chapter forty-eight.

Val

After everyone's done fussing over him, or at least for now, Simon falls asleep. I'm relieved for a moment, sitting on the edge of his bed and watching his eyelids flutter gently and resisting the urge to run my finger over his slightly-parted lips. He's so placid here, his chest rising and falling in a perfect, slow rhythm, no evidence of the past twenty-four hours'—or, in reality, even longer that—distress in his expression. I am relieved until the thought that he might not wake up rolls itself up into a ball and sticks in my throat.

I turn the lamp off beside his bed and slip out into the hallway. Last time I saw Noah, he was whisking their little sister Abbie away, patting her on the back and whispering kind words to her. Their mother was not far behind. As for Simon's father and Larry, I'm not sure where they ran off to. The hall is empty and silent.

I wander through it for a few minutes, examining the family portraits on the wall, the baby photos and framed kiddish artworks signed with sloppy versions of the names Noah, Simon, and Abbie. There's a distinct difference between the photos out here and the ones in Simon's room; the ones blown up and put in fancy picture frames and hung up on the wall all display Simon's usual face, the freckled one, while the tinier pictures in standing frames sitting on Simon's bookshelf are of various faces. Out here, I realize, is the show. The ideal. A fabricated story of Simon's childhood with the shapeshifting part deliberately left out.

I sigh and run a finger along one of the frames. Is it bad that I don't like this version as much?

I want his story, and I want all of it, because that's the only way anything makes sense. That's the only way we make sense.

At the end of the hall is the catwalk, and then the stairs. I lean over the banister, eyeing the empty, wood-floored foyer, and I call Rita, my editor.

"Oh, dios mio, I thought you were dead! Val! Where the hell are you? Please tell me you're back. It's been three days, you know. We're all worried sick."

The sentence suddenly springs upon me a visual of Caz pacing back and forth across the office, theorizing as to where I could be. I shake the image violently from my head. "Rita, I can't come back. Not yet."

I must sound as distraught as I feel. Rita's voice softens. "Are you safe, at least?"

"Yes. Very."

She pauses. "Is it Simon?"

"Yes."

"Is he alright?"

"No," I say. "He's—he's really sick, Rita. He's really, really sick."

I hate saying it. I hate saying it because I know Simon hates that word, sick, how it's a label everyone has tried to thrust upon him since he was just a toddler and it doesn't describe him at all. I want to believe him, of course. I want to believe that whatever this is isn't an illnes's. But after seeing him cower away from me in an airport bathroom, after watching him convulse and throw up on the side of the road, I just don't know what else to call it.

"Oh," Rita says. Sympathy drips from every word, sweet and satiating. I haven't cried since we picked Simon up from the police station, but something about the way Rita sounds makes me want to cry now. "Oh, Val. I'm so sorry. Is there anything I can do?"

Take his pain away. Keep Larry here. Find me a miracle. "No," I say. The back of my throat is stinging but I manage to keep the floodgates closed. "No, I don't think there is. Can you just tell Caz—and everyone—tell Caz and everyone that I'll be okay? I just need to be with Simon a little longer, and then—then I'll be back."

"You take as long as you need," Rita says. "Ah. Send me your schedule. I'll talk to your professors for you."

Shit. I haven't even thought about class since Simon and I left for Florida. My emotions—overwhelming joy, then rage, now a persistent, aching worry—blinded any and all logic. "Right. My grades are probably tanking already."

"I'll make them understand."

Because it's Rita, I don't second guess her.

There's a noise at the end of the hall, the gentle opening and shutting of a door. When I glance up I see Noah, motioning at me as he heads for the stairs. Oh. So it's now.

"Rita?" I say, phone still held to my ear as I follow Noah down the stairs and towards the front door. "Thank you. I have to go now."

"Okay. You be strong, amor. I'll see you soon." She makes a loud kissy noise into the phone and is gone.

