CHAPTER forty-two
The Air is Gone
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Time has gone strange—slippery and uneven. I don’t know how long I’ve been buried in my work, only that my eyes sting and the light in the room has shifted without my noticing.
A sound outside cuts through the fog of my focus: the slow crunch of tires on gravel, the rumble of an engine idling, then settling. I glance toward the window.
Through the blinds, I catch sight of a Winnebago pulling to a stop across the street. Two figures step out, and my breath snags hard.
Ashton. And Danya.
I’d tried calling Ashton, but the calls never went through. I assumed they were somewhere remote, camped out in the kind of silence you can only find miles away from cell towers.
I don’t think. I just move. Down the hallway, out the front door, my feet hit the driveway as they step onto the other side.
When Ashton’s eyes meet mine, his expression is softer than I’ve ever seen it. There’s no need for words—the look alone carries a thousand assurances, a million comforts, each one wrapping around me before we even touch.
And then we do.
He pulls me into a fierce, unshakable embrace, and the second his arms close around me, my sobs tear free. He holds me together even as I crumble in his grip.
“We drove all night. I’m so sorry, Ramona,” he whispers against my hair.
Danya’s arms come around both of us, her warmth pressing in on the other side, and for a moment we just stand there—three bodies bound by grief and love, the sound of our quiet crying filling the space between heartbeats.
Eventually, I pull back. Ashton keeps his hands firm on my shoulders, steadying me like I might drift off without the contact.
“What happened?” he asks, searching my face. “Everything seemed so good.”
I shake my head, swiping at my cheeks.
“I don’t know, Ash. It doesn’t make sense. He was so happy… we were so happy. Everything was going great,” My eyes drop to the driveway. “Or I thought it was.”
Ashton’s gaze softens even more.
“I’ll never forget the way he looked at you the first time we met him,” he says. “I swear he was in love with you then.”
The words crack something inside me, and another wave of tears rises, stinging behind my eyes.
“I don’t know what to do,” I whisper. “I can’t lose him.”
Danya steps forward, her hand light but certain on my arm.
“We’ll take it one day at a time,” she says gently.
“Thank you for coming,” I manage, voice frayed at the edges.
“Of course,” Ashton says. “I’m just sorry we weren’t here sooner.”
The next several days bleed into one another, each indistinguishable from the next.
A haze of hospital hallways, unanswered texts, and sleepless nights.
The house is quiet, but never peaceful—more like the kind of quiet that follows something catastrophic, when everyone’s still waiting to see what comes next.
Elias’s condition hasn’t changed. Not worse, which is something. But not really better either. A fragile stillness.
Whenever I visit, I take his hand in mine, rubbing my fingers over his tattooed knuckles.
I never thought much about the two words that were inked across them until holding them in this excruciating stillness.
He told me most of his tattoos didn’t have real meaning, just a distraction from the darkness.
Lost Soul.
Now I wonder if he really, truly believed that about himself.
I also gently run my fingers through his hair like I’ve done many times before—backstage, in bed, on rooftops, and I whisper. I don’t even know what I was saying half the time. Just please. Just come back. I love you. Stay with me.
My heart hurts not knowing if he could actually hear them. If he’ll ever get to hear them again.
The door to the room creaks open like a whisper and Sasha’s face appears in the crack.
“How are you holding up?” Her voice is quiet, careful, like she’s afraid I might shatter if she’s too loud.
I don’t answer right away. My chest has felt tight since that night, as if the air itself turned heavier, harder to breathe. When I finally speak, my voice sounds thin, far away.
“As good as I can be, I guess.”
Sasha steps inside, closing the door behind her, and sits beside me on the edge of the bed. The mattress dips under her weight. Her hand finds my leg.
“This all feels like one big nightmare, Sash,” I whisper, the words trembling out of me.
She doesn’t reply. She just wraps her arms around me and pulls me close, and I collapse into her shoulder. My tears come hot and fast, soaking her shirt. Time stretches in strange ways; seconds feel like hours. Every sob drags me deeper into the memory I’ve been trying so hard to outrun.
I see him again. Lying there. Still. His eyes open but empty, hollowed of that reckless fire I love so much.
And then, as if my mind can’t help itself, the image shifts. It’s not Elias anymore. It’s Gracelyn. My sister’s lifeless eyes staring back at me from another lifetime.
The two memories blur until I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. They’re tangled knots inside me—my lungs, my stomach, my soul.
My chest tightens suddenly, a sharp, merciless grip. I gasp, but no air comes. My vision narrows, edges darkening, my heart hammering against bone like it’s trying to escape. Heat crawls up my throat. The walls tilt.
“Ro… are you okay?” Sasha’s voice breaks through the static in my head, but it’s distant, muffled.
“I—I ca—” My words hitch on nothing. “Brea—”
I can’t. I can’t breathe.
“Oh my god, Ramona!” Sasha drops to her knees in front of me, cinnamon-brown eyes wide and frantic.
“It’s okay, just breathe!”
But my body doesn’t listen. I lurch forward, dry heaving until acid scorches my throat and burns my mouth. Shame and panic twist together, both unbearable.
Sasha’s hand rubs unrelenting circles on my back.
“You’re okay. You’re okay. Just breathe.”
I can hear her inhale, her breath coming in exaggerated and slow. “With me,” she urges, and I try to follow.
In through the nose. Out through the mouth.
It’s ragged at first—jagged shards of breath scraping my lungs, but she keeps guiding me, patient, steady.
“Again. In… and out.”
Gradually, the air starts to come. The vice on my chest loosens by degrees. The tremor in my hands fades, though tears still track hot down my cheeks.
By the time we’re breathing in sync, her calm and mine trying to catch up and my head falls against her shoulder. My whole body feels wrung out and empty.