A Five-Minute Life

by Emma Scott

  “Me too,” she said, but her eyes looked clear. Or maybe it was the shifting lights.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  A shadow seemed to cross her face before she smiled tipsily at me.

  “One more dance,” she shouted in my ear. “Please, Jimmy,” she said. Begged. “I don’t want this night to end.”

  “Thea…” But she was already gone, dancing to a song I put on my phone for her at Blue Ridge, a million years and a lifetime ago. “BOOM” by the Ambassadors. No, that wasn’t right. There was an X in it. The X-Men. I chuckled then peered around for Thea.

  She was a mirage of blue and gold on the dance floor that was full of dark, writhing bodies. Demons moving around her, intent on swallowing her up. I was drunk as shit but the fear found me anyway.

  Something’s not right and you’re too wasted to figure it out, ya jackass.

  What was wrong? I couldn’t put my finger on it, my thoughts were drowning in booze. I dragged my jacket back on and batted at the pockets to make sure my wallet and phone were still there.

  Wallet, yes. Phone was missing.

  “Shit.” I blearily searched the bar and the floor, nearly falling off the damn stool.

  Thea returned.

  “My phone is gone,” I said.

  “What?” she shouted. “I can’t hear you.”

  “My phone…”

  She kissed me hard. Sloppily. “I want to go now. Be alone with you.”

  “But my phone…”

  She pressed her body to me, her breasts pushing out of her tank top. Her lips brushed my ear. “I need you to fuck me, Jimmy. Take me back to the hotel and fuck me hard.”

  “Sounds good,” I mumbled. “Let’s do that.”

  We stumbled into the street and into a cab. In the backseat, Thea was all over me. Wet kisses and groping hands that stroked my erection through my jeans. My ears were ringing after the loud of the club. I tried to kiss her back, but my hands kept sliding off her. At the hotel, I passed the driver some money and we pulled ourselves together to stagger past the front desk. In the elevator, Thea reached for me again, almost desperately. I could hardly stand.

  Jesus, how much did I drink?

  In our room, I made it to the bed and fell on my back. The room spun.

  “I need you, Jimmy,” Thea whispered, stretched out beside me, pleading. “I need you so bad.”

  “Wait…” I said, throwing my arm over my eyes. “I just need a minute. Fuck, I’m so wasted.”

  “Me too,” Thea said, but her voice came from far away. “I’ll get you some water.”

  “Yeah…” I said, and then the bed sucked me down, into oblivion.

  When I opened my eyes again, the room was dark. No lights. My ears felt stuffed with cotton and my body weighed a thousand pounds. I reached my hand out, found empty bed. A soft sound near the window, like crying…

  I got too drunk. I’m still too drunk.

  I slipped back under.

  When I came around again, the sun was slanting over my eyes, lancing straight into my brain. I lay on the bed in the exact same position I’d been last night. Completely clothed, down to my boots and jacket.

  I muttered the morning-after declaration made by every single hungover person everywhere. “I am never drinking again.”

  The room was quiet. Empty. Thea was nowhere in sight. I sat up—too quickly—and nearly puked. Pain gripped my head in a vise.

  “Thea?”

  The bathroom door was wide open, as if bragging about how there was no Thea in it.

  “Oh fuck.”

  My heart slammed against my chest, and then I did have to puke. I just made it to the bathroom, my head pounding with the strain of heaving, but I needed to sober the hell up and find her.

  Jesus Christ, what happened last night?

  My memory coughed up a mish-mash of scenes from the club—Thea dancing, shouted conversations, noise and light and too much damn alcohol.

  How long have I been passed out on the goddamn bed? How long has she been out there, alone? God knows what happened to her…

  The possibilities made me want to puke all over again.

  You broke your promise. You promised to keep her safe. It’s inked on her goddamn skin, and for what?

  “N-N-Nothing.”

  My frantic gaze darted to the clock that showed a little after seven. A note sat beside it, folded in half, my name handwritten on it. I snatched it with shaking hands and devoured every line.

