23 DAYS. 21 HOURS. 17 MINUTES.
Meena. She was my first thought the moment my eyes peeled open. Her name scraped up the dry walls of my throat. “Meena.”
“She is in the hospital wing at the moment.”
That voice. I recognized its soft cadence. “Lady Lorelai?”
“Good afternoon, Cinderella.” There was the clink of china placed onto the nightstand and the stir of a metal spoon in liquid. “Sit up when you’re ready. We have much to talk about.”
“Hospital? So she’s . . . still alive?”
Lady Lorelai looked at the floor and then dragged her gaze to me, a few tears leaking down her cheeks. “IoN gave his final days to her. This way, you get to live your happily ever after together.”
“He...what?” IoN was dead? No, that couldn’t be. He wouldn’t have left me like that. Not without saying goodbye. “I don’t understand.” My head was full of half questions—why did IoN have a lifeclock, why did he give his life for my happiness, what was he—but I voiced none of them when I realized I was asking in the past tense. That was all he was now. A piece of the past.
“I’m so sorry for your loss, Cinderella. You have endured much in the last few days and over the course of your life, and I’m afraid the truth I have to tell you will not ease the burden of grief.”
I didn’t know the words coming out of her mouth. Although I recognized the sounds and syllables, I could not form them into meaning and I couldn’t write them down, even if I had tried. It was as though the voice now echoing in the stone room made my brain freeze so nothing else could be processed. Why didn’t it sound like a real sentence? Why were the words not sinking in?
“IoN was created by your father so he could extend his own time and not leave his daughter before she was ready to be fatherless. When he transferred his time into IoN, the mere days he had left turned into years. He programmed himself so he couldn’t tell anyone but me, so the technology could never be used by anyone else.”
“I was...with my father this whole time? Did he know? Was he aware of who he was?”
“I don’t think that question has an accurate answer, I’m afraid. He seemed aware last night, when he was talking to me.”
Had he known and not told me because he couldn’t? Or was he not aware until he saw Lady Lorelai again? Had he been suffering in silence while I did nothing but complain? Seren, I was so stupid.
“But this means, Cinderella, that Meena is alive.”
Meena’s survival hadn’t clicked in my brain yet either, the ice taking its time to thaw, but the moment it did, I rushed to the small hospital they had here on bare feet, forgetting how hot the sand would be outside.
With burned feet, breathless lungs, eyes sore from fresh tears, and hands shaking from the possibility of a heavily-paid-for miracle, I threw the doors open. There she was. Sitting up in a bed with empty beds and white sheets on either side of her. She was staring out the window into the desert, a pensive look on her face, while drinking tea, just like she usually did first thing in the morning. When she finally stopped staring out the window and looked toward me, her lips curled and her eyes widened.
“Meena?”
“El...” She dropped her gaze to her lap. “I’m so sorry.”
They’d already told her then. I was hoping I could be the one to do it, to soften the blow somewhat, but it seemed I was beaten to it. Sitting on the chair beside her bed, I pulled her mug away and placed it down, then wrapped her cold hands in mine. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”
It was, after all, his choice.
“But you’ll never get to work with IoN again. You’ll never?—”
“He was such an important part of my life, but he was living in a silent pain I never even knew existed. He was my whole world growing up without my parents.” I frowned, a correction almost leaving my lips but I held it back. “And I’ll never get over him.” My tears seemed dried up for now, as no more wanted to shed. “Honestly, I’m not sure his death has sunk in yet. But I’m not alone anymore, so the grief won’t feel so heavy.”
Her lifeclock was once again covered in her golden cloth, but after a lifetime being stuck with its numbers like a curse, I didn’t blame her for not wanting to waste a second longer worrying about when she would one day die. I stroked my thumb back and forth over its smooth surface, feeling the clockface beneath.
“Hey, Meena?”
She met my gaze again, another sad but hopeful smile gracing her features. “Yes?”
“You never did get to run across the sand naked.” I gestured to the wheelchair on the bed’s other side with a suggestive eyebrow raise. “Want to have some fun?”