Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 137433 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 687(@200wpm)___ 550(@250wpm)___ 458(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137433 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 687(@200wpm)___ 550(@250wpm)___ 458(@300wpm)
Doesn’t matter that all that’s left of us are bittersweet memories and two ragged bracelets. Or even that his absence is the most present thing in my life, and something tells me that if we were still us—really us—I never would’ve gotten hooked on Xanax and Vicodin.
While I wait for him to answer, the world shrinks in front of my eyes. Like a photo being devoured by fire, the edges blurring inwards.
“Bailey?”
He sounds flippant, disinterested; he has good reasons to be. #Bailev is dead. I killed it with my own hands. His background noise is sultry music, laughter, and beer bottles clinking together. He’s at a party.
“Lev…” My tongue is a half-dead thing in my mouth. I can’t believe I’m saying these words. “I’ve overdosed.”
“What the…?” A door shuts in the background, and the noise fades. He went somewhere quiet so he could hear me. My throat is all clogged. Shitshitshit. “Repeat that?” he demands. “Like, right the fuck now.”
“I overdosed! Drugs. I…I think I’m about to die.”
Even though up until this second Lev has had absolutely no knowledge of my ever consuming anything stronger than Infants’ Tylenol, he catches on quickly.
“What did you take?” His voice turns soft, raspy.
No judgment. No anger. I can’t believe we grew apart. Can’t believe I tore us apart. I can’t believe this is the last time I might be speaking to him. Ever.
“Vicodin, supposedly. But it feels…different. Wrong.” My breathing shallows; my body is shutting down. “I need you to call an ambulance.” I try to swallow. Fail. “And send someone in the residence hall to my room with Narcan. In case…you know…”
Who says being a nerd doesn’t pay off? I listened carefully during those D.A.R.E. classes.
“Actually, I don’t fucking know, but that’s a conversation for later.” The sound of him frantically rummaging through something fills my heart with stupid, unwarranted hope. “Wait on the line…shit! Fuck! Where is it?” he growls. “I’m using Tha—someone else’s phone to make the calls. Count to ten for me.”
Normal Bailey would do it backward, in Latin, just to show off. Current Bailey isn’t even trying. Current Bailey is also dumb enough to wonder who is Tha—? A girl? A girlfriend? Is he hooking up with people now? Now’s not the time to be jealous. My oxygen levels are way down. Everything is going darker by the second.
“Lev, I’m scared.”
“Don’t be,” he barks, but he sounds more scared than I am.
I gulp, and he can sense my panic because he asks, “When have we ever let anything bad happen to each other?”
“Some things are bigger than us.”
“Nothing is bigger than Bailev,” his voice is resolute. “Repeat it.”
“Nothing is bigger than Bailev,” I say weakly.
“Atta girl. No lies detected.”
My eyes flutter shut. I’m too tired. Too heavy. Too numb. In the background, I hear Lev talking to a 9-1-1 dispatcher, then to the Office of Housing and Residence Life. He is calm, in control, and bossy as hell.
Lev is the epitome of a heartthrob. Broad-shouldered, pillowy-lipped, with drowsy sex eyes and a body that makes Adonis look like a dude with a dad bod. But that’s not why I’m in love with him. I’m in love with him because he’s the boy who drags me every first rain of winter to dance among the raindrops, barefoot, since he saw me doing that once when I was six. Because he kisses my forehead when I’m sad and watches cheesy Netflix rom-coms with me when I’m PMSing but also has a side of him that races sports cars and bungee-jumps from cliffs.
He is hardness and softness. Air and water. He is my everything and yet nothing to me at all these days. And I’m ripped to shreds even thinking about it right now.
“I…Lev, I’m…” I croak.
“You’re getting through this is what you are. Help’s on the way. Now, remind me what year did they allow women to start dancing ballet?”
1681. He is trying to distract me, and I appreciate it, but my mouth is too heavy to answer.
“Dove?” His voice is a lullaby, wrapping around me like a wooly blanket. “You there?”
My eyelids droop, darkness engulfing me. Death is cold and quiet and beautiful, and it’s so close, I can feel its breath on my skin. The first thought that pops into my head is how selfish I am for putting him through this, hearing me die, after everything he’s been through.
“Answer me, Bailey!” I hear the smash of glass breaking, followed by a string of curses. A startled voice what-the-fucks him in the background. It’s male, and I don’t know why I’m so relieved, seeing as I’m about to die, but at least Lev has a friend there to take care of him.
I hear Lev tromp out of the party, shrugging off pleas to play donut on a string. “Just wait,” he keeps chanting in my ear desperately. “They should be there any second, Dove. You hold on tight for me, okay?”