“Hey, man,” I say to him. But he doesn’t talk back. He just stares at me a beat, before his eyes snap shut again. “He’s okay, right?” I tap his shoulder. “He’s just resting, right?” I ask.

But if anyone knows the answer, they’re not saying.

And by the time they slide Q into the ambulance, he’s fading again.

I pull myself up, curse when my newly bandaged leg bangs into the rear bumper.

“Whoa.” The tall paramedic’s face scrunches. “You family?”

“We’re brothers,” I lie.

“Call your parents. Tell them to meet us at . . .”

Autumn approaches and I’m distracted.

She makes a gesture with her hand that I don’t understand.

“My keys,” she says. “Sorry. Just . . . if you have them . . .”

I fish them from my pocket, surprised they’re still there.

“Thanks,” she says.

And it’s possible her fingers linger in mine a second longer than necessary.

It’s confusing—how your heart holds your love and your hurt in the same chamber.

“I’m glad he has you right now,” she says.

I am, too, but I don’t want to leave her here, even though an hour ago I’d done just that.

And the way she‘s looking at me before turning to look back at her friends, like she can’t hold my eyes for too long, she feels it, too.

A few days after my parents died, I struggled to see out of my right eye. There’d been warning signs that I’d ignored: floaters and everything blurred, like the world was suddenly covered in plastic. I had a detached retina, from the accident. You were a day or two away from permanently losing your vision, the surgeon chided me.

That’s how things feel with Autumn.

Like we’re being pulled apart in ways that appear small.

We could ignore it. Convince ourselves we could go on like this.

Except if we don’t fix it, today or tomorrow, we’ll lose it forever.

“Do you want me to—“

“No,” she interrupts. “You’re where you should be.”

I nod, promise to text when I know something.

I look out both small windows, each round like a porthole, and it’s like that machine the eye doctor pulls down in front of you—do you see better here or here? And it’s like we’re standing still, the beach pulling away from us. Autumn steadily gliding away from me, like she’s on a conveyor belt.

Ahead: our sirens scream movemovemove.

Behind: our flashing lights illuminating two dozen terrified faces, like jack-o’-lanterns.

I try to calculate how far we are from the hospital, but my brain’s mush.

The paramedic radios the ER—we’ve got a sixteen-year-old male with—she rattles off Q’s stats like he’s a baseball card. I catch pieces.

His lungs sound wet.

Pulse ox’s shit.