Page 30 of The Space Between Heartbeats
“OWEN!” I scream back, still fighting to turn around while Knox is trying to hold me still. I’m thrashing now. I’m desperate, I need to see him.
“OWEN, HOLD ON! JUST?—”
We lurch again, upward or maybe backward, I don’t know. I can’t tell anymore with the world at this angle, but my head cracks against the headrest hard enough to make stars explode across my vision. There’s a pop and pain…so much blinding pain, I can’t think.
We rock and I know it’s over. We’re about to fall.
And then something hits the ground below.
My vision clears as the rocking slows, and that’s when I notice the absence of sound. Owen’s screaming just... stops like someone flipped a switch. The silence that rushes in to fill that space is too much, too wrong.
“No.” The word scrapes out of me, more like a whisper. Then louder and desperate. Oh God, this isn’t happening. “No. No, no, no—OWEN!”
Knox makes a noise that completely breaks anything whole left inside me. When I turn to face him, his eyes are squeezed shut so tight, his entire face is contorted in raw agony.
“Was that—” I wail, no longer able to hold my body in place. My head slumps forward. “Knox…please. That wasn’t?—”
“That was him.” Each word cleaves its way out of his throat. “That was—” His voice cracks completely, barely audible between sobbing breaths. “Fuck…Oh fuck…That was Owen.”
“No,” I say. “No. That wasn’t…No. Maybe he’s?—”
I turn my head as much as I can, catching a glimpse of his swollen eyes. “Sawyer.”
“No.”
I can’t accept it. I won’t.
“Sawyer, I felt it. I saw—” He chokes on a sob. “He’s?—”
He can’t say the word, but he shakes his head again and again as if he can will it to be untrue.
Time passes. I’m not sure how long, only that each moment is misery. There’s sirens blaring from below, loud enough to compete with the wails coming from my chest.
I deserve this. It should have been me.
“Don’t you fucking say that.” Knox grips my hand. I had no idea I was saying those thoughts out loud. He might as well know it, though.
“It’s—It’s not wrong. He—He didn’t deserve this.”
Knox sniffs hard and clears his throat. “No…he didn’t. But neither do you. Fuck. Don’t let me hear that shit come out of your mouth again, Thorne. You hear me?”
I don’t respond. I can’t. How do I agree with something I don’t believe in?
Knox is quiet too, but I can feel him trying to keep it together. It’s in his breathing, in his unspoken words. He’s trying to find something to say that will pull us both back from the edge. His thumb rubs circles against my palm. It’s such a small repetitive motion, but it’s everything I need.
The tracks groan again, making us both freeze in fear. But louder than that…louder than anything else, is the sirens from below.
“Knox?”
He squeezes my hand. “Stay with me, Sawyer.”
“I don’t want to die.” The words come out so small, I barely hear myself speak them. “I know I deserve to, but?—”
“Hey…hey,” he says, taking my chin in his hand again. “You’re not going to die…I promise you.”
All the blood rushing to my head is getting to me, I can’t focus. The white spots are back.
“Thorne, stay with me.”
