Chapter 29
T
Levi gasped awake with the taste of blood still in his mouth, swinging out before he finished sitting up. His fist went out into empty air to his right where Asher should have been.
Asher was not there.
He sat on the floor against the side of the mattress, his knees pulled up and his head in his hands, his shoulders moving fast and small.
His elbows pressed against his temples as the heels of his palms pushed on the back of his head like he was trying to hold something inside his skull from the outside.
He didn’t look up when Levi sat up. He didn’t move at all.
Maybe he’s getting it now…
Levi swung his legs off the bed, his eyes already on the window. He’d let the fog in and let Asher watch him die again. He’d do it again and again if he had to. He’d die a thousand horrible deaths if it made Asher finally agree to help him beat the game.
His hand was on the latch when Asher said into his knees, “I think I’m remembering now.”
Levi’s hand stopped on the latch. Behind him, Asher made a sound that was almost a laugh, then broke into a warbling wet cry Levi could feel through the carpet, because Asher’s whole body was shaking with it.
“Levi,” he croaked. “Levi, would you — if I’m not the same out there — would you still —”
Levi turned around.
Asher’s face was a wreck and his eyes were wrong—they weren’t just bloodshot…
they were staring through Levi. Asher always looked at Levi like he was the only thing that mattered in the room.
Whatever Asher was looking at right now was inside himself, somewhere in the back of his own head, and the newness of it was breaking him in a direction Levi did not recognize.
“Would you still love me? Out there. If I’m not — if I’m not me anymore? If the me out there isn’t this?”
This is a trick. He’s going to get you to sit down and then he’s going to do something. Don’t move from the window.
But Levi wanted to believe it. There was a part of him that had been waiting for any version of Asher who could ask a question like that.
“Yes,” he said before he finished deciding whether it was a trick or not, because it was true. It had been true since the moment he realized he did not like dying alone. He would love whatever version of Asher came out on the other side.
Asher closed his eyes, touching the tears on his face like he just realized they were there, and he let out a shaky breath. “Okay. Levi, I need two minutes. I need you to give me two minutes.”
“Asher —” Levi began.
“I’m not going to stop you. I’m done stopping you. I’m done. I am going to help you. I just need two minutes to tell you something.” His hand went to his side and came back up with a knife; he tossed it across the floor toward Levi. “In case you don’t believe me.”
Levi stared at it — the knife on the carpet between them, handle toward him, blade toward Asher.
He gave it to me.
He picked it up and carried it with him as he crossed the carpet, sitting down crossed-legged on the floor across from Asher. “Two minutes,” Levi said, and pressed the blade to his own throat.
Asher nodded, silent as his eyes seemed to finally focus on Levi. He looked at Levi like he was seeing him for the first time, recognizing him piece by piece.
“I don’t know what’s happening to me,” he said, his voice raw like he had been screaming. “I started having things in my head…after the sanitarium. The fog made it worse, I think.”
Levi didn’t move. The knife stayed at his throat.
“I don’t remember what. I can’t tell you about a house or a face or any of the things you were asking me about.
It’s not like that. It’s like — there is a room in my head now where there wasn’t a room before.
And the room is empty. But the empty of it has words that don’t make sense, and…
I don’t remember. I–I don’t know what happens if I say…
or if my head is making it up because you kept asking.
” Asher’s hands moved while he talked, the fingers of one hand interlacing with the other, coming apart, and interlacing again.
He’s answering. He’s trying to answer the question I asked him in the dining room…that’s more than he’s ever given me.
“I’m scared,” Asher whispered. “I’m scared, because I don’t know what’s on the other side.
I don’t know if the room in my head is a real room.
I don’t know if the version of me that lives in that room is me.
I don’t know if he loves you. What happens if he’s not me…
do I die? Baby…if this place isn’t real, what happens to me? I don’t want to die...”
Levi’s hand on the knife shook as a lump formed in his throat.
“But—you’re not happy…so I’ll—I’ll do it. I’ll help you. I love you enough to go even if going means I’m not me anymore on the other side.” His voice cracked and came back. “Even if it kills me. Because I love you.”
He’s willing to stop existing for me. He doesn’t know if he survives leaving and he’s offering to go.
Ethan would have liked him.
The thought arrived from nowhere and stayed in Levi’s chest like a stone.
“Asher,” Levi’s voice came out smaller than intended. “I love you, too.”
“You said it back.” Asher’s face changed, past relief, past joy, into a raw, quieter thing underneath both. He reached for Levi’s hand — the one not holding the knife —and squeezed once.
Levi nodded, trying to swallow the sob building in his throat. He was scared if he said too much, it could ruin the moment. That Asher might change his mind…
“If I’m different out there,” Asher said, running his thumb over Levi’s knuckles. “If I come out wrong. If I come out and I don’t remember you, or I do remember you and I don’t love you the same — make me remember. Find a way to make me the person you fell in love with.”
Levi’s sob broke free, the knife still at his throat and his other hand in Asher’s. The fury of being trapped in this hell was still underneath everything, but the fury had stepped back. The love was the part that was loud.
“When we beat this game, we’re going to go back to the white room,” Levi said, scooting closer to Asher. “Don’t let go of me. Whatever it is on the other side — when we hit the white, don’t let go.”
“I won’t.”
“Promise me, Asher. Promise me you’ll come with me this time,” Levi sobbed.
“I promise.”
We’re going to do it. We’re actually going. After everything — the forest, the hospital, the ship, this place, the dying, the coming back, all of it…he’s going to help me finish this. Willingly. We can get out.
I’m terrified.
Asher’s hand yanked him forward, one hand fisting in the back of Levi’s hair, and he kissed him.
Levi kissed him back with everything he had, the knife still at his own throat because he couldn’t trust Asher enough to put it down, but every other part of him poured into the kiss, and the kiss tasted like two people who had been hurting each other and loving each other for longer than either of them could account for.
It wasn’t a bad taste—the taste was theirs.
Asher made small, soft sounds into his mouth and Levi was making them back, sharing the same breath, and neither of them let it stop for air, because air was not the point — the other mouth was the point.
Asher pulled back half an inch, his forehead against Levi’s, his breath on Levi’s mouth.
“Player one command.” His lips shaped the words carefully, like they might be wrong. Levi watched crimson bloom in the white of Asher’s green eye, blood vessels popping until the whole of his sclera was red.
Levi’s heart skipped a beat. What is happening?
“Exit the game.” Asher grimaced like the phrase hurt him to say. “And disconnect…” Blood poured from his nostrils, like someone had turned on a faucet inside his face. “And disconnect player two.”
The room went white.
The walls did not disappear. The ceiling did not fall away. The white came in through the air itself — not from one direction, from all of them, from inside the air, the walls, the carpet, even the space between Levi’s hand and Asher’s hand.
“Don’t let go,” Levi whimpered, terror creeping up his spine at the nothingness of it all. “Please don’t let go.”
Asher pulled him in and kissed him again, hard, cutting off his own words, his mouth on Levi’s as blood continued to pour out of him. Levi kissed him back, pushing his tongue into Asher’s mouth as if that one extra point of contact could guarantee they would stay together—