The Unknown

xlviii. goodbye

The next day, I felt certain my skull would split open from the agonizing pressure in my head. I woke up and immediately vomited, then collapsed by the fire.

Lying there, I was constantly on the edge of passing out, my surroundings churning as if I were at sea. Yet I was still more able-bodied than Kyle, who hadn't moved from his spot beside the fire for a full day.

We were doomed.

There was no getting around it now. I was beginning to swallow the difficult pill that we were both really dying. Being aware of it only made things worse. I was terrified. It was a kind of abject terror spilling from deep in my soul.

For a while, I blurred in and out of consciousness beside Kyle, my face pressed against the cold earth. I could do nothing to stop the waves of blackness. It scared me that any one could be the last. A small part of me wanted to lay down and accept it, until I opened my eyes again and saw Kyle.

Every absentminded touch, every meaningful glance, every time he had rescued me and I'd rescued him—all flashed before my eyes in my frenzied, feverish haze.

"I won't let you die on me," I said, prying myself weakly off the ground. I would save him again, whether he wanted me to or not. There was no other option in my mind. There never had been.

I grabbed his jacket collar and began to drag him backward, staggering toward the highest hill in sight. I don't know how I did it. Moments before, I couldn't stand. My legs felt like noodles, as if I would collapse with every step. Somehow, I willed myself to keep going.

Kyle's eyelids fluttered. He groaned in pain and whispered, with a flicker of eerie clarity, "What are you doing?" His lids fell shut, and it seemed to take him a monumental effort to pry them open again. "Don't," he managed to say. "Please don't do this."

I wasn't sure he was even lucid enough to understand what was happening, but his words hit me like a dagger to the gut. Still, I went on, desperately convincing myself I was doing the right thing, muttering under my breath.

In the distance, the hill seemed to tower like a mountain, looking warped and impossibly tall to my disoriented mind. I had to stop often to let my dizzy head go still and to fill my gasping lungs with air.

Kyle was becoming more and more delirious. He flitted in and out of consciousness, occasionally raising his head and surveying his surroundings with confusion.

"Mother," he said suddenly, in a small voice.

I froze and stared at him, my heart sinking.

He let his head fall back, eyes fluttering shut. "I can't go to school. I'm too sick."

I knelt down and rested the back of my hand gently against his cheek, cold to the touch. It took a moment for me to find my voice. "You don't have to go."

"Okay," he said in relief. "I love you."

My heart seemed to clench as if emptying itself of blood completely. "You know I've always loved you." I combed my fingers through his tangled hair.

He went quiet for a while as I forged on. It felt like the Earth's gravity was increasing with every desperate step, my muscles burning as if my blood had turned to battery acid.

Later, Kyle awoke with more of his wits about him. "You never promised," he said between sharp, pained breaths. "You have to keep going without me, as long as you can. I asked you to promise before, but you never did."

"I promise," I said dutifully, without thinking. I would have promised him anything in that moment.

He didn't speak again. I feared I would be too late. Repeatedly bracing my feet in the cold dirt, I wrenched him backward over and over again, using up every ounce of my dwindling strength.