I hear a voice calling to me, but there’s buzzing around the words, like someone turned up the drive on an amplifier.

“April. Come on! April! April!”

I want to answer, but I feel far away. My eyelids are heavy. Or maybe it’s dark. Maybe it’s dark. I forgot to tie a lifeline.

“Come on, April!”

There’s static behind my eyelids and the pressure churning through my body is so great that my ribs might shatter and my hips could explode. The pain goes beyond what I thought was possible until it gets so big I can’t feel anything at all. There’s a moment of peace and nothing. The static goes to black, and then the pain crashes through me again. I see blue sky and splintered wood and then my own static.

“Let’s get you up, April,” that voice calls through the feedback.

I think about an octopus with bright blue limbs.

“Let’s get you up.” It’s such a nice voice.

Arms hook under my armpits, pulling me to my feet. I try to make my legs work. They don’t want to, but I try. The ground blurs into the trees. Everything that isn’t my body feels far away.

“I got you,” she says.

It’s Carly. It’s a dream.

I can see the lake, so blue.

I’m in a car.

“Max,” I say, or maybe I just think it. I don’t hear the sound at all. Max, Max, Max.

I rest my cheek against the cold window. I can’t tell what’s static and what’s pavement whizzing by. There are so many bumps in the road. That pain crashes through my body again and the static turns to stars.

— Chapter 70 —

There’s a hand holding mine. I can’t get my eyes to open.

There’s humming, off-key, I think it’s Dylan. I can’t find the song in my head, but I know the voice.

“Margo,” I say before I even open my eyes. It comes out like a long lazy string of sound.

“Girlie, you’re going to give me a heart attack one of these days.” She squeezes my hand hard.

When I open my eyes, everything is blurry. I blink until my vision clears. Margo is sitting in a chair next to the bed holding my baby. He’s a little bundle tucked safely in the crook of her other arm, wrapped in a white and yellow blanket, wearing a tiny blue hat. An entire person, outside my body, and all I want to do is hold him.

“It’s your mommy,” Margo whispers like they’re already good friends and she’s telling him a secret.