Free How Best to Avoid Dying by Owen Egerton

eyes were gray-blue and sad. She stood at the foot of a hospital bed, studying a young man lying there. He was still, his eyes closed, tubes in his arms.
    Zane felt protected from the sorrow in that room only by the door—like looking into a radiation chamber, knowing that if you open the door even a crack all that radiation would zip out and scar your eyes, throat, and skin.
    He might have moved on, considering the danger of a leak, but Zane remained a moment too long, and the girl, sensing his stare, turned and smiled. From straight on her eyes had an even deeper sadness, which made the smile all the more startling. 3
    Zane forgot about his toe. He forgot about the Sea Elephants. He forgot about music. He remembered the first time he tasted chocolate. Zane Bellows opened the door.
    She introduced herself as Stella. 4
    â€œI’m Zane Bellows,” he said. No reaction. She hadn’t heard of him and Zane, much to his own surprise, was glad. They spoke quietly. Simple questions, simple answers. Just sounds exchanged more than words.
    After a long while, Zane asked who the young man in the bed was.
    â€œDavid, my fiancé.”
    â€œOh.”
    Oh, that oh . Such an oh . Like the oh collectively sighed by the population of Pompeii as the volcano’s innards streaked the sky. The oh Captain Smith murmured as he counted the lifeboats on the sinking Titanic . The oh gasped by the pilot of the Enola Gay as he glanced in his B29’s rearview mirror and saw the bright white and reds devouring Hiroshima.
    â€œWhat’s wrong with him?” he asked.
    â€œComa. It’s been seven months now.” Stella brushed some of the dark curls from David’s forehead and, for the first time, Zane noticed the small diamond ring she wore on her left hand.
    Zane Bellows was released from the hospital that same day. But for the next week, he returned to the same room each and every day. He told the other members of the band that the rest of the tour would have to be canceled since he had been ordered to the hospital daily for physical therapy.
    â€œFor the toe?” Polk asked him.
    â€œFor the toe,” Zane replied.
    But each day he spent talking with Stella. She would sit on one side of the bed, Zane on the other, and sparks flew over David’s prostrate figure like cars on a high-speed overpass. With eager ears she listened as Zane babbled about art, life, the smell of chlorine, or anything else that popped from his buzzing mind. After seven months of conversation with a comatose man, Stella was happy to listen. Her eyebrows, also white, would rise at the subtleties of Zane’s humor. Even her breathing matched the rhythm of his speech.
    Zane adored her breathing. He was fascinated with the movement of her generous chest and the shudder of her thin lips, but most of all it was the smell. A rich smell like the soil of a rose garden. The breath, wafting from the other side of the bed, soaked right through Zane’s person and assured him that he was in love as much as the smell of roast beef would assure him he was hungry.
    Then on Zane’s fourth visit, Stella stood up and excused herself to the little girls’ room and the smell remained. At first he thought, “Ah, her breath lingers.” But then it lingered longer than expected. And it never diluted. Minutes passed and Zane slowly realized that Stella could not possibly be the source of the sent that had seduced him so. His eyes fell to the only other breathing being in the room: David. David, as pale and still as the statue who shared his name. His hair as curly and his features as noble. David. Hadn’t Zane always been pleasantly aware of his silent presence? Hadn’t Zane aimed at least part of his storytelling in his direction? Wasn’t it true that Zane never once asked, never once desired, to see Stella outside of this room, away from David? 5
    Zane watched David’s slow breathing. He leaned in closer and caught