Outside on the stoop, Larry is waiting. The sky is a blaze of colors behind him—pink, orange, yellow—but he is a gray, colorless thing. Ashen face peering at us above the burgundy scarf he took back from Noah. The St. Johns' brown eyes rimmed in silver like a faded tradition. Dark sweater and dark coat and dark pants. Even his expression is colorless, like he's preparing himself for war.

In a way, he is.

Larry exhales; as he does, his breath clouds in front of him and then dissipates into the gelid air. "You got the keys?"

This question is directed at Noah, who, in response, searches around in his jacket pocket until he finds the car keys to his multicolored jalopy and tosses them at Larry. "Oui."

Larry catches the keys with ease and turns, unlocking the car. It chirps reluctantly. "Okay," he says, pivoting back to face us. "If all goes well, I'll be back by tomorrow morning with the antidote. There's no guarantee it will agree with him like it did with me, but—well, you know that already, don't you?"

Noah starts, "If it doesn't work, he'll die, right?"

"He'll die either way," Larry says, and when both of us wince, he sighs and places a hand on each of our shoulders. It feels very fatherly and weird, especially coming from a man I've only been in extended contact with for the past few hours. "It's either he dies slowly as his body shuts down or he dies as we try to save him. So if it works, great. If it doesn't, we've already been preparing ourselves for that outcome."

He's right. That doesn't it make it any better, but he's right.

"It's a gamble, kids," says Larry, ruffling our hair. Noah rolls his eyes and smacks his cousin's hand away. "But it's probably the most important gamble you'll ever make."

"And what about you, Larry?" I ask. His eyes shift to me, but the steel in his expression doesn't waver. "Where will you go? I mean, if...if it doesn't work."

Larry looks at me for a moment, silently, then shakes his head. "Either way, it's back to them. That's the price, honey. I'm not paying for a cure. I'm paying for the chance of one."

Either way, it's back to them. Back to the Feds, back to the spies, back to the industry that's the reason he lost everything he had. I'm still amazed at how he's willing to give it up so quickly. Even for just a chance. Just a chance that Simon will live.

Whether he knows it or not, Simon St. John is adored.

Noah rubs a divot into the gravel driveway with the toe of his shoe. In front of him, the sun kisses the tops of the trees as it sinks. His eyes are the sunset. Gold-tinted and fiery. "Larry? I'm sorry for thinking you were an asshole my entire life."

Larry scoffs. "Oh, don't start with that—"

"No. I mean it. I'm sorry. They were wrong about you," Noah says. He lifts his gaze and meets Larry's without an ounce of hesitation. More meaning is held in the way the two cousins look at each other than the words they speak. Silence has its own way of being loud. "My parents, everyone. They were all wrong about you, Larry."

Larry's face is blank for a moment. It's the same blank, stunned expression Simon wears when he's caught off guard. The resemblance between the two shapeshifters peeks through for the very first time. "If you get the chance," he says, turning and walking towards the car, swinging Noah's keys in his fingers, "tell Ginger Snap I said goodbye."

Noah and I are both silent for a second.

Then Noah yelps, "Tell him yourself! When you get back, I mean. Tell him yourself."

Larry's smile is rueful. "We might both be out of time by then."

A car door slams. An engine roars. Gravel pops beneath tires.

In a swirl of cold dust, Larry St. John is gone.

Rose and Mr. and Mrs. St. John offer me dinner, but my appetite has left me. Besides, I don't want to have my first dinner with Simon's family without Simon. It feels like betraying him.

I take a roll of saltine crackers Rose insisted I have and go back up to his room, where I sit in his desk chair as he sleeps and try to nibble at the crackers as soundlessly as possible. I watch the sun finish setting and I flip through a Reader's Digest magazine and I peek into his closet and put on an old sweatshirt that still smells like him. Every few minutes I glance back at Simon and send a silent prayer to the heavens.

I'm not done with him yet. Please don't take him from me.

Please don't take him away.

When the moon has risen and my consciousness is starting to drift to places other than here, Simon wakes up.

I only notice it because I think I've already fallen asleep and I'm dreaming, but his eyes flutter open and he stretches his fingers and blinks at the ceiling. Confusion settles into his face. I keep waiting for it to clear into realization, but it doesn't.

