Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
TWELVE DAYS AFTER, PART I
For the first time since I’ve started waking up on Rafael’s sofa, I don’t completely resent it.
Except, perhaps, for the fact that I didn’t wake up next to him, like the way we fell asleep after we spent the rest of the night watching Bridgerton, because while it’s not on my bucket list, reading more books is, and this was close enough (also, Regé-Jean Page).
While I made it through two episodes, it took Rafael all of five minutes to pass out after his birthday festivities and our (very courageous and soul-baring) late-night swim.
I put off falling asleep as long as I could, half reluctant to end a night so full of surprises and revelations and half afraid I might not wake up at all.
When I finally fell asleep, it was staring at Rafael’s profile, the lines of his familiar face—fine laugh lines I’ve come to adore.
In the time since the accident, he hasn’t shaved, and the scruff has grown on me.
So have his smirks and sidelong glances.
My favorite, though, has been The Dimple, which hides when he’s not Vela-ing some poor, unassuming soul (i.e. , his former mortal enemy).
Falling asleep next to Rafael Vela was the second-most reckless thing I did last night.
Falling for him was the first.
Waking up with this shocking and mildly terrifying secret makes me want to float out of his apartment and find a dark, quiet corner of the universe so I can examine its validity.
I fell for Rafael Vela.
Rafael. Vela.
Someone on whom I’ve bestowed several titles over the years—coworker, friend, public enemy number one—but about whom I’ve never, not in all this time, thought potential soulmate.
Fall for the enemy. How’s that for a bucket list line item?
I want to bury my face in a pillow and scream into it until the world rights itself.
I want to call Gemma and tell her that I think I’ve lost my mind (in addition to my body).
But mostly, I want to run into his bedroom—to touch him, kiss him, lose myself in him—until I feel brave enough to tell him the truth.
The truth doesn’t scare me. His potential reaction to it does.
Because what if he doesn’t feel the same? Could I have misinterpreted his lingering gazes—the desire in them? Or the way he drank in my almost-naked body last night? Or touched my almost-flesh?
No, I don’t think I’m wrong to think he might return my feelings. I know Rafael (WWRD and all).
But I’ve also misjudged him and his actions in the past. I thought he was a backstabber. A cheater. A competitor with no qualms. I ignored any and all actions to the contrary. For years.
Which part of me do I trust now?
Which part of him?
Morning sunlight filters through the windows. It’s been several minutes of listening for movement, but I’ve heard nothing from his room. Nothing save for the sound of traffic along the street below. A police siren in the distance. And the incessant thump, thump, thump in my head.
Will any of these feelings matter if I don’t figure out how to get back into my body? Even if I tell Rafael about my feelings doing a full 180, what happens then? I’m a ghost. A spirit. An apparition (depending on the Google search of choice).
To the world, I’m nothing more than a figment of Rafael’s imagination. A hallucination, as he referred to me that first morning.
But, if I really want to change—to get back to my life—I need to try harder.
I need to refocus—on my mission, the checklist, the bucket list. I’ve allowed myself to get distracted by my feelings.
And by Rafael and his stupid dimples and searing gazes and the way he’s giving this his all, like it’s the most important thing in the world.
And none of it will matter if I don’t get back into my body.
A sharp, shooting pain lances through my skull. Nausea follows. The room tilts.
It takes fifteen breaths for it to pass, and when it does, I know with certainty that something is very wrong. Dread settles in.
This doesn’t feel like healing or progress.
It feels like a countdown.
Like if I don’t find a way back soon, there won’t be anything to come back to.
No checklist. No bucket list. No Rafael. No me.
Tentatively, I stand on weak legs. I need to find him. We need to find Lupe and Gemma. We need to figure this out. Soon.
I go to his room and stop at the open doors, nerves tangling with nausea. “Raf?”
No answer. No movement. I step into the room. He isn’t in his bed. Not in the living room or the kitchen. I end up in the dining room, searching the table for a sign of his wallet or his keys, but nothing. Except for my planner … and a note with his writing.
Ran to the hospital. Lupe says she found a real shaman. I don’t believe her, but I’m going to check it out. Don’t work yourself up about not coming. I can handle it.
Won’t be long. Feel free to snoop.
—Your favorite taffy
My first thought is to go to the hospital. The second is to trust him to handle it. I can’t do anything anyway, and I’d rather not induce another fainting spell by seeing my comatose body.
Rafael has this, I remind myself. Some of the anxious edge dulls. But the panic—and pain—is there. Sharp and impossible to ignore.
And while he’s on shaman duty, trying to figure out how to fix me, I need to think of a way to tell him about my feelings. I’m not sure which seems like the more impossible of the two.
Figuring yourself out, the Evies say.
An hour into pacing the length of Rafael’s apartment, I still don’t have a plan. Not for telling him about my feelings, not for what happens if I ever get back. But I do know I need to find Rafael.
To tell him about the pain—to tell him that we need to speed things up. Whatever it takes. I’ll try all the crazy ideas Lupe has. I’ll be open to whatever plan.
Even if it takes another Vela.
Determined and more than a bit nauseous, I head for the hospital.
