It stung like a violent wind that our memories depend on a faulty camera in our minds
But I knew you were a truth that I would rather lose than to have never lain beside at all
He probably should have seen it coming. He should have known she'd do it again.
After everything that went down in the past two years, after Freddie's been killed, after Cook does his time for getting back at the bastard who did it (self-defense has seemingly lost its meaning over time) – after all that, after everything, she slashes her wrists and she swallows those pills and she fucking ruins everything.
He picks at the skin surrounding another nail bitten down to the nub and tunes out the drivel of the television hanging on the wall above his head. It's half of the reason why people, people like him who are trying so hard to ignore the devastation that's just hit them, are looking over in his direction. The other half is because he looks like a hopeless mess.
It's probably really selfish of him to want her to live. He's got this gnawing feeling in his chest that won't go away, screaming at him that she did it because she wanted to be with Freddie. They'd be all "together forever" and shit, in some kind of sick, spiritual way.
It's probably really fucking selfish of him to want her to stay here with him and fuck him and spend time with him and love him, but Cook is kind of synonymous with selfish.
But fuck, it's so selfish of her to take her own goddamn life. Sometimes he just…he hates her, you know? The way she didn't choose him, the way that she played with his heart like some kind of toy. Cook gave and gave and gave, and Effy took and took and took, and in the end he was the loser, standing there with a great big box of nothing. She really didn't deserve him, but he wanted her to, so desperately. Sometimes she makes him want to claw his fucking eyes out. (But he knows he'd end up giving those to her too.)
Anthea rounds the corner and he braces himself for the news, dressing himself in the armor he knows won't protect him from what's about to come. She wears a sad smile on her face and a pair of tattered sweatpants that don't fit her well.
She sits down next to him on one of the only empty plastic chairs in the room, placing a hand on his back. "Are you hungry, Cook?" It's a stupid, pointless question that has no relevance to the only thing on his mind (please don't take her away from me oh god please no), but he's thankful for it.
He nods, and she offers him a cookie from the package in her pocket. A suitable reward for being such a good little boy. It's kind of stale and those are definitely raisins, not chocolate chips, but it's the first thing he's eaten in three days. When he finishes it, he leans back in his chair with a sigh, staring down at his shoes.
"Would you like to come back and see her with me?" Anthea's gaze is nervous, expectant, and he can't take it. He doesn't say anything. She sighs and takes his limp hand in hers. "She wants…she would want you to, love. She's not doing so well. Would you please just come with me?"
He wants so badly to say no. The thought of her dying in a fucking hospital, full of ungrateful cunts in scrubs and IVs dripping with medicines he couldn't even pronounce, rubbed him the wrong way. He had always pictured her going out with a bang – like fireworks or some shit. (More importantly, he saw him dying with her, but like, let's be real, they're not Romeo and fucking Juliet.) Something as simple as cuts and pills was too fucking weak and lame. But that was the thing. Nothing could kill Effy Stonem but Effy Stonem herself.
He wants so badly to say no, but doing so seems like an injustice to the girl he loved, the girl he would always love. His girl. (But not really.)
"Yeah."
He gets up and it feels like it takes so much effort, like his muscles are made of lead. He's been sitting there so long that they might as well be. Anthea keeps glancing back at him, almost as if she's worried that the next time she does, he won't be there anymore. (If it weren't for his stupid fucking pride, he wouldn't be.)
When they come to her room in the ICU unit, there's a nurse there that looks like she's been waiting for them, standing by the doorframe. She's dressed in these ugly scrubs decorated with some dumb cartoon character, and he wants to kick her in the mouth. But he doesn't.
(Effy is there too, but he's deliberately trying not to look at her. It just fucking hurts too much.)
"What's going on with her?" It's the first full sentence he's spoken in days, and it really doesn't surprise him that his voice wobbles a bit.
The nurse doesn't look nervous, or scared, or even the least bit indebted towards him. That's probably what shocks him the most, that everyone in this goddamned place has no sort of sympathy for him. They just get the news and deliver it. No sorry, kid or do you want to talk about it? (He's sort of thankful that no one does say that, that no one pities him, because that's honestly just a bit pathetic, and Cook is the farthest thing from pathetic.)
(For now.)
