Page 150 of Ghost Ribbon

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

“I’m okay now.”

He wasn’t okay. We both knew he wasn’t okay.

“I just want to go home,” he added.

I pressed my lips together. “But the doctors said you can’t.”

“Rei, I don’t want to stay here.”

“Will your parents be okay with it? What if something happens while they aren’t home?”

“I’ll be staying with Alexei. He will talk to them.”

I swallowed. “So you and Alexei…” I started.

“Yeah,” he nodded. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. It’s not that I didn’t trust you. I know you told me about Dimitri, and I should have told you about Alexei too. But I…”

He paused and his eyes drifted to the window, to the sky outside. “I didn’t want anyone to know, really,” he said. “I don’t know how much time I have, and I—”

“Don’t say that.”

My eyes were wet again. The tears didn’t stop - had they ever really stopped? I could feel them gathering, falling, tracking down my face. “Don’t say that,” I repeated, softer this time. “You’re sick, yes. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was too dumb to notice. But we will find you a new heart, and you’ll have surgery, and you’ll be okay again.”

He looked at me.

And the expression on his face was the worst thing I had ever seen.

Pity, not for himself but for me.

“Rei.” He sighed. “I haven’t been honest with you in many things,” he continued. “So let me be honest about this.”

I held my breath.

“I don’t think I have much time.” He looked down at our hands. “It’s not like a heart will magically appear for me.”

I shook my head. “Don’t say that, okay? I’ll…”

I didn’t know what I would do.

I didn’t know what I could do.

He tightened his hand on mine. The grip was weak. So weak.

“Rei, it’s okay.” It wasn’t okay. Nothing about this was okay.

“If there will, by some miracle, be a heart for me, then good. But if it won’t then it’s okay.” He was smiling. “You’ll be okay. You have Dimitri. I don’t have to worry about you anymore.”

I wanted to crumble.

I wanted to dissolve. To disintegrate. To collapse into elemental pieces that made up a person and scatter across the floor. I shook my head. “No. I need you, Marco.” I was struggling to breathe properly. “Dimitri isn’t a replacement for you,” the words were coming faster now. “No one is. No one will ever be, okay?”

I was crying so much. God, why couldn’t I stop for a fucking moment? “You’ll be okay.” I didn’t know who I was trying to convince. Him or me. “You’ll be okay. They’ll find a heart. They’ll find one. They have to. Someone will…someone will die, and their heart will be good, and they’ll give it to you, and you’ll have the surgery, and you’ll be okay. You’ll be okay. You have to be okay. You have to—” I choked on my own tears and crawled into the bed.

I curled against his side, my head finding his shoulder, my arms going around his thin, failing body.

I held him.