Existence by James Frey Read Free Book Online

Does it ever stop? Or does it just keep going, pain and blood and blood and pain and pain and pain . . .”
    She’s so pale. Her voice is thin and thready, the words floating away from her, like they belong to someone else. He tells himself that she’s feverish, in shock, that she doesn’t mean what she’s saying, that it doesn’t matter what she says, as long as she’s all right.
    â€œShhh. I know it hurts,” he whispers. “I know.”
    â€œBut it doesn’t.” She looks at him in childlike wonder, then coughs up another soft spray of blood. “It doesn’t hurt, Jago. I can’t . . . I can’t feel it. My legs. I can’t feel anything. . . .”
    He stops breathing.
    â€œJago?”
    Steady , he reminds himself. Calm . “That’s normal,” he lies. “Don’t worry.” He brushes her hair back from her sweaty face.
    â€œNormal? This is normal?” She’s laughing again, laughing and crying and shaking, shuddering, her hand squeezing his as if of its own accord, all of her trembling. Except her legs—those are still. “What if I can’t dance again? What if I can’t . . . No. No. You . Get away from me.”
    â€œI’m not going anywhere, Alicia.”
    â€œYou destroy everything. You make everything ugly, like you. I wish I never—”
    â€œDon’t say that, Alicia.” She’s always seen the truth in him, the possibility. If all she sees is a monster . . . “Please.” If he were the monster she says he is, wouldn’t her words anger him? Wouldn’t he push her aside, tell her that she entered freely into this life, fooled herself into believing it couldn’t touch her, fooled him into believing that he had a choice?
    He isn’t angry; he doesn’t push her aside. He wants to hold on to her forever, if she will only let him. “Please, Alicia, tell me you know I love you. That I will never let anyone hurt you again. That I can fix this. Please.”
    She doesn’t say it.
    She doesn’t say anything.
    â€œAlicia?”
    Her eyes are closed. Her face is as gray as the sunless sky. Sirens blare in the distance, so slow, so useless. Jago holds on to her, willing her to wake up, even if she wants to call him a monster, yell at him to let go. He never will.
    She survives.
    He knows this because he bribes a doctor to tell him.
    She’ll recover; she’ll walk. It’s a medical miracle, the doctor says, and nothing more than that.
    No one wants to tell him anything, not officially, because he’s not family.
    And she won’t tell him herself, because when she wakes up, she refuses to see him. He could insist, of course. No one, certainly not the doctors working in the hospital’s brand-new state-of-the-art Tlaloc Memorial Wing, would dare tell Jago Tlaloc where he can and cannot go.
    But he won’t violate her wishes, and she wishes to never see him again.
    That’s what the kind nurse says, after he’s spent three days in a row in the waiting room, hoping she’ll change her mind.
    â€œGo home,” the nurse suggests. “Get some rest. Get a hug from your mama. The girl will come around.”
    Jago does go home; Alicia doesn’t come around.
    Instead, she sends a letter.
    Dear Feo, she writes, and that’s when he knows what kind of letter this will be. He’s Feo to her now. An ugly beast, and this is no fairy tale. There will be no third-act transformation. He is the monster, and she’s lucky to have escaped with her life.
    The doctors say I’ll make a full recovery. Please don’t blame yourself. This isn’t your fault; it’s mine. You are who you are; your life is what it is. I never should have tried to turn you into someone else. I never should have let you believe this was anything more than a vacation for me—I guess I let myself believe it too. But when this happened . . . I know what