07
the waiting hall was still a chaotic sea of people and luggage. Caleb, tall and imposing, stood out like a lighthouse. Snowflakes dusted his shoulders as he stared at me, his expression unreadable.
I was in the same position as before, leaning against the wall with my eyes closed.
The quietest person in the room.
Caleb no longer seemed to be in a hurry. He walked slowly, his footsteps silent, as if he didn’t want to wake me. He stopped in front
of me, looking down for a long moment.
Then, he tapped my forehead.
“Leo,” his voice was flat. “You got what you wanted. You can stop pretending to be asleep now.
When I didn’t move, a bitter laugh escaped him. He pinched my cheek, the way he used to when he was “punishing” me.
“If you don’t get up, I’m leaving. Don’t come crying to me later,”
He gave my shoulder a firm push.
My body lost its balance and pitched forward, collapsing softly into Caleb’s arms.
“Leor” he grunted, catching me. His patience was gone. “Get up! Stop messing around!”
But then he must have noticed. The unnatural weight, the lack of warmth.
He looked at my face, really looked at it, for the first time. His fingertips trembled as he gently touched my pale, purplish lips. He
lifted my hand, saw the matching color of my nail beds.
“Leo?” he called my name again. The anger was gone.
Cutie–pie hopped down from her chair. “What’s wrong with the pretty boy? Is he pretending?”
Caleb swept me up into his arms. “He’s sick,” he said grimly, striding toward the exit.
The car’s heater was on full blast, but my body remained cold. A cold that Caleb couldn’t warm, no matter how tightly he held me.
He called the hospital, his voice tight, telling them a patient was unconscious, with severe cyanosis and hypoxia. He told them to have a team ready at the entrance. The driver was already speeding, but Caleb kept urging him to go faster.
He stared at my face, his own breathing becoming ragged and shallow. The Rolls–Royce weaved through the blizzard, braking shar- ply at times, causing my limp body to sway. Caleb held me tighter, murmuring over and over, “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay, Don’t be scared, we’re almost there.”
My cold forehead rested against his neck. I had lost all sensation, so I couldn’t feel his warmth.
It’s no use, Caleb.
It’s too late.
I turned my head and watched the snowflakes splatter against the window, shattering into nothing. It reminded me of a flight I once took. Caleb was overseas on business and was going to miss New Year’s Eve at home. I’d gotten permission from my profes sor and secretly booked a red–eye flight to join him.
Just before landing, our plane was caught in a blizzard. We lost contact for a terrifying thirty minutes, circling in the storm. After we finally landed safely. Caleb found me in the arrivals hall.
His hair was a mess, his eyes blazing with fury.
“Leo, who told you that you could just show up here without a word?!”
His eyes were red–rimmed. He gripped my wrist, his voice filled with a raw anger I had never heard before. “Why can’t you just stay Home where you’re safe? What if the plane had crashed? What if you had died?!”
I tilted my face up. A snowflake on my eyelashes melted and trickled into my eye.
“I didn’t want you to be alone on New Year’s,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.”
He stared at me for a few long seconds, and the anger seemed to drain out of him. Then, just like all the other relieved people in the arrivals hall, he pulled the person he had been waiting for, sick with worry, into his arms.
He held me so tightly I couldn’t tell if he had forgiven me or not,
But I loved it when he held me like that. Even when it hurt, I wanted it to last forever.
Even if he hadn’t forgiven me, it didn’t matter.
The feeling of being loved, of being cherished, is unmistakable.
I think, once upon a time, Caleb really did give me hope.
And that hope made me foolish.
It made me pay the ultimate price.
