8. Chapter 8- August #2
I gag as blood runs down her chin.
“August...” Both voices say my name at once.
I stumble backward.
Sarah’s fingers bend wrong.
My finger tries to curl toward me.
Hers fight it. The bones in her face shift violently beneath the skin.
Lenora pushes forward.
Sarah pushes back.
Her cheek tears.
For one horrific second I can see teeth where teeth should never be.
Then skin seals again. “Make it stop!”
“I don’t know how!”
“Say goodbye!”
“What?”
“To her!”
Lenora’s voice comes through. “No.”
Sarah grabs her head. “Shut up!”
“August.” Lenora calls out to me. “No. Please.”
That voice. The original.
My Lenora.
The woman who died in my arms. The woman I broke the world trying to recover.
“Come here.”
I cry. I can’t help it.
“Lenora...”
Sarah screams. “Don’t you fucking dare.”
I look at her.
Sarah. The woman from the lobby. Broken umbrella. Peaches rotting on the counter. Iced coffee in winter. One foot outside the blanket.
Her.
Not the ghost.
Her.
I crawl toward Sarah and Lenora’s expression brightens.
I touch her face.
Both of them.
“I’m sorry.”
Lenora smiles. “I know.”
“No.” My thumb brushes her cheek. “I’m not talking to you.”
The smile disappears and Sarah breaks through. Her green eye returns for one second. “August.”
“I see you.”
She sobs.
“I see you, Sarah.” The body shudders violently.
Lenora screams. The sound is ancient. Furious.
“You promised!”
I close my eyes.
“I was wrong.”
“You said you’d love me until there was nothing left of you.”
“I did.”
“And there almost isn’t.”
I look down at myself.
She’s right.
My shirt hangs on a body that is barely mine. One shoulder collapsed. Ribs missing. Four fingers. One eye dim. My legs feel hollow. My teeth loose. I’ve been emptied out for a promise I made beside a dying woman. “I loved you.”
Lenora cries. “Love me now.”
I shake my head. “I can’t.”
“LIAR!” The scream ruptures something inside Sarah. Her abdomen distends. She doubles over. Then her stomach splits.
Not open completely.
A narrow seam tears from beneath her sternum toward her navel. Blood pours between her fingers.
I grab her. “Sarah!”
Something pale moves inside.
A hand.
My hand.
Five fingers. Pressing outward beneath the opening.
I vomit.
Sarah screams.
The hand pushes through. Attached to nothing I can see. My missing finger completes itself. Then wrist. Bone. Muscle. A piece of me being born from her.
“Get it out!”
I grab the wrist.
The second I touch it, my own right hand goes numb.
I look down. The fingers are fading. Skin collapsing. Bone disappearing.
Transferred.
The hand emerging from Sarah becomes more solid.
Mine becomes less.
She sees.
“No.”
“It’s okay.”
“No!”
“It’s okay.”
“Don’t fucking say that!”
The hand tears free. Blood splashes across both of us.
Sarah screams until no sound comes out.
A complete forearm hangs from the opening in her abdomen.
My forearm. The grotesque thing twitches. Fingers curl. My right arm ends at the elbow.
Smooth.
Gone.
Sarah looks at me.
Then at the limb protruding from her body and starts sobbing. “I can’t do this.”
“Yes, you can.”
“No.”
“Sarah.”
“You’re disappearing.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that!”
I laugh weakly. “Fair.”
Her face twists.
Another spasm. My ribs disappear next. One after another. Inside my chest, things shift without support. Breathing becomes difficult.
Sarah screams as new bones lock into place beneath hers.
Her torso bulges.
Then settles. Too full.
Two skeletal patterns fighting for one shape. She crawls toward me. “No touching.”
“Fuck you.”
“Sarah...”
She wraps herself around me.
I don’t have the strength to resist.
“Don’t leave me.”
The words break me. “I have to.”
“No.”
“You said no martyr bullshit.”
“This isn’t martyrdom.”
“What is it?”
“Biology.”
She laughs through tears. “I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Fuck you.”
“Eventually.”
She hits my chest weakly.
Then freezes.
We both remember.
The first day. The same stupid joke.
A laugh tears out of her. It becomes a sob. “You’re such an asshole.”
“I know.”
“I love you.”
Pain rips through me. Another piece disappears. This time part of my jaw. My mouth fills with blood.
Sarah screams.
“Don’t say it again.”
She cups my face. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t.”
“I love you.”
My vision darkens. “Sarah.”
“I love you.”
My left leg gives out. Bone vanishes from hip to knee. I collapse.
She lowers me carefully.
“Stop.”
“No.”
“You’re making it faster.”
“I know.”
“Why?”
“Because I need you to hear it while you’re still you.”
I cry. I can’t stop.
“Sarah.”
“I love you.”
My heartbeat stutters inside her chest, the second rhythm grows stronger.
Mine weakens.
She presses my hand against her sternum. “Feel that?”
Two beats.
One hers.
One mine.
“I’ll keep it.”
I shake my head. “You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
“I don’t want you carrying me.”
“Too fucking late.”
A laugh escapes. Then another.
We both laugh.
Hysterical.
Broken.
Covered in blood.
Her stomach open around my arm.
My body disappearing against the floor.
It should be horrifying.
It is.
It’s also the closest I’ve ever felt to anyone.
Maybe that’s the cruelest part.
“I need you to do something,” Sarah whispers.
“What?”
“Let her go.”
My smile disappears. “I don’t know how.”
“Yes, you do.”
She touches my face. “What did she say when she died?”
I close my eyes. “I love you.”
“What else?”
“Stay.”
“What else?”
The memory. Her final breath. Her fingers loosening. The word I refused to hear. Goodbye.
My throat closes.
Sarah knows. “Say it.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
“No.”
“August.”
“I spent all these years trying not to.”
“Then stop trying.”
I look at her.
Her face flickers.
Sarah.
Lenora.
Sarah.
Lenora.
The original pushes forward.
Tears stream down her cheeks.
“Don’t.”
Her voice. Lenora’s. “August, please.”
My heart shatters.
She’s scared.
Of ending. Of finally being allowed to die.
For the first time, I understand her.