Everly After (27 page)

I rummage around my purse until I find my chandelier earrings and stick those in. I leave the rest of the rings on my hands. I don’t care what they all think of me now. Let them talk. Fuck them. All of them. For making us this way.

I stuff the rest of the pills into the torn lining of my clutch as Beckett pushes open the door and leans against the doorjamb. He’s all cool in his suit. All polished and perfect. I close my eyes and push away the image of the guy on the roof. The one who covered my skinned knee with his shirt.

And his lips. And his arms around me. And his words. And…

We step into the crowded ballroom to the sleepy sound of a jazz band. The doors are open to the ocean below, a salty breeze filtering in. The lights are dim overhead, and the buzzing of empty chatter echoes around me.

I shake it off. The room is rocky, like we’re on a yacht, and the air is stifling. Beckett’s hand reluctantly snaps up beneath my elbow to steady me. I jerk away.

“I’m not even going to ask,” he says, standing beside me. “You’re just going to tell me you’re fine.”

I pull on a large, bitter smile and tip my face up to his. “That’s because I am.”

He leans closer, his eyes boring into mine. I hate when he does this, when he looks at me as though he understands everything.

“You’re such a fucking liar.”

I recoil, his words ringing in my ears. It’s the meanest thing he’s ever said to me.

I grab a glass from a passing waiter and throw back the bubbly champagne, meeting Beckett’s bottomless stare.

“We can leave,” he says, draining his own glass. “Right now. You don’t have to prove to anyone—”

I hold up my hand. It’s trembling, and he’s little bit out of focus. I feel warmer as the champagne sinks down into my belly, and still his words sting me, wrap themselves around me and bloom in my thoughts with another beat of my heart.

My parents find us, but I’m too distracted to listen. They’re talking to me in hushed tones, and my mom’s hand is pinching my arm, refusing to let go. Beckett stands next to me awkwardly. My father seems to be lecturing me, but I only hear white noise where his voice should be.

I’m sure it’s about Nathan. It usually is. How he would never do what I’m doing. How everything about him was perfect. How I’m an embarrassment. It’s nothing new, so I nod along as if I care.

They say something about Hudson, about how I’m here tonight to talk about him but I shouldn’t get up on stage. I don’t want to now. I want to go to sleep.

I let them finish their blabbing, being a good girl, remembering to smile from time to time. I think I even lie a bit and tell them what they want to hear—that I won’t go up on stage, that I’ll be quiet. No one probably wants to hear what I have to say about Hudson, anyway. I push off across the room, trying my best not to collide into everyone. It feels like the ballroom’s become an overcrowded carousel.

And I can’t breathe.

Beckett rests a hand on the small of my back. I try to shake it off and stumble over the long hem of my dress and roll my ankle.

His hands wrap around my waist. “Let’s go outside for a while,” he whispers into my ear. The warmth of his hands stings, and I draw back, fighting back the sour taste in my mouth. “What did you do, Everly?”

He spins me around, his hands curled tight over my bare shoulders.

“Nothing.” I shake my head, biting my lip until I feel the sweet pain throb like it might split open. “Nothing.”

He thumbs his ear, bending closer to study me, but I avoid his stare, watching the party instead. His hand circles my wrist, trying to keep me close or something. “We can walk on the beach if you want. Go for a swim?”

“I need to get some air.” My voice is soft, or maybe I don’t speak at all. “I just need a few minutes.” I step away, glancing over my shoulder to see him standing there, lost in the midst of the party. He’s so much better than anyone in that room. He deserves better than a broken mess like me.

It feels as though I float outside to the balcony. I propel myself against the stone balustrade, stretching forward in my heels to examine the sandy beach far below.

What would your last thought be if you fell?

I grab a glass of wine from a waiter and swallow a few sips, staring out into the darkness. If I focus really hard, I can see the whitecaps before they break and crash onto the shore. I take another deep breath, drifting down the stone steps to the beach, slipping off my heels, sinking barefoot into the sand.