Simon turns his head. His face is paper-white and streaked with sweat. I hate it, but he looks sick. He just—he looks unwell. "Valerie?"

Valerie. Even that is wrong. He rarely calls me by my full name, only when he's trying to get my attention, or when he's upset with me. "Do you know where you are?"

He tries to sit up, struggles, falls back down again. I jump to his aid. "Home," he says a while later, after I've dragged him upright. "I'm...home, I think. This is my old bedroom."

"Yeah," I say, relief flooding through me so sharply that it's a palpable sensation. "Yeah, exactly."

Simon knits his eyebrows. "I remember. I'm here because—"

"You don't have to say it," I say, possibly with too much haste. I don't want him to finish the sentence. Not because I know what he's going to say, but because I don't, exactly. And I don't know what I'd do if I knew he had already given up. "You don't have to."

My arm is still snaked around Simon's back, his side pressed against mine. He turns his head and smiles tenuously at me."Val?"

"Yes?"

"Will you do something for me?"

"Anything, Simon. Anything."

The grin grows wider but not any stronger. "Take me to the sky," he whispers. "I want—I want to see the sky with you."

He gives me directions as he leans against me, my weight supporting his. Walk to the end of the hall. Yes, the end. Pass that room and that room and that room—don't wake Abbie—open the tiny door tucked into the narrow, yellow-beige walls. Go up the staircase, oh, but skip the third stair, it's uneven.

At the top is some sort of attic, or at least something that once was an attic. Now, however, the room bleeds Simon—the messy drawings of constellations pinned to the walls, the random crumpled pieces of paper rolling around in the corner, the ink pens and marker assortments and old encyclopedias stacked in no particular order. I set Simon down on a blanket in front of the window.

"Open it," he says automatically. "It's—it's better when you can feel the air on your face."

"Open it? Have you any idea what the temperature is right now? Are you trying to give yourself hypothermia?"

I've yet to sit down; Simon looks up at me, one eyebrow risen. "Hypothermia," he says, "is the least of my worries right now."

"See that? That's dumb. That's just dumb, right there."

Simon grunts and sits forward, tossing the window open himself. A rush of arctic air slaps me in the face as I sit down; sighing, I grab another blanket from the floor and wrap it around Simon's shoulders and mine. I huddle closer to him, trying to remember if he felt this bony before. Simon—in this body, at least—has always been on the thinner end. Not this type of thin, though. Could he have lost this much weight in three days?

It doesn't make sense to me, but I stop thinking about it, because by now I know it's never going to make sense.

We sit in silence for what feels like an eternity. My attention switches from Simon to the star-speckled sky right in front of us to the random graveyard of unfinished poems all around me. I unroll one. The only thing on it is a snatch of the words gold, blood, I shiver—. It's unsettling, to say the least.

I shove the paper away from me, brushing my fingers across the old wood floors instead. "Simon—"

He shushes me, gently. "No, no. Don't speak. Just look."

I exhale, but do as he says. The stars are plentiful, billions of white dots against a blue-black background, blinking at me like tiny flashing lights. The moon, almost full, watches us in all its milky, mesmerizing glory. Silence envelops us. Night silence. Silence that includes the chirping of crickets and the ribbits of frogs and the sounds of everything else that's awake when we're asleep.

Simon's hand touches my leg. His skin is warm. Too warm. With his other hand, he points to a constellation that's shaped vaguely like a stick figure. Then again, a lot of constellations look like stick figures to me, with some variations, of course. "That one's Canis Major. In Greek myth, it's one of Orion's hunting dogs. That's why that star—Sirius—is also called the Dog Star."

I tilt my head until I can see the dog shape. "Oh."

"And there?" he points at something else and his fingers skirt further up my thigh. Goosebumps rise on command. "Those are the Twins."

"Twins?"

He turns his head, grinning at me. "Gemini."

I recall Simon mentioning something about having a birthday in early June. "I'm sorry," I say, a trace of a smile at my mouth, "but that is very fitting."