  Jimmy,

  Went for our morning coffee. (I think you’re going to need it ) Be back in fifteen.

  xoxo

  Thea

  “Holy f-f-fucking shit.” I sank on the bed, relief washing through me like a tidal wave. I let out a long, shaking breath, then sucked it back in to curse at myself. I was lucky. A second chance. She asked me to trust her. I should have trusted her.

  I shivered in the room’s air-conditioning. I’d broken out in a cold sweat that stunk of stale booze and fear. I stripped out of my clothes to take a fast shower, figuring Thea would be back by the time I got out.

  She wasn’t.

  I stood in the silence of the room, a towel around my waist. Now the clock read 7:22 a.m. Fear started to creep back under my skin, and I reminded myself Thea wasn’t the helpless person she’d been at Blue Ridge.

  Call her. No big deal.

  I dug in my jacket for my cell phone. Not there. Not in my jeans, either. A sliver of memory found me from last night. It’d gone missing at the bar.

  Thea’s backpack was at the foot of the bed.

  Leave it. She’ll be back soon. Trust her.

  More memory flashes from last night. Thea’s eyes alit with a euphoria that bordered on fear. The strange phone call with Delia. Crying in the middle of the night.

  I clutched the towel around my waist and kneeled to dig through her bag. I found my phone at the bottom, shut off completely. I sat on the bed and powered it back up. Dozens of text messages popped up along with notifications of another dozen missed calls. Most from Delia, but also Rita, Alonzo, and Dr. Chen.

  “What the fuck…?”

  My heart stopped beating and then took off at a gallop. With shaking hands, I opened the string of text messages from Delia and read them one after another.

  “N-N-No…”

  I couldn’t believe my eyes. Delia was fucking with me. Trying to ruin everything…

  You’re lying, Thea said during the call at the bar. Because she knew then. Delia told her and then Thea lied to me.

  “No,” I barked. “This is b-b-bullshit.”

  Rage fueled by terror burned hot and fast. Delia was lying. She was a fucking liar and a thief trying to steal Thea from me.

  And she somehow wrangled the Blue Ridge staff to go along with it?

  My hand trembled as I hit the button on the first voicemail out of twenty, holding the phone to my ear as if it were a poisonous snake.

  I listened to all of Delia’s messages, which alternated between tearful begging and angry fear. Then the voicemails from Dr. Chen, cool and professional but laced with urgency. From Alonzo, his voice heavy with pain. And Rita. Fuck, Rita cried her message, and I nearly did too.

  The phone fell slack in my hand. The blood drained from my face; the rage draining with it, leaving only the terror.

  And a silent, empty room.

  Chapter 33

  Jim

  The key slid into the door and Thea came in, balancing a tray of two coffees with cream and sugar packets piled between them.

  “Oh, you’re up,” she said, then froze when she saw the phone in my hand.

  God, she was so beautiful and alive and right here. And it was all going to end.

  “I should’ve thrown both phones away,” she whispered. “Or smashed them.”

  “And then what?” I asked. “Keep me drunk every night? Was that your plan?”

  She stared back at me, defiant. “Maybe.”

  “You didn’t smash the phones because you
know what we have to do.”

  She moved quickly across the room to set the tray on the table by the window. “I don’t have to do anything but go out into this amazing city and live my life.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut, mustering the will to try to survive this. “No, Thea.”

  She stiffened, her back to me, then slowly turned, arms crossed. “Delia called you?” Her voice struggled to stay strong and casual. “So what? Whatever she said, she’s lying. She hates you so she’s trying to ruin us.”

  “Dr. Chen called me too.”

  Thea flinched and my goddamn heart cracked.

  “Seven of Dr. Milton’s ten trial patients have had strokes,” I said, hating every goddamn word. “Of those seven, two are nearly completely paralyzed, three are in a coma, and two are—”

  “Stop,” Thea said, hugging herself.

  I swallowed the word down. “We have to go back.”

  “No.”

  “A stroke is not reversible, Thea. There is no medication for that.”

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  “And if it kills you?” I cried. “The other two patients died. But if you stop taking the Hazarin now, there’s a chance—”

  “No. I’m not going back. I have time. I have a month’s supply—”

  “And then what? They won’t give you more.”

