2. Fall to Pieces – Avril Lavigne
"Cynthia?" Pegasus held her close. "Cynthia, what's wrong?"
She didn't answer. Around them, the church was in chaos. Only his relations and select members of her family were there, less than thirty people in all, yet there seemed to be hundreds of feet slapping against the floor and hundreds of cell-phones making the same three-number call.
Pegasus was oblivious to it all, having eyes only for Cynthia. He'd watched helplessly as, her lips so close her felt her last breath, his fiancée's eyes rolled up into her skull and she collapsed. He'd grabbed for her, catching her awkwardly and jarring her shoulder almost out of its socket. She didn't even cry out, but what his eyes and mind told him, his heart still refused to believe.
He'd always known Cynthia had a congenital heart defect. It was one of the reasons she was so delicate, and why her father was so protective of her. She'd grown up in a rarefied atmosphere, with little idea of what real life was like. Still, her innocence was one of the things he loved most about her. Her vibrancy always outshone her paleness, and her love of life made him forget those times she was so tired she could fall asleep anywhere – feeding ducks in the park, at dinner with celebrities, posing for one of his paintings. She was like some strange, fairytale creature, too delicate for many of her kind to exist on this side of the divide between fantasy and reality.
Or at least, to exist for very long there.
Pegasus had always loved New York. He enjoyed the energy of the place, and the architecture so many cities around the world tried to emulate. New York was cutting edge. Cynthia didn't share his love of the place, preferring open fields and gardens. Now he was very conscious that they'd had to import the roses for their wedding from other places. New York was too much a city of concrete and glass.
"Cynthia, please," he begged, voice cracking. "Please, don't leave me. Not now. Not when we're so close to having everything we ever wanted."
But Cynthia didn't reply.