“Do me a favor,” she rasps, and I perk up, waiting to hear her words but terrified of them all the same. I can't start thinking about what life will be like after she’s gone.

“Don’t let Savannah go.”

“Go where?” I ask. I hardly know where Savannah even came from so it’s hard to think about keeping her from going anywhere when the thing that connects us is gone.

“Don’t let her go, Murph.”

“Okay,” I say through a swallow as I see her eyes start to gloss over. She shifts in her bed and grimaces, tears pricking out of her eyes as her arms seize up. The pain owns her. Manipulates her.

“What do you need?” I’m a helpless lump of fucking flesh, powerless against this thing that’s taking her.

“Morphine, you idiot.”

A smile cracks across my face, and my chest is being carved out of my body as I stand up and release her grip from mine. She’s leaving me already.

Once I call for the nurse, I watch as she shows Ruby how to drop the morphine into her mouth under her bottom lip. Shortly after, Hazel’s body relaxes into the mattress.

“How long?” I ask, without looking at her. The young woman stops next to me on her way out. Her mouth is set into a hard line as she looks up at me.

“A couple more days.” Then with her shoulders held high, she walks out of the room and toward the front door where Ruby is waiting to show her out. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she mumbles back to me, and I know I should apologize too, but the words are stuck in my chest and refuse to be spoken.

Savannah and I are alone in the living room when they walk outside, and I feel her eyes on me. Without saying anything, I walk over to the liquor cabinet and find the bourbon I drank last night. I pour a glass for each of us, then hand her one as I walk back out to the patio. She follows, and the space feels loaded. Like the way we touched each other last night is still lingering in this space.

She sits on the patio chair opposite from me, and there’s something in the way she’s watching me that has me on edge. Like she’s hiding a secret, but it could just be my warped mind at the moment. I’m desperate for another distraction.

With my elbow propped on the patio table and my head resting in my open palm, I watch her. We don’t say a word for a long time.

I don’t know what she’s thinking, but I’m imagining what those big lips of hers would feel like around my cock. If I wanted to ease some tension, would she get down on her knees for me right out here in broad daylight?

I’ve gotten her off (almost) twice. It would have been twice if she hadn’t freaked out last night and ran away.