Forty-Eight

M

y father clutched my hand as he moved toward Gráinne. But when he reached her, his grasp slipped softly from mine. Her delicate face nestled in his hands like a heart made of snow. “Grace?”

I blinked tears. Everything fell away, leaving nothing but my parents standing in front of me, staring in awe. I was blinded by the intense light of them, the heartbreaking beauty of two lost souls finding each other again. It was like watching a supernova reassemble itself.

I wept where I stood.

Then my father reached for my hand again, reminding me that the last piece was me.

I fell into their embrace. We huddled and gripped each other tightly. Gráinne looked at me as if for the first time. Now she knew.

“We need to go,” someone whispered urgently. “Quickly.” We broke apart, but more whole than ever, and started for the door.

Fergus helped Giovanni up from the bed and threw his arm under his shoulders to support him. I hadn’t realized Giovanni was too weak still to walk on his own. Clearly he didn’t like being aided by someone he considered an enemy because he was trying in vain to pull away.

“You want to be stubborn or you want to be free?” I snapped.

The five of us spilled into the hallway where Finn still crouched on the floor against the wall. His mother had propped him up against the dark slate. His head rested on his arms over his knees. I stopped and stared, unsure what to do.

“Aren’t you coming?” I asked.

Finn didn’t look up. “My father will get you to a safe place,” he answered with effort.

“Are you really willing to die?” I asked in a whisper.

“Go. Hurry!” he croaked.

Ina ran her hand over her forehead. “We’re both doctors, and we can’t save our own son.” Her eyes implored, her voice barely audible, “Please, Cora.”

Finn spoke through gritted teeth. “I. Will. Not.”

I jogged away from him toward the rest of the anxious group waiting for me at the end of the hall. My dad stretched his hand out toward me.

I stopped.

Turned.

And ran back to Finn.

I kneeled on the floor next to his shaking body. “Do it,” I said, inwardly cringing. “Take only enough to be okay,” I added, uncertain whether he could control what he took from me.

“Cora!” my father yelled.

“No.” Finn tried to push me away, ineffectually. “I won’t hurt you again, Cora. I promise I won’t. I’d rather die.” His body may have been weak, but his eyes were alight with fire. He meant what he said. And he’d die keeping that promise.

One of my tears landed on his cheek. The rain is lovely on you, I remembered him saying.

I placed my hands on both sides of his face and lifted his chin. He wrapped his around my forearms and tried to pull them away. “I was wrong to think I’d never hurt you. I know I need to let you go. Because I love you, I need to let you go.” He dragged a ragged breath into his body. “I don’t want this,” he said. “I don’t want to be this.”

“It’s who you are,” I whispered. “And this is who I am.”

Again, he knocked my hands away from him. I nodded, resigned. “Fine. But look at me,” I said, livid because he made my heart ache fresh and raw. I wanted to stop being punched, over and over again, with the impossibility of us. For the rest of my life, would I always feel like the other half of me had been ripped away? I could barely speak through my tears. “When I kiss you good-bye for the last time, I want you to look at me.”

We stared into each other, like all of those times before, dropping into a warm pool of wonder in each other’s eyes. I bent and put my lips to his. I let my mind reel through our history from that first moment in the hospital, to the night he carried me out of the coffee shop, our kiss in the redwoods, being so happy to see him again in Ireland that I thought I might never go home, to the seconds before he changed, when I was willing to give him all of myself because I loved him with all my heart.

Finn might love me. I’d never know for sure. Neither would he. And that was the biggest reason I had to let him go. The doubt would always tarnish what we had together.

I hadn’t needed a thing from him, and I loved him.

That was the truth. My truth.

For this one last moment, this last kiss, I set aside my confusion, my hurt, and my rage, and let my memories, my love, wash over him. Into him. Whether he liked it or not.

I willingly breathed my spark into his body.

He might die, but it wasn’t going to be because I did nothing.

Finn’s hands found their way to my hair. He grasped me tightly, returning my kiss. His lips grazed mine, tasted my tears, then he pulled his face away from mine. Just barely. The tempest of our quick breathing swirled over my lips.

“I hope someday you forgive me,” he said, tears pooling over his warm brown eyes.

“And I hope you forgive me.”

His eyes sprang wide with realization. I could already see his aura changing. A white ring of light surrounded his head. I thought he’d smile, but he didn’t. “You’ve only delayed my death, luv.” He gazed at me with an agonized face. “It’s like inhaling you,” he whispered. “You’re part of me. You’ll always be part of me.” I got to my feet and motioned for him to come, but he waved me away. He glowed with white, and it terrified me to feel the pull from my heart to his.

“Go, Cora!”

I turned and ran.