“You care about him?” Dot asks, leaning forward to get a better look at Lucy in the dim room.

Lucy nods again but turns her eyes to the floor.

“Tell me.”

“I love him.”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, finally looking at Dot’s face. “Yes, I care about him. I want him to be safe. I don’t know anything else about what I’m doing here, other than I’m supposed to protect him.”

Humming, Dot closes her book on her lap and stares at the wall. Lucy can feel her unease rise like a curtain between them. “You care about him enough to let him take blankets and resuscitation equipment to the lake?”

“I didn’t ever want anything bad to happen to him,” Lucy begins, but her words ring false with the sound of hospital equipment behind them. “We were trying to figure out how to bring me back.”

“Bring you back?” Dot lets out a confused breath and shakes her head. “I always knew it would catch up with him eventually. Just didn’t think it’d be so soon, or he’d be the one chasing it.”

Before Lucy can ask what she means, the nurse steps into the room with Joe, beckoning to Dot. With one last, lingering glance to where Lucy sits in her stiff chair, Dot leaves her alone in the waiting room.

Lucy waits five minutes before following. She’ll never believe she’s worthy of being Colin’s Guardian. It’s what she should have told Dot. She should have told her she’ll do anything to deserve him and to tell her what that is.

Dot’s in his room now, speaking in soothing tones as Joe walks down to the end of the hall, head down, tired eyes on the shiny linoleum floor as he disappears into the elevator. Lucy perches in a vinyl seat just outside Colin’s door, waiting until she can see him, feel him, apologize.

“Colin,” Dot says, apology thick in her voice. “I met your girl.”

“You met Lucy?” His voice is worse than she could have imagined. Raw and weak.

“Yeah, sweetie.” She’s silent for a beat, and Lucy hears a quiet tapping sound, as if she’s holding his hand and patting it reassuringly. “I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t need to. But I do need you to promise me this is the last time you’re going near that lake.”

The only sound Lucy hears for a long time is the steady beep of his monitors and the garbled voices and laughter from the nurses’ station.

Finally, Colin clears his throat. “Dot.” He sounds like he’s swallowed crushed glass. “I can’t promise that.”

“I knew you’d say that, but I’m afraid I need you to promise anyway.”

“It’s not what you think. I know what I’m doing.”

“I don’t know what to think, baby. All I know is this was no accident. I don’t trust that girl.”

Lucy hears sheets rustle and Colin saying something that sounds like, “Please don’t cry.”

“Are you trying to kill yourself?” Dot asks.

“What? Dot, no. No. I’m trying to help her come back. It’s making a difference, She’s stronger and I—”

“No more, Colin. Because it will kill you. You understand that, don’t you? You’re meant to be here, not there. You can’t bring her back, baby. You aren’t meant to die.”

Lucy feels her heart begin to beat to the rhythm of the monitor in his room. The familiar tick of a clock seems to pulse beneath her skin.

Minutes pass.

Don’t make me leave him. Don’t make me leave him.

She remembers the feeling of his hands on her arms, the soft exhale of his kiss against her shoulder. She’s traced the constellation of freckles across his nose, felt the cold press of his lip ring. She remembers his first tentative touch and his most recent fevered ones.

She’s silently begging him to not let her go. Not to promise, never promise, and hating herself at the same time.

“Okay, okay, Dot. Don’t cry. Please.” He exhales in a quiet, defeated hiss. “I promise I’ll stop.”

The ticking stops and Lucy closes her eyes, feeling like she’s unraveling at the seams.

“I promise I won’t go back into the lake.”

CHAPTER 34 HIM

COLIN SLEEPS FOR WHAT FEELS LIKE DAYS. HIS eyelids are like sandpaper when they finally open. The room is too bright: Daylight streams in through an opening in familiar curtains, washing the foot of the bed in blinding yellow sun. There’s a vase of flowers on a table, his duffel bag and a haphazard stack of schoolbooks on the couch.

“There you are,” Dot says, standing from a chair by the door. She tucks a well-worn paperback into her bag and crosses the room toward him. She seems lighter, happy, and for a single, oblivious moment, Colin almost forgets why. “I guess you really needed your sleep, didn’t you?” Her smooth hand touches his cheek and tries to make some sense of his hair, like it has a hundred times in his life.

“What time is it?” he asks, wincing at the feel of words in his throat. It takes some effort, but he manages to sit up a little. Dot brings a green bendy straw to his lips and he drinks. His empty stomach revolts, clenching tightly. The room shifts and weaves around him.

“Around eleven. Now, lie back down,” she tells him. “Eleven a.m.?” he asks, wide-eyed.

She smiles. “Yes, eleven a.m., Friday, February eighteenth.” Colin tries to remember what day it should be, feeling sick when he finally does. He’s been asleep for two days. “Where’s Lucy?” he asks, heart racing, the color of dread bleeding into the edges of everything around him.