Free Forget Me Not (The Ceruleans: Book 2) by Megan Tayte

beach,
getting out of my wetsuit after a surf, and then I was in A&E. This doctor
chap was in a right tizz, showing me brain scans and sniffling into the sleeve
of his white coat.
    I Peter Panned him: ‘Death is only the beginning. And
dying, after all, will be an awfully big adventure.’ That choked him right up.
He started on about referrals and specialists, and I nodded and said all the
right things. Then I got the hell out of there as quickly as I could.
    Si took me back to the cottage – he was the one who’d
seen me collapse and called an ambulance. He was worried, but I cooked up some
story about blood sugar issues, and he seemed to buy it.
    No one can know the truth. Only Jude.
    ~
    I thought Jude would flip out about the A&E episode –
worry I’d nearly died and he’d missed it. But apparently I had that all wrong.
Because he didn’t miss it (Si called him and he came to the hospital and
checked on me while I was out). And because I was in a bad way, yes, but not in
the ‘nearly dead’ category.
    I didn’t linger on the whole seeing-me-unconscious thing,
because it’s too grim to think about. But I did ask how he could tell I wasn’t
pegging out right then. He just knew, he said. He always knows, with everyone.
Whether they’re in pain or ill. How close they are to death. Whether they can
be healed or not.
    Not, in my case.
    He can’t tell me exactly how long I’ve got. Weeks, a few
months at best. Makes no difference. I’ve no intention of waiting until The End
like those movie geeks who sit in the cinema until the very last credit has
rolled. That’s not me – I’m on my feet for the first note of the theme tune.
    Theme tune, now there’s a thought. Maybe I should Google
‘music to die to’.
    ~
    I thought it was just me. I assumed – ha! – that I was
unique, different.
    But it’s not. Jude says it’s Scarlett too, or it will be
once she’s eighteen.
    I don’t understand. Why both of us? It’s not like Mother
or Father have a Cerulean bone in their bodies, screwed-up and self-involved as
they are. Father heal? He’d step over a dying man unless there was a bank note
sticking out of his pocket. And Mother? She can’t even heal herself, let alone
anyone else.
    Jude has no answers for me on this. He just says both of
us are special cases.
    I have to talk to her – she has to know. I left my phone
at Willake, and I can’t remember her number, so I can’t call. I’ve written and
rewritten the email to her countless times. But how can I tell her all this? I
know her. She won’t see things my way. When she knows the truth, all Scarlett
will see is ‘Death’, not ‘Life’.
    I’ll wait. Buy some time with the drugs the doctor gave
me. Give her all the days she can have without this pressing down on her. Soon
enough she’ll be eighteen. Then I’ll tell her. And we can go together.
    ~
    Clubbing in the city. Jude was all for me taking it easy,
but a girl’s gotta live – even a dying girl has that right. He wasn’t up for
coming, but told me to call if I needed him. Gave me a pay-as-you-go phone in
case of emergency. I took ‘emergency’ to mean ‘Ow, I’m dying’ and not ‘Oh look,
Daniel just walked into the club’.
    That guy is too cool for school. Just leaned on the bar,
drinking Jack Ds and watching me dance. Eventually, all I could think about was
his eyes on me, so I lost the others and we found a corner. And talked.
    I don’t know what to make of it all, this talk of
fractures and factions and falling. Of the rights and wrongs of using the
light. Of family loyalty.
    I’m sticking with Jude. I trust Jude.
    Still, there are two numbers in my phone now: Jude’s, and
Daniel’s.
    ~
    Party at Si’s. Got drunk. Really drunk. Jude put me to
bed.
    I asked him, ‘What will it be like when I die?’
    He said, ‘Like falling asleep. With me right beside you.’
    But recently, falling asleep? Not so easy.
    It’s the dream that keeps me awake. The dream I don’t
want to