I can just barely make out someone on the horizon, braced against the surging tide. His jacket is slung over his shoulder, his brown hair messy and unkempt.

The salty breeze feels nice.

Beckett

I don’t believe her anymore.

I wait a few minutes, skirting the rest of the party. I don’t belong here, don’t fit in. Her parents were icy to me at best. They didn’t ask for my name, and Everly never introduced me.

I don’t think Everly even knew what she was saying. She carried on as if everything was fine, a pasted smile on her face, but her eyes were unfocused and I could see her pulse race against the base of her neck.

I’ve lost sight of her. I squint, trying to make her out. All I see is empty beach and crashing waves. I take off my dress shoes and jump down the stairs, the party fading behind me as I walk farther down the coast. I don’t see her, but I haven’t given her much time to get ahead of me.

If I can find her, maybe I can convince her to return to our room. She shouldn’t be here. It’s too much, too soon.

My feet randomly sink into the shifting sand, making it hard to walk. Everything is always changing for me. My life’s been nothing if not one constant stream of change. One foot remains on packed sand as the other sinks, and I wish something, for once, would remain solid.

I study the whitecaps cresting, the waves crashing, and start to freak the fuck out because I’m not seeing her. I grab my mobile and call her, jogging farther down the beach when I hear the muffled sound of her ringtone.

The dark figure is sprawled out on the sand. I call her name, thinking she’s staring up at the sky again. She’s been doing that a lot lately.

But it’s worse, so much worse.

She’s convulsing, her eyes rolling back into her head, and she’s thrown up.

“Everly.” I drop to the sand and grab her shoulders. “Everly?” She’s not responding to me. I prop her up awkwardly in my arms as I phone SAMU.

“
J’ai besoin d’une ambulance
.”

She’s pale, cold. My fingers shake as they wipe her lips.

“
C’est un cas d’urgence
.”

Not breathing. Fuck.

“
Ma petite amie s’étouffe
.”

I’m trying my best to keep up with their questions, but she’s gone still. Everything’s spiraling out of control in front of me, moving too fast and not fast enough at the same time. I see a soldier’s body in my arms, the blood. I feel the desert heat but smell the ocean air.

“Everly, love.” My voice cracks.

My mobile slips from the crook of my shoulder into the sand beside us. I unfold my legs and lay her in my lap, swiping my fingers into her mouth to clear away the vomit. The waves roar against the shore, drowning out the panic in my voice as I talk to her about stupid nothings, pleading with her not to go away. I keep my eyes pinned to her pale face, my hands fluttering over her neck, frantic to find a pulse. There’s nothing. She’s slipping into nothing.

Adrenaline rushes through me, moving my body before I can think. I plug her nose and tilt her head back and blow a breath into her mouth. Then another. I wipe at her face, smearing her makeup, my mouth still spouting idiotic questions and confessions. Anything, if only she’ll respond.

Fuck, wake up. Breathe, Everly.

My words are useless now. My hands, my breath, my mouth against hers. I failed. I’m failing. I don’t know if I can save her.

I lever my body over hers and press my palms against her chest in compressions. She’s fragile beneath me, breakable. I feel as though I’m shattering her with each strike. White lights cut across the sky and hit my face. My focus doesn’t falter. I bend down and press my mouth against hers, my hand cradling her head. Her earrings spark as the light sweeps over us again and voices carry toward us.

I remember the white lights above me, the explosion ringing in my ears, the warm blood running down my face. The ghost of faces and the screams and the heat. Holy hell, the bloody heat.

The waves crash and roar and rush the sand, as if they’re dragging me out to the dark nothingness to drown. I blink, the pain in my chest ripping me apart. My eyes lock on to her lifeless blue ones.

Absolution. Penance. It all means shit when you’re watching someone die. When you can’t help.

