She Burned the World to Bring Him Back

Summer murmured something under her breath before she left, too low for me to catch.

When she walked back in, she was already fully dressed.

"Patrick, something came up at the office. Go ahead and sleep."

The excuse was pathetic.

Ever since the System had bankrupted her, nearly every door had been slammed in Summer's face. To make money, she'd taken a job doing manual labor on a construction site—a girl, hauling concrete and rebar. That kind of work only required twelve hours during the day. No overtime. On top of that, I needed to be turned every two hours through the night, so Summer had never once gone out after dark.

By the time I came back to my senses, I had no idea how long she'd been gone.

I pulled the knife from under my pillow.

It was System-issued, after all. The blade looked razor-sharp—should slice through my artery in seconds.

When I'd first had the accident, I woke up to a spinal cord injury diagnosis. Nothing below my neck worked except my hands. After three years of grueling rehabilitation, I could barely sit up on my own and wheel myself around in the chair.

I'd been planning to surprise Summer on her birthday with that. Show her how far I'd come. Didn't matter now.

Dying in bed would be messy. Summer would have to clean it up for hours.

I forced myself upright, dragged my body into the wheelchair, and rolled into the bathroom.

Then I took out the knife, pressed it to my wrist, and cut.

The bathroom light snapped on.

Summer's face was white as bone.

"Patrick, what are you doing?"

Before I could react, the knife was ripped from my hand.

The next second, her palm cracked across my face.

"You lunatic! What did I ever do to you—what did I do to deserve this?"

Her voice was sharp enough to cut glass, but her eyes were burning red.

She erupted. Everything in the bathroom—bottles, jars, the mirror shelf—she smashed it all to pieces, hurling things until there was nothing left to break.

When the fury finally drained out of her, she came to stand in front of me. She crouched down, eye level, and looked straight at me.

"Why?"

There was perfume on her. The same scent Kenneth had been wearing when he'd visited me earlier that day. Identical.

I thought about it for a moment, then spoke. "Did you go see Kenneth?"

Summer froze. A long silence stretched between us before she finally admitted it. "Is that what this is about?"

"Patrick, can you please stop with the jealousy? I already told you there's nothing between us. I went to see him because—"

"Summer." I cut her off. "Let me die. I want it to be over."

Her face went rigid.

A few seconds passed. Then she said okay.

Just as I thought she'd finally agreed—that she, too, saw this life for the torture it was—she snatched the knife off the floor, shoved it back into my hand, and pressed my fist against her chest, right over her heart.

"You want to die? I'll grant your wish. But only if you kill me first."

Terror flooded through me. I tried to pull my hand back.

"Summer, let go."

"You're not the only one suffering, Patrick. You think taking care of you isn't hard?" Her grip was terrifyingly strong. I could feel the tip of the blade breaking skin. "You want to die? Fine. We die together."

Something warm and wet seeped over my fingers.

My entire heart seized like a fist had closed around it.

Seconds later, I broke. Sobs tore out of me, ugly and uncontrollable. "I was wrong, Summer. I won't do it. I won't die. I won't."

The knife clattered to the floor. Blood soaked through the front of Summer's shirt.

A few minutes passed. The wildness slowly left her eyes. She reached out and stroked my head, and then, out of nowhere, said something that had nothing to do with anything:

"Patrick, will you stay with me for one more birthday?"

Summer's birthday was three days away.

After that night, she went through the entire apartment and removed every sharp object she could find. Even the plates and bowls were swapped out for plastic ones.

She still took care of me, same as before. But she barely spoke to me anymore. Most of the time, she just sat there with her phone, typing away.