  She won’t make it a month.

  Terror bloomed bright and glassy in Thea’s eyes. “I’ll worry about that later. I’m not giving up my time. I’m not. I won’t.”

  “You can’t take the Hazarin,” I said, low and controlled. “It might kill you—”

  “I don’t care.”

  “I care!” The words reverberated around the room. “I f-f-fucking care.”

  We stared each other down, then her gaze darted to the bathroom where the Hazarin bottle sat beside the sink. As if a starting gun to a race went off, we took off for the bathroom at the same time. I was faster. I blocked the bathroom door and grabbed the meds off the sink.

  “Give them to me,” Thea said, pounding at my back. I turned, and she reached for the pills, grabbing at my arm. “Goddammit, Jim, give them…”

  I held them in a vise grip and gently but firmly held her at arm’s length. She tore out of my grasp and put her hand out, fingers trembling.

  “Give them back.”

  “No.”

  “Jimmy, I swear to God…”

  “What happens next, Thea?” I demanded, stalking out of the bathroom, forcing her to back up. “You keep taking it, and then what?”

  “I have time. I get to live,” she cried.

  “Shit, Thea.” I carved my hand through my hair. “We knew this was a risk—”

  “Fuck you,” she screamed and gave a rough shove to my chest. “Fuck you for saying that after everything we’ve had this week. After this time I’ve had, free from that prison.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “I’m sorry, but Jesus, Thea…”

  “You have no idea what you’re asking me to do.”

  “Neither do you,” I cried, the frustration and anger raging back. “What are we going to do, Thea? Go sight-seeing? Be fucking tourists? Maybe let you get me wasted again so we can pretend everything is okay when it could explode at any fucking second?”

  “Shut up.” She shook her head, tears spilled over her eyes. “Just shut up.”

  “How about we go to the top of the Empire State Building so I can watch you collapse in my arms and die?”

  “Shut up, Jimmy! Don’t ruin my Empire State… Don’t do this…”

  The anger bled out of me, deepening into agony. “They’ll make more medicine. Better medicine. They’ll try again.”

  “No.” She paced a small, frustrated circle in the center of the room. “No… No, I can’t.”

  “And I can’t watch you—”

  “Watch me what? Fade away? Forget you? Go back to sleep? Five minutes, Jimmy,” she cried, splaying her fingers out. “I get five minutes and nothing else. It’s like living in a tiny little box and as soon as I start to climb out, I fall back in again. Except it’s not even that clear. That would be consciousness. I don’t have the luxury of consciousness. You’re afraid of me dying? Without the meds, Jimmy…” She took a watery breath. “I’m already dead.”

  I shook my head slowly, my vision blurring. Emotions I’d never experienced swamped me. I could barely swallow them down.

  She’s not yours. She never was. Doris sneered. You don’t get to cry…

  “No…” I murmured, not knowing who I was answering.

  “Yes,” Thea cried. “I get a few minutes to build a life and then it’s torn down again, over and over. I can’t begin to describe what a fucking nightmare it is. I already tried. I told you in those word chains. I screamed at you from those drawings.”

  I clenched my jaw. “I know.”

  “You don’t know. I smiled and was so goddamn cheerful all the time, right? That’s because all I had was a pitiful little flicker of hope. Hope for the things I knew were true: Mom and Dad were coming, and the doctors were working on my case. They were going to help me. That’s all I had. For two years. Only Mom and Dad weren’t coming, and the doctors had given up. Delia was going to let me rot in that prison.”

  “Not this time,” I said. “Dr. Milton came close. He’ll try again…”

  “And how long will that take? Two more years? Two more years of me waking up again and again. Mid-shower. Chewing a bite of food.” Her voice broke. “Or looking into your eyes and having the faintest suspicion that somewhere down deep, we mean something to each other. Like an itch I can never scratch. Not even an itch. An echo of a dream of an itch. A feeling I might’ve had once, but I can’t grasp it. Can’t feel it. I can’t feel anything. Can you imagine having thoughts or feelings that only last long enough to know you don’t get to keep them?” She shook her head, her body trembling. “I won’t go back to that life. I’d rather die in your arms at the top of the Empire State Building.”