"Right?" Simon laughs, and he's so close to me that I taste more than hear it. "My parents should have guessed."

He starts to turn his head back towards the sky, but I stop him, grabbing his chin and forcing his eyes to mine. He seems stunned for a moment, but then he just holds my gaze, his eyes starry and honest as he looks at me. I stroke my thumb along his jaw. I count his freckles, number his eyelashes. I say to the stars and the moon and all the constellations, No, you can't have him yet.

He doesn't know. He doesn't know all that Larry's doing for him, and God, I can't say anything.

So I just say, "Don't give up on yourself."

"Val?"

"Don't," I tell him, leaning my forehead against his, letting him go. His hand still lingers on my leg but by now the feeling has gone numb. "You're not done yet. I'm not done yet. We're not done yet. So keep fighting it."

"This isn't—" He sighs and closes his eyes. "This isn't the sort of thing you win or you lose, Val. It's just me. There's no winning or losing when the only thing you're fighting is yourself, over and over again."

"But you're tired anyway. I can see it. Everyone can see it."

He winces, like the words physically hurt him. I scrub a soft finger underneath his eyes, as if I can rub away the dark circles in his skin. "Val..."

"You can't leave yet," I say, the words bubbling from my mouth without filter. "Think of all the places you haven't seen yet. All the people you haven't met. All the memories and all the experiences and just—Simon, you can't. It wouldn't be fair."

"For who, huh? For you or for me?" he snaps, an edge appearing in his voice that wasn't there before. He pulls away but I catch his collar and snatch him back with too much momentum. I tumble backwards, he goes forwards, and soon enough he's on top of me, the blanket draped over us like a curtain.

I expect the old Simon to appear. The one that blushed at our slightest touch, that could never find the exact words to say to me, but said them anyway, the one that thought every moment was undeserved. I keep searching for him, for that Simon, but I realize he's not there anymore. He melted away in the heat of a night in Florida. Trouble and illness wore him away like water at stone. The butterflies are still. A more mature passion churns in our stomachs instead.

I see it. I see it in the way he looks at me now, his elbows straight as he holds himself above me, gingery hair hanging over his forehead. He's still hungry. For me. For life. For time.

"It's not a you or a me," I say. Simon's mouth opens silently. "It's us. It wouldn't be fair to us."

He lowers himself onto his forearms; we're chest to chest, his mouth one brisk decision away from mine. "How do I know I won't mess it up again?"

"You don't know," I say, and shake my head. "But it doesn't matter. I'm not going anywhere this time."

A wave of relief so poignant rushes over his face that my heart skips in my chest. This boy. This boy. He says my name, or breathes it, rather. I ready my lips for his, my body for his—

"Val," he says again. This time it sounds more urgent. "Oh, no, no, Val. Val—"

An exhale is torn from my chest as Simon rolls off of it, cowering away from me. I wonder for a split second what's going on, but seconds before Simon's whole body begins to seize and warp, I realize.

Simon's voice is torn from his throat as he shudders against the floor, his body thudding against the wood as he hits it over and over again. He curls and uncurls as his skin jumps from shade to shade, his hair growing longer and then shorter again before I can even register it. There's a knot in my throat; I try to breathe around it, crawling to Simon's side and pulling his head up into my lap and whispering to him, "It'll be okay. It'll be okay."

He grunts and moans until I realize he's trying to say something. It almost sounds like, "Don't let me go."

Simon's spine arches violently like a cat's—I hear a deafening crack. He shudders again, and then goes still, eyes rolling back into his head.

A sudden panic seizing me, I press two fingers to his neck. When I feel his pulse beating slowly beneath my fingertips, I'm so happy I could cry.

I crane over him, mopping his hair from his forehead. I kiss his eyelids, the tip of his nose, his lips. Then I whisper in his ear: "Fight, Simon."

Mrs. St. John and Noah find me a few minutes later, still cradling Simon in my arms.

Noah looks at me, stricken, and I know he's thinking the same thing I am.

Whatever Larry has to do to get that antidote, he'd better do it quick.