It takes entirely too long to get there. My head pulses with every step.
By the time I enter Northwestern Memorial, the dull throbbing has intensified. The fluorescent lights feel like searchlights. The white walls blur. Even the floor seems to wobble beneath me. I have the strongest urge to lie down on the concrete until the nausea passes.
I push forward, up the stairwell. Past patients. Past nurses. Past doors.
With each step, I feel worse. What if it’s not just my body rebelling? What if this is it? The end? Goodbye?
Panic knifes at my resolve.
No. Not yet.
Not when there are ninety-two reasons on my bucket list. Not when I haven’t lived or loved. Not when I haven’t told Rafael the truth.
Please don’t take me yet. I send the prayer out as the lights glare brighter and the floor lurches with each step. I really need Rafael … and a place to lie down.
I force my legs to move.
And then he’s there—pacing outside my room, talking animatedly on his phone. Relief pushes past the other symptoms, and I almost throw myself at him, wishing so desperately he could sweep me into his arms and just hold me.
I don’t. I pull on a mask of composure and go to him.
He sees me. Surprise flits across his face, followed by concern. “Evie,” he says, as breathless as I feel. He ends the call without a glance at his phone.
“Hi.” I smile even though I feel like I’m in the late stages of food poisoning.
Rafael’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes, not even close. Some of my calm facade cracks.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“Nothing.” His phone buzzes in his hand, but he ignores it. “I—you didn’t have to come,” he says, his voice edged with something I can’t name. Something sharp and strange and not at all like anything from last night.
A nasty feeling twists my stomach. “I know, but I wanted to help.” I glance behind him at the door. “Is Lupe in there? The shaman?”
Rafael’s jaw ticks. “No. She didn’t come.”
I nod slowly. “Okay. That’s okay, right?” I ask, even though his signals tell me otherwise.
He scrubs a hand through his hair. “Yeah, it’s okay.” His words sound wrong, like they’ve been dragged from somewhere he didn’t want to go.
“What—what’s wrong?” I move instinctively closer, feeling cold and hot. Hospital staff move past us. Rafael is oblivious to them, to The Conditions?.
He opens his mouth. Closes it. “I—I’m sorry,” he says, looking like he may actually want to be farther away from here than even me. The apology—the pain in it—sends a wave of panic rolling through me. Then another.
“What’s happening? Tell me.” I’m almost begging. A beeping noise cuts through the pounding in my head. I need someone to turn it off.
Rafael sighs as his body curves ever so slightly inward. “I thought we had more time.” Those six words make my ghost plasma run cold.
“What is it?” I whisper. “Did they taper off the sedation? Is time up?” The nausea spikes again, hard and fast, battling for control of my (not) body. The edges of the hallway start to blur.
“That’s not it, E,” he says. I don’t know if I should be confused or scared or both, judging by the way he looks utterly lost. “I should’ve tried harder to figure out how to bring you back.
I should’ve found other doctors. Specialists.
” He swallows. “Instead, I let myself think I could help you figure it out.”
“You have been helping,” I say quickly, firmly. “You’ve done more than anyone else.”
Rafael sighs shakily. “Did I?”
I don’t answer, because he’s not asking me. He’s asking himself.
“What happened, Raf?”
His eyes meet mine. “Gemma—”
Confused, I blink at Rafael. “What about her? Is she okay?” A different kind of worry blooms—tight and cold. Because if something happened to Gemma … I can’t fathom …
“No—she’s fine,” he says quickly, but his restlessness gives him away as he shifts from one leg to another, like he’s trying to dodge the weight of what comes next. “It’s just … she went looking for your family.” A pause. “For your mom.”
The words sink in, digging their teeth deep, deep down. My breath catches. My knees wobble. I stumble, surprised I haven’t disintegrated into a pool of plasma already. “No,” I whisper, shaking my head.
“She left for Michigan the other day.” Rafael darts a look to the room, then back to me. “To find Margot.”
My mother’s name unlocks something I’ve long buried. “And?” I ask, swallowing past the rush of emotions. Gemma knew about Margot—I’ve shared bits and pieces without allowing my mother to own too much of my present, my relationships, my life.
“She went looking for her because she didn’t know if you’d recover … and thought your mom should know,” Rafael says. “And she found her.”
I let out a short, bitter laugh. Hollow and humorless. “I can’t imagine how that went.” Margot—with her rehearsed tears and rotating boyfriends. If she even remembered me at all, it would’ve been for how inconvenient I made her life.
“Not well,” Rafael says.
Relief prickles through me, chased quickly by hurt. I nod. Of course it didn’t go well. Margot doesn’t care. Fifteen years didn’t change her stripes.
“I—that’s okay,” I manage, feeling the need to reassure Rafael that it’s better that way.
But then I hear them. Muffled voices. From inside the room. My stomach drops. I glance past Rafael’s shoulder, then back to him. And that’s when I see it. He’s not just standing in front of the door; he’s blocking it. “Who’s in there?”
Rafael meets my gaze, and I instantly know.
“No,” I breathe. The hallway tilts again. “No, no, no.”