  The words hung in the air between us. The ground beneath my feet broke apart. Shattered. Everything we built was being ruined, along with everything we were going to build. All our future plans.

  “You’ll remember us,” I said, faltering, grasping. “Like the music and your painting, you’ll remember.”

  She shook her head, tears falling. “No,” she whispered. “It’s too hard.”

  “Don’t give up on me, Thea,” I said, moving toward her. “Isn’t that what you asked me? N-N-Not to give up on you?”

  “I know but… I can’t, Jimmy.”

  I was in front of her now, reaching for her.

  “I can’t,” she whispered.

  “You can.” I put my arms around her, my hand not holding the pill bottle slid into her hair. “God, Thea…”

  She sank against me, her tears hot on my bare skin. She let me hold her for a few moments and then stiffened in my arms and shook her head.

  “No. No, I won’t do it. I won’t go back into that tomb.” She pushed me away and held out her hand again. “Give me the bottle, Jimmy.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “Please,” she begged, her face crumpling. “Don’t do this to me.”

  I hardened my heart against her pleas. The image of her convulsing, or falling to the ground, not breathing, eyes staring…

  “It’s not up to you,” she said, reading my expression, her voice hardening too. “It’s my choice. Mine.”

  “Thea…”

  “You made such a huge deal about my choices and my consent and now you want to take it all back.”

  “This isn’t consent.”

  “Isn’t it? It’s my life. Give me the bottle, James.”

  I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t hand over the poison and watch her swallow it down every morning until there were no mornings left.

  Thea made a grab for it, but I snatched my hand away and blinked, momentarily confused as she grabbed her backpack at our feet instead.

  “What are you
doing?” I said. “Wait…”

  She raced for the door, and I followed two steps behind. She wrenched it open and looked back, her voice breaking my heart. “Goodbye, Jimmy. I still have New York-ing to do.”

  Her hand whipped out suddenly. Again, I snatched the meds out of reach, but she’d gone for the towel on my waist instead, ripping it off and flinging it away.

  “Fuck…”

  I lunged as she slipped out and the heavy door clocked my elbow. Now pain piled on the rage and grief and terror. I slammed the door open with a ragged cry, but Thea was already halfway down the hallway and heading for the staircase. I’d never catch her. Wouldn’t make it past the front desk bare-assed naked if I tried.

  “Fuck,” I raged and slammed the door shut, shaking the room. I hurled the bottle of Hazarin at the wall. It bounced off and rolled on the floor, whole and unfazed.

  I yanked my clothes on, my shaking fingers tripping over buttons and tugging on boots that wouldn’t fucking cooperate. Adrenaline surged in my veins as I jabbed the elevator buttons. Thea had sixteen flights to take on foot. I could make it. I could catch her.

  “Come on,” I seethed, jabbing the button again and again. Finally, it arrived and made an agonizingly slow journey down to the lobby. I spat another curse as it stopped on the tenth floor to let a guy on.

  He took one look at my face and stepped back. “I’ll get the next one.”

  In the lobby, my eyes darted around, begging for signs of Thea. I raced to the stairwell and threw open the door, hoping to hear her footsteps echoing down stairs. But for my shaking breaths, there was silence.

  “Did a blond woman come past here?” I asked the guy at the front desk.

  “I don’t know, sir,” he said, maddeningly calm. “Lots of people come past here.”

  I ran out the front door, searching up and down the sidewalks, across the street. No sign of Thea.

  Back into the lobby, I watched the elevators and the stairwell. Minutes ticked by. Elevators opened and people got off. None of them Thea.

  She’s gone. You lost her. You failed. You don’t get to cry…

  I sank onto a chair in the hotel lobby, my head in my hands. It was too much. I felt too much. For Thea. For everything. Years and years of numbed feelings started to break free and well up in me; tried to spill over dams, break through walls. A deluge I was going to drown in if I didn’t keep it back. But I was so goddamned tired of trying.