me like that again, okay?” I bent and kissed the tip of his nose. “No more, Sully. The next time you want to do anything shocking...just wake up.”

“Ah, you’re awake.” Louise padded into Sully’s bedroom, her hands scooping up her auburn tresses and securing them into a bun at her nape. “How are you feeling?”

“Better.” I wiped under my eyes, then placed my hand back on Sully’s arm. Always touching him. Forever there. I would never leave his side again.

Louise frowned slightly at my touch on him before moving to grab a deck chair from outside and placing it in front of me.

I prickled with unease as she sat and sighed, brushing away the fine tendrils that’d escaped her bun. “You slept for fifteen hours. I’ll call for some food, and you need to drink, but before we get to that...are you coherent enough to talk?”

I swallowed hard.

Fifteen hours?

I’d never slept that long in my life.

“Can we have a conversation, or would you rather wait?” she asked again, peering at Sully’s silent form before settling back on me.

I raked hands through my knotty hair and nodded. Surprisingly, my brain was no longer stuffed with tears, not sluggish and full of smog. “We can talk.”

“Good.” Leaning forward, she slipped into doctor’s clipped tones and authority. “You are not to do that again.”

“Do what?”

“Allow your system to deplete so drastically. You hadn’t slept in god knows how long. I barely see you eat. You aren’t useful to him if you’re not looking after yourself.”

“I think sacrificing a bit of sleep is—”

“Over a week of no sleep is medically dangerous, Eleanor, which is why your shock yesterday didn’t let you register that he was alive. Why your emotions are on a knife’s edge. Why you snapped when he had an episode. Why you’re mentally and physically exhausted. And I get it. Of course, I do. You’re under a lot of strain. You keep watching the man you love try to die. It’s understandable that it became too much.”

She made me sound weak.

I didn’t like it.

I looked away and looped my fingers with Sully’s. Nothing happened. He didn’t twitch. The monitor didn’t react. It was as if I didn’t exist.

I shook my head, hating the coldness of his unresponsive hand. Ice. Stiff. A stranger.

“How is he still alive?” I forced out nasty questions. “I watched him die.”

“Once he flat lined, it interrupted the tachyarrhythmia. We were able to stabilise him. His pulse resumed with the defib, and we injected him with anticoagulant to reduce the likelihood of a stroke.”

“And he stays stable without me touching him?”

“He does.”

I squeezed his fingers.

No spike. No flutter.

Just the steady pump, pump, pump of a heart I no longer trusted.

Would it keep Sully alive this time, or would it throw him to the wolves again?

It was my enemy.

I hated that heart. I wanted to scoop it out and give him a new one.

Give him mine...at least mine was strong—I could feel it hammering at my ribs with dismay.

Louise gave me a moment to accept that whatever link we shared no longer factored in his desire to stay alive. He didn’t need my help anymore. I was unneeded.

That hurt.

It made me flounder and second-guess. What did I do wrong? This had to have been my fault because he’d crashed when I’d talked to him. When I’d reminded him of us. Perhaps it was true, and he couldn’t remember me. Maybe he didn’t want to cling to a goddess who’d only meant to be his employee. Maybe he saw me as he did Calico and Jupiter—a girl trying to steal his heart to win her freedom.

Sully...

I wanted to dive into his head and find him. I wanted to shake him until his eyes snapped open.

“This is the part where you need to listen to me carefully, okay?” Louise murmured. “It’s important.”

I tensed.

Pika flew to me, and Skittles squawked in frustration from her spot on the side table. Her tiny wing flapped awkwardly in her splint. Going to her, leaving Sully without my touch, I held out my finger and shuddered with friendship as she hopped onto my perch and rubbed her beak along my jaw as I kissed her.

Tears pressed all over again, but I swallowed them back.

Placing Skittles onto my shoulder, I returned to Sully’s bed and sat on the edge facing Louise. Pika landed beside Skittles, digging their claws into my muscles as I tensed. “Go on.”

She winced. “There are things we need to discuss...going forward.”

I’d woken with fresh optimism, but her words punctured me until all faith and belief escaped. I sank again, deeper into the darkness. Unable to live in this roller-coaster world anymore.

Soar and fall.

Climb and dip.

Hope and failure.

He’s alive...but for how long this time?