A crowd of party guests circle around us by the time help arrives. If her parents are there, they never step forward. I bend to shelter her body from everyone around us, but some asshole snaps a picture on his phone. I scream at him, my arms tight around Everly, and the emergency workers are yelling at me. And then my arms are empty, my ass in the sand as they strap her to a board and carry her off the beach.

I run after them, hoping for some piece of news when I catch up. Anything. Except I’m not allowed to go with her in the ambulance. I’m left staring at two taillights as the ambulance speeds away, my hands on my knees as I puke in the parking lot, wondering if I just let Everly die.

Everly

My throat is sore when I wake up, and I can’t get warm. I move to cover myself with a blanket when I feel the strange press of a needle in my arm. It’s so cold around me, and I’m trapped. I can’t move. I swallow down my panic. I’ve been here before, only there were bandages then and cuts that were meant to take my life. The wounds are the same, though. Those never healed.

I regretfully open my eyes and admit to where I’ve landed myself. Again. The chair next to the hospital bed is empty. There aren’t any cards or flowers. I’m alone, freezing, with an IV stuck in my arm. I notice my heart rate on the monitor and laugh. I have a heartbeat. It’s racing now, but sometimes it feels like I don’t have a pulse at all. I guess I do. I guess on this day in June, I’m alive.

The clock on the wall opposite me must be broken because it takes too long for the minute hand to move. It seems stuck. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m stuck. Maybe, for the first time, I’m painfully aware what time it is and the day.

Monday, June 16. 1:38 p.m.

After a while, the doctor comes in and asks me lots of stupid questions, gives me doubtful looks at my answers. I’m honest, though, so that has to count for something.

I’m drifting to sleep when my parents storm in. They don’t speak as they crowd around the bed and glare at me. I could cower. I could make excuses. I could cry, but there’s no point.

“Everly Tallis,” my mother snaps. My father stands behind her, a tall wall of disapproval. “The press are outside. There are pictures.” Her words are crisp, full of burning elitism and disgust.

I shrink into the bed. “It was an accident.” I twist the woven hospital blanket in my hands. “This time it was an accident.”

Emotion doesn’t belong on my mother’s face. She’s cold, but it has more to do with the Botox and chemical treatments she uses to fight the forward march of time. She has all the time in the world and wants to deny that she’s lived. She has a daughter who nearly died, who’s been running from the same thing but isn’t hiding it. My mother has never once stopped to think about the irony there.

In April, I walked out onto my rooftop in Paris with the strange urge to jump, to give myself over to that fall I’ve flirted with for years. I’m here now because I didn’t. I’m here in this bed because of a stupid decision made in panic and grief, and I was saved because someone cared, for once.

Love didn’t save me. Chance did.

“Daddy?” I hold my breath, stupidly. I wait and pray that my parents will see me here and want me to stay.

His thick black brows knit down, his green eyes never kind. “We want—”

“You can’t stay here, Everly. We’ll check you into someplace private, under another name.” My mother flips her hair over her shoulder, her stacked jewelry catching the bright light of my room. Nathan’s class ring is still tight over her thumb.

“You need to do something with yourself,” my father says. “We’ve had enough of your games, Everly.”

His words don’t sit well with me. Neither do my mother’s. What they’re saying, more or less, is that I need help, except they want it to be kept quiet. I’m their shameful secret.

“I’m being kept for observation.” I say this like I’m speaking to petulant children. In a way, I am. They don’t care.

“We know one of the doctors here from the event. We can have you checked out.”

My mother blabs off the name of a rehab facility somewhere in Switzerland. I nod as I listen along, waiting for her to finish. The way the words fall out of her mouth make it seem like this has been rehearsed, like they’ve been prepared to send me away. Like I’m broken. Truly, completely broken.

My father, impatient as ever, doesn’t even wait. He’s on the phone, snapping between English and French for a plane to be readied, for arrangements to be made for me to have a room at this place in Switzerland.