A knock at the door startled me so hard I nearly jumped out of my skin. The kettle hit the floor with a bang, spilling water everywhere. I jumped back to avoid the splash, watching the boiling water spread out on the hardwood floor. It would leave a mark, perhaps permanent, forever changing the wood. I didn’t care much at this point.

More banging. “Sav! Savannah! Come to the window!”

Brynn was back. Maybe with good news. Please, please be good news. We desperately needed it. I turned back towards the stairs to call up to Savannah but she was already at the top of the stairs. She must have heard the knocking, too.

“Brynn is back.” I waved her down, expecting a smile or something to break the solemn look on her face. Some kind of relief, at the very least. “Come down and talk to her and I’ll sit with Felix. I’ll have to reboil the water…”

Her expression didn’t change, and I wasn’t even sure if she heard what I said.

“Felix won’t wake up.”

23. Savannah

Felix wasn’t dead.
I could see his chest rise and fall, and could count the heartbeats stuttering beneath the thin skin of his wrist.
I knew he wasn’t dead. Every logical sign and symptom pointed towards him still being alive. But when he had fallen into bed after twenty minutes of dry heaving, his eyes fell shut and stayed shut. Now I couldn’t get him to open them again. Panic shredded my heart to pieces.

I tried everything I could to get him to wake up. I shook his shoulders, pinching tender skin to get any kind of reaction. But it only stuck together, dehydrated and lifeless. I sat him upright, only for his bodyweight to nearly bowl me over. I got in his face, holding his cheeks within my hands. “Listen here, fuckhead. You’re going to wake the hell up, and you’re going to wake up now. You are not going to leave me in this house without you. Do you hear me? I’m not doing any of this without you. I can’t. I fucking can’t, Felix. So you need to wake the fuck up.”