If I Die

thoroughly pissed at what amounted to his hypocrisy.

“But I think it goes beyond that. I know how serious the two of you were, and I don’t think you can ever really get over something like that. Not completely. And you know it. But you still hang out with her, alone, in your room. Practically daring each other to take things beyond friendship. Then you have the nerve to ask me if I like Tod, three days before I’m going to die?”

How could the four of us possibly be so tangled up in one another? And how could I not have seen it coming?

Nash stared at me, stunned. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry I opened this can of worms, especially now. I swear I have no intention of taking things beyond friendship with Sabine, but this is the second time this week you’ve stood me up, then turned up with Tod. And I know he wants you, and it was starting to look like that might be mutual…?”

His voice went up on the end in question. He was still asking. And I didn’t want to lie. But did it really matter? So what if Tod was funny, and unpredictable, and there every time I needed him. So what if he liked it when I “raged” against things and didn’t think I was crazy for wanting to break into Lakeside? So what if he’d spent months hanging out, getting to know me instead of trying to feel me up the first week we met.

What did that matter? What good was the possibility—the life-changing, love-wrecking possibility—when I wouldn’t be around to explore it?

Should I admit that I might—might—like Tod back, when that would wreck everything between me and Nash for no reason at all?

It would be different if I weren’t dying. If I was going to have a chance to decide how I felt and think about the long-term consequences. But since that wasn’t going to happen…

“Nash, why would I be with you, if I liked him?”

Instead of answering, Nash pulled me closer, staring into my eyes, and for a moment, panic consumed me. Then I swallowed my panic and steadied my breathing, focusing on how desperately I didn’t want to hurt Nash.

“So, we’re okay?” he asked, and I realized I’d controlled the telltale swirling in my eyes, possibly for the first time in my life.

“Yes, we’re fine.”

“Well then,” Nash said, brows arched in challenge, like he wasn’t sure he completely believed me. “I can’t help noticing that we’re all alone here.” He squeezed me tighter and whispered into my ear, though there was no one else to hear him. “I say we go to your room and start granting wishes…”

A couple of hours earlier, I would have led him to my room with my head spinning, the rest of me on fire with anticipation. But now, it didn’t feel right. Tod was right—I did want to sleep with Nash just to say I’d done it. To know what it felt like. But Nash would think it meant more than that.

Lying to avoid hurting him felt bad enough, and I was only doing it because I’d be gone in a few days, but Tod wouldn’t, and three hundred years was a long time to hate your own brother.

But sleeping with Nash for the wrong reason was something else entirely. I couldn’t use him like that. So I lied again.

“It’s been a really long day, and I’m kind of starving. Why don’t we order Chinese and watch a movie? Your choice.”

Nash frowned. “I thought you wanted to.”

“I did. I do. Just…not tonight.” Not that there were many nights left, but I’d deal with those as they came.

“Are you still mad because I asked about Tod?”

“No. Nash, this has nothing to do with Tod, and I’m not mad at you. Everything’s fine.” Surely the biggest lie I’d ever told.

He looked unconvinced, but dropped a kiss on my forehead anyway and tried to hide his disappointment. “You order the food, I’ll find a movie. It doesn’t matter what we do. Just being with you is enough for me.”

My guilt was like the ocean, swallowing me whole.

“When you were little, you used to call those ‘pop hearts,’” my dad said, and I looked up from my blueberry toaster pastry to find him standing in the kitchen doorway.

“Hey. Where were you last night?” He looked like hell. Bloodshot eyes, dark circles, pale skin.

“Out looking for a miracle.” My dad sighed and trudged toward the coffeepot.

“Okay then,” I said as he poured. “Where were you all day yesterday? Mr. Ryan left a message on the machine. He says if you don’t come in today, you’re fired. Have you even been to work this week?”

He took the first sip of black coffee without bothering to replace the pot. “I have more important things to worry about right now, Kaylee. But the universe seems adamant that you are the only miracle I’m going to get.”

I nodded slowly, fighting to keep my eyes from watering. “The universe is always right, Dad. There’s nothing you can do.”

He just looked at me over his steaming mug, refusing to admit defeat. Then, finally, he sighed and leaned against the counter. “You wanna skip school today and hang out? Just the two of us? There’s an Alien marathon on all day, all the way through Alien vs Predator: Requiem. We could order pizza and revel in the carnage.”

I wanted to cry. He wouldn’t admit he couldn’t save me, but an offer to play hooky for father-daughter time spoke volumes. And I really wanted to say yes. To stay in my pjs and watch TV with my dad all day, for the last time in my life. But… “Can’t,” I said around the last bite of blueberry filling. “You have to go to work.” And I had to go to school and plot the destruction of a Netherworld monster posing as my math teacher.

“Tonight, then?” He tried to hide his disappointment, but the rare swirl of color in his eyes spoke the truth. “I can set it to record.”

“No you can’t.” We’d had the DVR on the living room TV for a month, and he still hadn’t figured out how to change the channel. “But I can. Come home with pizza, and I’m all yours.” I wouldn’t be doing any more homework anyway. For the rest of my life.

“Deal.” My father smiled and looked a little less than exhausted for a couple of seconds. But then he sipped from his mug again and I could see how tired he was and how hard the past few days had been for him, and for the first time, it occurred to me that I may have gotten the good end of the deal. In a couple of days, my troubles would be over. But my dad would have to live with my death—with failing to save me—for the rest of his life.

I started to say something else—to try to put into words how much I loved him—but the doorbell rang before I could come up with the first word.

My dad frowned, his mouth already open to ask who was at the door, but I jogged past him to open it before he could speak. Nash and Sabine stood on the front porch, her car parked at the curb. I stepped back to let them in while my dad poured the rest of his coffee into a travel mug.

“Hey, Mr. Cavanaugh,” Sabine said, plopping next to Nash on the couch.

“You’re all up early today. What’s going on, guys?” My dad held his work gloves and keys in one hand, his mug in the other. He tolerated Sabine in spite of the creepy vibes she leaked when she got angry or upset because he didn’t know what she’d been willing to do to me to get to Nash. And be cause he felt sorry for her, stuck with a foster mother who only wanted to draw a government check. But what he didn’t know was that Sabine relished the freedom apathetic parenting afforded her.

What no one knew—except maybe Nash, and he wasn’t talking—was where she’d gotten her car, with no job and very little spending money.

“We’re working on something for school today,” I said. And technically, that wasn’t a lie. But if I told him the whole truth, he wouldn’t go to work, then he’d lose his job, and after I died he really would have nothing left to live for.

“Okay.” My dad watched me from the entry, one hand on the doorknob. “Now tell me what you’re really up to.”

I should have realized he knew me well enough now to recognize my half-truths. “You don’t want to know.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“Emancipated minor, remember?” I said, daring a grin he didn’t return. “Besides, how much trouble could I