With a tiny, effortless sigh, the nurse looks down at her clipboard. "Her wrists are all stitched up, but she's gone into a coma and lost her gag reflexes. Everything she took, all the pills, it's gotten into her lungs, and she's got a bad case of pneumonia. She's on a ventilator right now" – the nurse jerks her head in Effy's direction (don't look, don't fucking look at her) – "but I'm afraid she's not going to make it." For a brief second, she looks sorry, but then, before leaving the room, she gives a tiny shrug, as if to say, Whoops, nothing we can do about it. Better luck next time, and he like, really wants to kill her, but he's not exactly ready to get thrown back in the slammer.
He shakes his anger off and finally allows himself to look at her, and Jesus, he wishes he hadn't. She looks so fucking tiny in that nondescript bed. Her wrists are all wrapped up and he can't even count how many tubes she's got poking in and out of her. There's a chair next to her bed, and he feels like he can't get to it fast enough.
She looks even worse up close. Her face is white as a sheet, and her lips, those lips he's kissed so many times they feel like they belong to him or some shit, have lost their rosy glow. He grabs her hand, the one dangling from the side of the bed, and when she doesn't squeeze back like she fucking always has, he wants to cry.
He looks up at Anthea and swallows. "Do you – could you give me a minute alone with her? I want to…" He trails off, because he can't bring himself to say I want to say goodbye to her.
She nods kindly and walks out of the room, closing the door behind her. The sound resonates, bouncing off the walls, and it's the only thing he can hear, save the constant beeps of the numerous monitors she's hooked up to.
This whole thing reminds him of a fucking tug of war. On one side there's Cook, who's killed a man and loved fiercely and lived hard and run wild. On the other side, there's Death, who's killed everyone who's ever lived and doesn't love or apologize or take its time. And in the middle, there's Effy, who's taken a spin with Death more times than she's ever danced with Cook. The fight is long and hard and there's sweat glistening on Cook's brow, but in the end, he loses and so does Effy. Everyone loses to Death.
Just as the tears start to prick at the corners of his eyes, just as he feels his heart contracting with the inevitable feeling of loss, he opens his mouth and starts talking to her, throwing the fact that she's dying and she can't hear him out the window.
"Princess, do you…you remember when we were on our outlaw tour of Britain? You know, Bonnie and Clyde '09?" He almost chuckles to himself, before immediately feeling as though he shouldn't have. It felt like such a crime to laugh when she was slipping away from him.
He exhales again. "Maybe you don't, we were both pretty fucked up the entire time. And I usually don't remember anything when I'm that high, but I'm pretty sure I fucking remember everything that happened then. Eff, it was like, four o'clock in the morning, and I was carrying you through the streets of one of those towns we went through. And you were light as a feather, and I swear to God, if I had ran fast enough, we could have been flying or some shit.
"But there we were, staying on the ground and all, and you lifted your head towards my ear, and you whispered to me that I didn't know how to run away. Not like, you know, in the physical sense. But like…in the leaving-you sense. I didn't know how to run away from you, but Freddie did, and…fuck, Eff, it ruined me worse in the end. I stayed with you and it fucked me up." He sniffles a bit, wiping away the snot from his nose. He feels so fucking weak, but he keeps going.
"This sounds like, really fucking romantic and shit, but I don't really know how I'm supposed to live without you, Eff. I lost Freddie, and now I'm losing you too, and it's really, really unfair. Like…life's not fair, and all, but when Freds died, I still had you. And that was enough. It would have always been enough, if you would have just–" He beats his fist against his knee, gritting his teeth. It wasn't fucking fair.
He shakes his head, trying to convince himself something he doesn't want to believe. "There's no room for me to be mad at you, babe. You're almost gone now and I feel like a fucking loser for not having anything else to say to you. But you, like – you know that you could probably talk about anything for hours on end and I'd be okay with just like, listening to you? You've got an amazing voice. And like, everything you say just makes sense. I don't know what it is about you.
"I just…I really hope that it's fun up there, wherever you're going. And I hope Freds is there to take care of you, or maybe you won't need any taking care of at all. And you can do whatever you like forever. I'll see you soon, princess. Not too soon. I've got a lot to do, but I'll do it all for you, princess. Everything. No one's ever gonna fucking forget you if I have anything to do with it."
He's seen a lot of hospital dramas, thanks to when he used to live with his mum, and he knows that right about now is when she should be opening her eyes and embracing him and showering him with declarations of her endless love. He bites his lip and foolishly waits for it, but it never comes. Miracles don't exist in real life.
Two days later, when Cook is falling asleep to the sounds of morning, they say her heart stopped beating and the monitor went flat, and Anthea calls him with an apology on her lips that never quite comes out.