This information does nothing to cheer her. It does even less for me. I don’t have six months with Cora. I don’t even have one month.

“That’s not fair.” She’s looking out the window when she says this.

“No. It’s not fucking fair at all.”

I want to go up behind her and put my arms around her, but I know if I do I won’t be able to stop at just a simple hug. I need more from her than she’s got to give. And I have nothing that she needs anymore. I can feel the lengthening between us. It started in Mrs. Wheeler’s room. Maybe even before that. I don’t know. All I know is that I’m desperately, hopelessly, in love with her. It hurts. No one tells you that.

In the movies it looks so easy. In two hours a couple meets, falls in love, encounters problems, someone makes a grand gesture, then BAM, happily ever after. I don’t have a grand gesture. I don’t have anything she wants or needs. The one thing I had to give her I’ve already given her—the leads and connections to free Beau. It’s so fucked up that I—of all people—couldn’t give her the only other thing she wanted—sex. What’s wrong with me? Even now I want her so badly I practically vibrate with it. But I know if I touch her I’ll only disappoint her. Again. It’s all just so fucking fucked up.

“That’s another one hundred and fifty-two days,” she says.

She did the math. Of course she did. I don’t know if it’s a coping mechanism or an obsession. Either way, I feel the anguish and anger she’ll endure in every single one of those days. And that’s if we’re lucky. It could take longer. It could not happen at all. What then? What if Beau is never freed?

“Two thousand two hundred and forty-one days altogether,” she intones, like some fucking electronic clock.

I can barely see her through the rage that hits me out of no-fucking-where. “How many hours is that? How many minutes? Seconds? Nanoseconds?”

“Why are your mocking me?”

“I’m not mocking you. I want to know. I want to know how deep it goes. Come on. How many hours?”

“I don’t know.”

“Need a calculator?” I pull out my cellphone, punch up the calculator setting, and hold it out to her. “Go on.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“I’ll do it for you.” I jab my finger at the buttons. “Two thousand two hundred and forty-one times twenty-four. That’s fifty-three thousand, seven hundred eighty-four hours.” I hold it up for her to see. “That’s sounds a lot worse than two thousand and some odd days, doesn’t it?”

“Stop it.”

I can’t stop. “There are sixty minutes in an hour.” I punch the clear button. “If we times twenty-four by sixty that’s one thousand four hundred forty minutes in a day. Times that by your two thousand two hundred forty-one and it equals…” I’m out of control. I know I’m out of control, but I can’t stop. “Holy fuck. Three million two hundred twenty-seven thousand and forty minutes.”

“Stop.”

“Three million is fucking dramatic, isn’t it? You should count the motherfucking minutes, not the days. People will really feel sorry for you then.”

“What is wrong with you?”

“Nothing. There’s nothing wrong with me. What’s wrong with you, Cora?”

“Why are you doing this?”

“I’m helping you. It’s what I do. I help you. That’s all I do, all I’m good for.”

“I don’t know what you want from me.”

I stalk toward her. “Don’t you?”

Watching me with wide eyes, she shakes her head.

“I want you to care about me half as much as you care about counting the days, Cora. I want to mean more to you than how much longer it’s going to be before you can resume your life. I want you to resume your life right now, no waiting to see what happens with Beau. Because you know what? At some point counting the days has to end. You can’t keep going on like this. If you won’t do it for me, do it for yourself. Hell, do it for Beau. He practically begged you to so many times. And I know you’d do anything for him. Do this. Do this one thing. Have a life.”

“I have a life.”

“No. You don’t.”

“What do you know about having a life, having responsibilities? I’m all Beau has. I’m it. If I leave him, he’s got no one.”

“There are no absolutes here. You can have a life and still be a good sister.”

“You want me to pick you over Beau.”

“You can have us both.”

“No, I can’t! I can’t move on like everyone else has and leave him behind. I won’t do it. I’m all he’s got.” She defiantly swipes at a tear that dares to fall.

She’s broken. I’m broken. I don’t know what I’m doing here. I don’t have a chance with her. I never did. But there’s one undeniable fact that neither one of us can ignore.

“I love you,” I say simply. “I’m not saying it because I’m losing you. I can’t lose what I never had. I’m saying it because it’s true.”

She takes in a rough breath. She’s a fighter, my Bluebird. A fighter right up until the end. And this is it. The end. The end of us and whatever we might have been. The end of her needing my help. And the end of me fighting an unwinnable battle.

I let her go and walk away.

Chapter 33 Cora

He doesn’t slam the bedroom door. No, he closes it softly. The sound of it is so quiet, nearly inaudible, but it echoes in my head like a gunshot, jolting my body as if I’ve been hit. His words rip through me, exposing the cracks in my defenses.

He doesn’t love me. He can’t. That’s not what was supposed to happen here. He wasn’t supposed to make me want things I can’t have. He wasn’t supposed to make me want to follow him and slam the door behind me and make him feel what he’s making me feel right now. I choke back a sob. And he sure as hell wasn’t supposed to lay down that ultimatum.

I can’t abandon Beau now. There’s too much on the line. I’m too close. I can almost see him the way he used to be. I can see the days he’s been in prison falling off him like leaves on a tree, revealing the old Beau one by one. Two thousand and eighty-nine days, counting today. Leo mocked me for keeping track, but he doesn’t understand. No one understands. No one but Beau. I count them because Beau does. It’s the only thing we can still do together.

I discovered it early during one of my first visits with him at Chino Men’s. He threw it out there—The Number. Sixty-three. He said, “I’ve been here for sixty-three days, but it feels like forever.” He was right. It did feel like forever. It was forever. More than two thousand days later, I’ve learned the hard meaning of forever and what failure really is. Because I’m not just counting the days, I’m counting the ways I failed him. Every day a new way. I can’t turn my back on him. And I can’t move on until Beau can move on too.

I don’t look at the bedroom door as I pass. I don’t glance back at it when I go in to feed and take care of Oliver. If I see it I’ll want to go through it, and I don’t know what I’ll find on the other side. More than that, I don’t know what I’ll do if I cross over the threshold. I might decide to be selfish and choose him over Beau. If I go after him I might give up on someone who everyone has given up on and left behind. I can’t do that. I can’t look at that door.

Oliver lives in a cat’s paradise here and I live in a perverted sort of hell. He looks at me just like he always does, with a mixture of tolerance and loathing. He hasn’t been the same since Cassandra died. None of us have. Does she know? Can she see what we’ve all become? What would she say?

I’m not just fighting for Beau. I’m fighting for Cassandra too. She’s been gone more days than Beau’s been in prison. I can’t give Cassandra her life back. I can only give her justice. And take care of Oliver as best as he’ll let me.