Page 95 of Say You're Mine

Natalie scoops her son up swiftly, brushing a tender hand over his curls. "That's right, bambino. Uncle June is the bravest superhero there is. And he loves your aunt Cara and the baby so much."

Her voice breaks on the last word, her composure slipping for the briefest instant. In that unguarded sliver of a moment, I see my own grief reflected back at me - the raw, screaming anguish of a woman watching her friend unravel.

But then she straightens, steel glinting in her eyes as she turns to Sonya and the boys. "Stay with Cara. I'll find out what's going on, see if I can get her in to see June."

It's a perk that comes with the Corleone name, to the power Dante wields in this city, that scarcely ten minutes later I'm being ushered down a maze of stark white corridors. Natalie's threats and bargains fade to background noise, my entire being dedicated to one sole purpose.

I'm running again, following the tide of medical personnel, my heart a jackhammer in my chest. I can't breathe, can't think. All I know is that I need to be with him, need to hold his hand and beg him to stay with me.

And then I'm there. On the threshold of the most terrifying moment of my life, staring down at the broken body of my soulmate.

Oh god. Oh god oh god oh god.

He's so pale. So bloody and bandaged and still, a shell of the vibrant, vital man I love with every shattered shard of my heart. Tubes sprout like perverse blossoms from seemingly every inch of his flesh, machines whirring a discordant dirge at his bedside.

I sink to my knees at the edge of his bed, my legs failing as I reach a trembling hand to brush a lock of hair from his clammy forehead. "Junebug," I rasp, the pet name we only ever whisper between the sheets sticking in my throat. "I'm here, baby. I'm right here."

I'm dissolving, flying apart, a supernova of grief and terror. This can't be real, can't be happening. Any second he'll open those quicksilver eyes, flash me that crooked grin and crack a wildly inappropriate joke. He has to. This can't be how our story ends.

But June remains still, silent, his chest rising and falling in shallow, mechanical increments. I clutch his hand like a lifeline, my tears dripping onto our twined fingers as I try to will him back to me through sheer desperation alone.

"You promised," I whisper brokenly, bringing his knuckles to my lips. "You promised you'd always come back to me, June. Don't you dare leave me now."

But for all my begging, all my bargaining with every deity I can name, the end rushes forward with brutal, unstoppable force.

I'm holding his hand when it happens. Talking to him, telling him about the mural, about the crib Judith helped me pick out, about all the dreams we painted in the soft, secret dark. I trail off mid-sentence as the beeping stumbles, falters, my heart seizing painfully even as June's beats its last.

No. Nononono-

The machines scream a flatline. Nurses rush in, pushing me back as they swarm June's bedside in a flurry of barked orders and controlled chaos. I stand on the fringes, numb and dazed, a distant star watching the world end.

Fragments filter through the fog, cruel and clinical. Asystole. Not responding. Call it. Those two words, so final, so utterly inhuman. Time of death 3:47am.

I'm screaming. A feral, animalistic howl wrenching past my cracked lips as I claw my way to June's side. This isn't right, this can't be how it ends, not like this, not now, not when we were so close-

Hands pull me away, gentle but implacable. Natalie, I register dimly, her voice murmuring broken endearments as she crushes me into her chest. I thrash against her hold, an unhinged litany of pleas falling in a cascade.

Please. Please please please, I'll do anything, I'll give anything, just bring him back, please god bring him back-

But god isn't listening. No one is listening as I sob and shatter, as everything warm and bright and vital is leached from the world. June is gone, ripped away by the madness of the mother who should have cherished him most, and I...

I'm adrift, numb and lost in an endless void. A high, keening wail fills the room, an animal sound of pure anguish. It takes me a moment to realize it's coming from me

Natalie cradles me against her like a broken bird, her tears mingling with mine. "I'm here," she rasps, rocking me gently. "I'm so sorry honey, I'm here, I've got you."

But she hasn't. No one has. The only person who ever truly had me lies cooling on starched white sheets, deaf to my cracked pleas for him to come back, just come back.

There's nothing left. No warmth, no joy, no reason to keep breathing. My heart is a gaping wound, raw and bleeding. June is gone, and he's taken all the light in my world with him.

I'm fading. Shutting down, powering off, circuits cutting out one by one. In the end, it's Sonya who drags me to my feet, who pulls my head to her chest and talks me through breathing, through standing, through putting one foot in front of the other. She bundles me into a car, guards my catatonic silence on the endless ride home.

Home. What a joke. This isn't a home anymore, just an empty shell, a mausoleum to a life cleaved brutally in two.

Bile rises in my throat, hot and acrid. I can't do this. I can't walk back into this sunlit domestic dream turned nightmare, knowing he'll never cross this threshold again. Never kick off his boots by the door, never spin me through the kitchen in an impromptu dance party as dinner burns unheeded on the stove. Never nuzzle his nose against my belly and whisper his love to our child.

A moan builds in my chest, low and keening. I dig my nails into my palms until blood blooms, the small bright pain a pitiful anchor against the howling vortex of loss. Dimly, I'm aware of Sonya's arms around me, of Louis frantically demanding answers in the background, of Song's ashen face as the news lands like a body blow.

But it's all distant, muted, filtered through a thick pane of glass. Nothing is real, nothing matters, nothing will ever be okay again because June, June, June is gone-

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