Chapter 23: A Girl and a Boy

Gideon's POV

At ten past three in the morning, in the last week of April, Lydia sat up in our bed and said, very calmly, "Gideon, it's time."

I had been told for months that this might happen.

I had read two books and been lectured by my sister on the phone.

I stood up, put both feet in one leg of my jeans, and fell over.

"Breathe," Lydia said.

She was on her knees on the mattress with one hand on the headboard, and she was laughing at me between breaths.

"I'm breathing."

"You're not. Pants. Then the bag. Then the truck."

The bag was by the front door, where it had been for a month.

I carried her down the porch steps in the dark.

The porch light shone yellow over her bare feet.

She had written a song about that light.

I had heard it sung to a full room, and I still couldn't think about it without my throat closing.

I drove to the hospital with my knuckles white and my mouth dry.

She held my right wrist the whole time.

"Slow down," she said at the last light.

"I'm doing the limit."

"You're doing forty in a twenty-five."

I slowed down.

The nurses took her through a pair of double doors, and I was told to wait for ten minutes while they checked her in.

I walked a loop of the corridor four times.

On the fifth I found Brandon in the waiting area, sitting on a plastic chair with his hands between his knees.

He stood up.

He had lost weight, and he wore a work shirt with a name patch on it.

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