6. June
June
The last twenty-four hours have felt like a nightmare straight from hell, the kind where you wake up screaming only to realise you’re still awake. Every time I close my eyes, I’m back at that tower.
Her scream, it haunts me.
I don’t have words for this emptiness. Its comparable to a hollow, aching weight in my chest that makes every breath feel like I’m inhaling crushed glass. Painful and suffocating.
I sat in the sterile, humming silence of the ICU, watching her.
Annie was hooked up to so many tubes and glowing monitors she looked more like a science experiment than my best friend.
Behind my eyelids, our childhood was playing on a loop: the time we tried to dye our hair neon pink and ended up a muddy orange, the night we sat on the roof and pierced each other’s ears with a sewing needle and an ice cube, the whispered secrets about escaping this town together…
Now, her entire future was reduced to a flickering green line on a monitor.
I couldn’t stop. A continuous stream of tears tracked down my face, hot and stinging, dripping onto my hands.
I can’t imagine a world where she isn’t in it.
She’s the only one who truly understands the suffocation of my life, the only one who saw the bars of the cage the Blackburns were building around me.
I should never have let us sneak out. The guilt was overwhelming. If only I hadn’t wanted to see that stupid movie. If only I’d been the “good girl” everyone expected me to be, she’d be home in bed right now, complaining about the history assignment she has due later this week.
Nana hasn’t said a word since she arrived. She just sits in the plastic chair, clutching her silver cross so hard her knuckles turn white. Her lips move in silent, desperate pleas to a God I’m starting to resent. I’m praying too, but mine feel more like threats. If You take her, take me too.
Cain stood up from the corner. He’d been there for hours, a dark, motionless shadow guarding the door like a gargoyle.
He and Julian had been taking turns, never leaving me alone for a single second.
As Cain moved closer to the bed, the memory of him appearing out of the blackness at the park hit me with a sudden, alarming clarity.
“Cain,” I whispered. My voice sounded faraway, like it belonged to a stranger. “What were you doing last night? At the park?”
He paused, his dark eyes meeting mine. They were unreadable, devoid of the exhaustion that was currently crushing me. He looked perfectly, terrifyingly composed.
“Were you following us?” I pushed, my heart hammering in my chest. “How did you find us so fast?”
Cain reached out. His hand hovered near my face for a heartbeat before he tucked a stray, damp hair behind my ear. His touch was like ice. Goosebumps erupted over my skin immediately.
“Don’t worry about that now, June,” he said. “We will talk later. This isn’t the time or the place. You have more important things to focus on.”
Before I could demand the truth, the door hissed open. Julian walked in, looking unnervingly calm. He carried a bag of food for Nana and a bouquet of fresh roses for the room, as if the scent of flowers could drown out the smell of antiseptic and impending death.
“You’ve been here all day, June,” Julian said, his voice a soothing, velvet contrast to Cain’s heavy energy.
He looked at Cain, a silent communication passing between them as they swapped places.
“You need to head home. Just for an hour. A shower, a change of clothes, a nap. I’ll bring you right back. I promise.”
Nana looked up, nodding weakly. “Go, June. I’ll be right here. I won’t leave her.”
I hesitated, feeling like if I stepped out of this room, the thread holding Annie to this world would fade away. I walked to the edge of the bed, looking down at her. She looked translucent, a ghost of the girl who laughed too loud and always had messy hair.
I leaned down, my tears blurring her features, and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead. Her skin felt cool. Unfamiliar.
“Don’t go anywhere,” I whispered against her temple, my voice cracking. “I’ll be right back. I promise.”
I looked at Julian and Cain. They were the foundations holding up a world that was trying to collapse on me. I felt a surge of gratitude so strong it made me dizzy, but beneath it, a cold, shiver of dread I couldn’t explain, simmered.
The hot water was supposed to wash it all away—the smell of the hospital, the grit of the park dirt under my nails, the layers of exhaustion. Instead, It just felt like it was scrubbing me raw, leaving my nerves exposed to the air.
I stood under the spray, eyes squeezed shut, trying to find one second of peace. But peace was a lie.
Through the heavy thrum of the water, a piercing, intrusive sound broke through, a phone ringing. Julian’s house phone, out in the hall.
My heart stopped. I stood frozen, the water scalding my shoulders, listening to the muffled vibration of his voice. I couldn’t make out the words, just low, muffled hums distorted by the pipes, but the cadence was wrong. It was too fast. Too clipped.
I reached out with a trembling hand and killed the taps.
The silence that followed was a thousand times worse than the noise. I didn’t dry off. I just grabbed a towel, wrapping it around my shivering body as I stepped out, my wet feet leaving frantic, damp prints on the floor.
I didn’t have to hear the conversation to know. There was a shift in the air, a sudden, heavy pressure that felt like the oxygen had been sucked out of the house. It was a physical weight, a premonition settling deep in my heart.
Julian was standing by the window, his back to me, the phone slowly lowering from his ear.
“Julian?” I whispered.
He turned around slowly. His face was a mask of controlled agony, his jaw set so tight I thought his teeth might shatter.
But it was his eyes that gave it away. They were glassy, shimmering with tears he was fighting to keep back—not for him, but for me.
He was trying to be the pillar, but the foundation was crumbling.
“June…” he started, his voice thick and unstable. He took a step towards me, reaching out as if to catch me before I even collapsed. “We need to get to the hospital. Now.”
He didn’t have to say the words.
I just knew.
The “I’ll be right back” I had whispered to her echoed in my head like a cruel, mocking joke. I had promised her I’d be back, and she had promised me she wouldn’t go anywhere.
We had both lied.
In an instant, my footing was gone, ripped away by a truth I wasn’t ready to face. She was gone. She was just… gone.