Page 99 of Somewhere Without You
I smiled, my voice soft.“I never do.”
He leaned forward, brushing his knuckles along my cheek, the touch both real and not.“I wish we had more time. Real time. Not this space between.”
The ache in my chest returned.“We never get enough, do we?”
“No,”he said, sadly.“But we make it count.”
I sat up beside him, brushing the grass from my palms, blinking hard.“What happens when I wake up?”
“You live,”he said.“You keep living. For both of us.”
“But how?”My voice fractured, the weight of it all finally breaking through.“How do I walk back into the world knowing you’re not in it—knowing I have to go on living somewhere without you?”
Logan reached for my hand, grounding me.“You’ll find me again. We always do.”
I leaned into him, resting my head on his shoulder.“It’s always been you.”
“And it always will be,” he promised.
The wind stirred again, whispering through the field like a final breath, and I knew, deep down, that the moment was ending.
“It’s time to go, Em.”
I turned my face back to the sky, the clouds now shifting into something new. And for the first time in what felt like centuries, I wasn’t torn between lives. I wasn’t Charlotte or Emily. I was both. And he was mine.
Then.Now.Always.
Fifty
Afaintbeepingtuggedat me, like a rope dragging slowly through water. Voices drifted everywhere—soft and distant, but I couldn’t make out the words. I tried to open my eyes, to speak, but nothing happened.
No. I left. I let go.
Didn’t I?
Panicking, I strained to move, to scream, to anchor myself to something real, but my body still felt far away.
Was I stuck?
The voices grew louder, but I still couldn’t tell who they belonged to. Did someone say my name?
My eyelids slowly fluttered open, and through a haze of grey, a shadow hovered above me. Light poured in around it, too bright at first, and then softening, like the world remembered how to make sense.
A face.
I knew that face. Even through the fog, I’d know it anywhere.
“Nurse? Can we get a nurse in here?”Katherine called out.
Footsteps approached, followed by a flurry of voices. A deep, burning ache flared through me when I tried to sit up.
Her fingers brushed softly across my forehead.“Try to relax. Everything’s going to be okay.”
“Mom says hi,”I bit out, but my voice didn’t work right, just a dry rasp in the back of my throat.
Her eyes filled with tears.
And just like that, the space between slipped away.
