74. Dollie—present day #2
A metallic stench hits me in the face as I follow her inside, both of us stopping in the middle of the room.
My toes wiggle on the carpet, trying to find something soft that’ll bring comfort. However, the fibers irritate my skin until I lift each foot and then flatten it back down.
Nothing inside me feels right without my socks, a horrible feeling of dread bubbling in my stomach.
Ambrose lies in the bed, his face painted white, his body looking ghostly beneath the black satin sheets.
That isn’t like him.
The mom he left back in Ireland was of mixed race. He’s inherited her skin and hair tones. He shouldn’t look so pale against those dark sheets.
I push around a deathly still Valaria, “Ambrose?”
Following my lead, Valaria breaks free of her trance and steps around his bed. I climb on top of it, and the dread in my stomach sinks deep.
“Ambrose!” I pull back the sheets to see the bloodstains covering his arms and the bed below him. “Oh, my god, no. No!”
I turn his head to me, feeling at his mouth to see if any air is leaving his cracked, open lips.
Maybe it’s because my hands sweat so badly, or maybe it’s because my fingers are shaking away from his mouth, but I feel nothing.
Valaria’s lips part, and she steps back, her heel cracking something on the floor. She bends, picking up Ambrose’s phone and quickly unlocks it.
His wrists wedge under his body from where he lies awkwardly. Pulling both out, I take his bloody hands in mine. They’re freezing and sticky with blood. Turning them over reveals the deep cuts on his wrists.
Oh, my god.
Valaria drops low at the side of his bed. “He was calling for help.”
“But he did this to himself?” I say to her, choking on each word.
“Then, he changed his mind, or he didn’t mean to go this deep.” She slams the number one into his keypad and waits for the operator to pick up.
“God, what have you done?” A sob leaves me shaking with his hands against my lips and tears streaming from my face.
Valaria dares to do what I can’t. With shaking fingers, she searches Ambrose’s throat for a pulse.
He wouldn’t like it—her touching him while he’s not able to push her away. But I say nothing.
Her face freezes, a perfect mask revealing nothing.
Sealing my lips, I wait for her to say something, to say anything, holding my breath until she does.
Tears drop onto Ambrose’s skin, creating trails of sorrow in the blood on his fingers.
“There’s a pulse, but it’s faint.”
Air floods from me. “Are you sure? Are you sure!” I ask twice before she has the chance to answer even once.
“Yes.” I don’t know if that word is for me or the person on the phone as she continues. “We need an ambulance, please. We’re at—fuck, what’s the address again?”
“We’re at La’Darragh Manor—The Vice Orphanage, Villa Row, Carbonado Valley.” I stutter out the words.
Leaving out his arms, I pull the sheets up from Ambrose’s hips to his throat.
I tuck myself in at his side, ignoring Valaria’s questioning glance as I wrap myself around the man she knows as my brother.
Thoughts of us finding him too late fill my mind, and I can’t face them.
I need comfort. The satin against my skin does nothing for me. I reach for his wavy hair, twirling damp locks between my fingers. It only helps a little.
“You remember we’d lie like this years ago.
You wanted to end it all back then, too.
But you wouldn’t leave me behind. To distract you, I’d read to you.
Do you remember?” I look up at his haunting image, and not even the red lips can turn me away.
“You have tears.” I feel over the drying tracks.
“I have tears, too. Don’t leave me now. ‘I cannot live without my soul.’”
My parents appear beyond us, waiting at his bedside, just to the side of Valaria.
“You can’t take him.” I shake my head. “You can’t take him from me.” I’ll never stop crying if they do. I can’t stop now.
“No, he isn’t going anywhere.” Valaria ignores the person on the phone and is blissfully ignorant of my parents’ presence at her side as she tries to soothe me with a gentle rub of my leg.
Her attention drifts back to the phone. “He is barely breathing. He slit his wrists. How fucking long are you going to be?” There’s barely a pause. “Right, good.”
I sob, placing a kiss on his cold lips. “God, what have you done?” I say again, the words breaking through my sobs. “How did you ever think I could live without you? I can’t. You have to come back. Please, come back.” I kiss his lips twice more because three has always felt lucky to him.
His eyes, while still closed, flutter.
“Ambrose? Wake up, please wake up.”
A weak sound leaves his lips. A groan that my broken mind convinces me sounds something like my name.
“Oh, my god. Stay with me. Please, stay with me.”
Running my hands over every inch of skin showing, I try my best to keep him warm.
Valaria rushes from the room and into the adjoining bathroom, and my parents step closer.
“You’re not having him. You can’t.” I hold him tighter. “He won’t go with you. Don’t make him, please don’t make him.”
Valaria returns with two clean, wet towels. Too lost in all that’s happening, I didn’t even hear her running water. She steps through my parents’ image, and they fade into nothing behind her.
“What are we doing?” I ask, forcing myself up as she pulls one of Ambrose’s hands from beneath the sheets.
“Raise his other hand. He’s cut both wrists. Elevate them and use this—” She hands me one of the clean cloths. “And apply pressure to help stop the bleeding.”
“How do you know how to do this?”
She flicks me a wary glance before wiggling her wrist until her sleeve rises and reveals an old scar.
“I did it in my teens. My dad was a paramedic.”
I copy her every move, praying with all the hope in the world that if it worked to save her, it’ll save my Ambrose, too.