But what do I do in the meantime? I ask.

The bells start to ring, but somehow I can still hear her whisper one word: live.

I’m sleepwalking.

James calls one day to check up on me, Becky the next.

My mom tries to feed me and my dad glares at me as if I’m in a shitty mood for no other reason than to annoy him.

So really, life as usual.

Except this time, Connor gives me a hard time when I cancel dinner. Go figure.

I’m dimly aware of the phone ringing in the middle of the night. My sleep-addled brain says Gabriel, but I haven’t called him and I don’t think he’d call me.

And definitely not in the middle of the night.

I ignore it because I’m sure it’s a wrong number, or a prank, or one of those calls saying a distant relative has died. Besides, I don’t have a phone in my room, and I have no plans of getting up.

But the minute my mother opens my bedroom door without knocking, I know it’s something else.

Becky’s on the line, she whispers.

Becky? I repeat. I glance at the clock. One thirty in the morning. My mother stands still, silent. Everything she has to say is written in her expression. She’s the one who will have to deal with my father’s annoyance at being woken in the middle of the night, but she doesn’t even look put out.

I bolt out of bed, into the kitchen, and grab the phone.

Becks?

Michael. Her fear, her panic, is clear in the tight pitch of her voice.

What is it?

It’s James, she says. Andy called. It’s pure luck that they were there. His patrol, I mean.

James? Becks, what happened?

I don’t know, she says and can’t hold the sob in anymore. He was outside The Space. I think he was hurt pretty badly.

I can’t process what she’s saying. Hurt? James? What does that mean? A broken ankle? Was he hit by a bus?

Becks?

Andy is coming to pick me up. If we wait near the first car of the 1 at Times Square for you, will your parents let you come to St. Vincent’s with us?

He’s in the hospital? I’m not even asking my parents.

I just go.

This is what Andy tells me:

It was luck, stupid luck that we were even there on patrol. And I didn’t see what happened. I just saw him lying there on the ground next to the back door. There was blood. Man, there was so much blood. My patrol leader, Radar, tried to get him to talk while I called 911. James kept mumbling that he was sorry. But I couldn’t get him to tell me what he was sorry for, and then he blacked out when the ambulance got there.

Hey Michael, are you sure you want to hear this? You look kind of green.

We aren’t relatives, so we can’t see him while he’s still in the ER.