Page 128 of Irreversible

His words are a backdrop to better dreams.

I’m alive.

I’m here.

I’m free…

I drift awake sometime later, thinking I’m in my white-walled cell. Fluorescent overhead lights tickle my eyes as I rub away the fog, fighting for a full breath. I hear a beeping noise. Rustling sounds. Faraway whispers.

A voice.

“Sweetheart?”

My eyes ping open, my heart doing cartwheels between my ribs. A paneled ceiling comes into view, and I’m scared to look left. I’m terrified this bubble will pop and I’ll be…there.

Warm fingers tangle with mine.

Everything comes rushing back to me.

It’s real.

She’sreal.

“Mom?” My head turns, and my gaze lands on my mother. My beautiful, teary-eyed mother. Golden hair is peppered with silver, pulled up in a loose twist. Crow’s feet frame her sunken-in eyes as she stares at me in dumbstruck wonder. “Mom…”

She launches herself at me, draping her body over mine.

We cry together. Two years’ worth of bottled-up tears.

My frail arms encompass her larger body as she shakes above me, her grief and love dampening the curve of my neck. She’s put on weight.

She’s stunning.

“Oh, Everly.” She presses a kiss to my collarbone before lifting off me. “Am I hurting you? God, I’m sorry, I?—”

“No, you’re not hurting me.” My voice is low and cracked. “I can’t believe you’re here.”

She holds me at arm’s length, studying every crease, every pocket of exposed emotion that filters across my face. “My baby girl,” she whispers. “You’re alive.”

I send her a delirious nod, more tears pouring out. “I’m alive.”

“I never doubted it. Not for a goddamn second.” Giving me a little shake, she hugs me again, and we stay like that. Chest to chest, heart to heart. I let her life force warm me. A mother’s love. When she inches back up minutes later, she cups my cheeks in her hands as multicolored rings and baubles press into my skin. “Look at you, honey. Justlookat you.”

My bottom lip wobbles. “Do I look different?”

I haven’t even glanced in a mirror.

I’m thinner; I know that much. But are my eyes still blue? Or have they dulled to a miserable shade of gray? Is my hair thinning? Falling out? My skin must look sickly. I don’t think I’d recognize myself.

“You look perfect.”

A smile crests, the first smile I’ve worn since my hand was last pressed to a wall. My mom is here. This moment is everything I could want and more.

She scoots closer to the bed, taking my hand again. “You don’t have to tell me anything. Not yet.” A thumb dusts across my knuckles. “Take all the time you need.”

Time.

I don’t need any more time.

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