Her fingers dug into the concrete of the tiny windowsill as the wind blew in at us in harsh gusts and the rain pelted my face. In the distance, I heard someone banging on the elevator doors, but my sole focus was to save Susie.
Brushing the water from my eyes, I dropped down on all fours and grabbed her wrist, my arms aching as she dangled her full weight, swaying back and forth.
The tear of muscles in my shoulders was almost unbearable, burning and aching. My fingers throbbed with not just the cold, but the effort to hold on to Susie.
“Susie! Susie, give me your other hand! Help me! I’ll pull you up!”
I hadn’t prayed in a long, long time—not since we’d left the convent, but as I struggled to cling to her, I prayed I’d be able to save her.
But then I saw Susie looking up at me, her eyes desolate, empty but for the sorrow I saw in the tears rushing down her face. “I’m alone, Trixie. I’ve always been alone,” she whispered into the wind as it tore at her hair and slapped her red cheeks.
I felt her anguish in my core, felt her agonizing pain coursing through her and invading me, and that was when I begged, “No! No, Susie, don’t give up. Please, take my hand. Please, Susie! Don’t do this! Just hold on. I’ll help you, I swear! We’ll do this together. I won’t give up! Don’t you dare give up either!”
But she shook her soaking-wet head and gave me a wan smile…and that was when I felt her do exactly that.
Give up.
Susie let go of my hand then. She simply went slack, her fingers limp, her resolve gone, and then she slipped away from me into the black night as though she were never there.
There was no piercing scream. Not even a whimper. There was nothing.
Only the rush of the wind and my howl of sorrow as the rain battered my face and the night swallowed Susie whole.
I heard the sound of the banging on the door as someone crashed through it. There were voices and people yelling to one another, but I couldn’t bring myself to move or look away. The rain battered my face, the wind tore at my hair, but I couldn’t move.
And then I heard Higgs. Always Higgs.
“Trixie!” I heard as he dragged me from the window, scooping me up in his arms and holding me close. “Oh, my God, Trixie. Are you all right?”
Letting myself go limp against him, letting him take the burden from me, I thought right then and there I’d never be all right. I’d never be able to erase Susie’s look of sheer agony from my memory.
“Talk to me, Trixie. What happened?” he asked, pushing my soaking wet hair from my face.
I heard the panic in his voice, I understood answers would have to be given, but I didn’t think I had it in me right now.
“I…I don’t think I can right now…” I whimpered. At that very moment, I couldn’t process the horror I’d witnessed. I didn’t have the words. I don’t know that I can ever craft a word that will fit what happened to Susie.
Suddenly, Coop was there, throwing her arms around both of us, pulling us close with her steely grip. “Trixie! Oh, Trixie, I was so worried. I don’t know what I’d do without you! I’m so glad you’re okay.”
It struck me how filled with emotion her voice sounded, how afraid she sounded, and I briefly wondered if she’d hit a milestone we should acknowledge, but I couldn’t find my voice.
As I clung to Higgs, Coop brushed my wet hair from my face and draped a blanket over my shoulders, rubbing my back. “It’s all going to be okay now, Trixie. We’re going to take you home to Knuckles and Goosie and feed you some dinner, and it’s all going to be all right. I promise. Okay?”
“Okay,” I whispered raggedly as I grabbed her hand and pressed it to my cheek, mine shaking.
“I love you, Trixie Lavender. I promise I’ll take good care of you.”
And for now, as Higgs carried me out of Susie’s posh apartment, his arms wrapped around me and Coop clinging to my hand, they were all I needed.
Epilogue
One week later…
“That is really beautiful, Trixie Lavender. I know you don’t think you’re as good an artist as Artur, but I wholeheartedly disagree.”
I blew my nose into a tissue for the hundredth time and smiled up at her. I’d drawn a pink, sparkly, eye-shadowed green eye in the same shape as hers, with long, sweeping eyelashes.
It did look pretty good, if I do say so myself. I thought it might make a pretty decent tattoo.
I patted her hand as she set a cup of hot tea on the coffee table next to me. “Thanks, Coopie. I finally feel well enough to draw again. I can’t believe how awful one stupid cold can make you feel, but sakes alive, I think my eyelashes even hurt.”
“The flu’ll do that to ya, lass,” Livingston chirped. “Ya look much better today. Not so much like death reheated in that fancy microwave.”
I giggled, and then I coughed. “Thanks, Livingston. So what is everyone up to today? I feel so out of the loop since I got sick.”
Since that night with Susie—when, among other things, I’d caught her flu—I’d been in bed. Some of that had to do with the image of her staring up at me, so lost, so alone, I had to sleep it off.
When the image haunted me, I tried to remember what Father Rico said when he came to see me after he’d heard what happened.
With his flu mask in place, he’d sat on the edge of my sick bed and reminded me of something very important. Something that had comforted me greatly.
“I’m going to say something to you that you’ll likely find goes against what we’re taught
