Breath (29 page)

Xander aimed for the tree and floored the pedal.

He wanted to die.

He wanted to die.

A still, small voice asked him if he wanted to die, and he realized, as the tree rushed up to embrace him, that no, he didn’t want to die.

He wanted to live.

He jerked the wheel and hit the brake.

The sound of a screech of tires.

Impact, then echoes of contact, then nothing.

***

And then, a beep.

And another.

And then Xander was staring at himself, battered and broken in a hospital bed. His body was filthy with plaster and tubes. His mom and dad sat beside him, his mom holding one hand and his dad the other. They were talking to him, begging him to wake up, Son, please wake up.

Open your eyes, Zan.

Next to the bed, a machine beeped with Xander’s every heartbeat.

On the bed, another machine allowed Xander to breathe.

He stared at himself as he remembered everything—his plan to follow Riley to college, his reneging on Carnegie Mellon and then not getting accepted to Stanford, finding Ted and Riley at the party together. He remembered all that and more.

In his pocket, his lucky penny burned.

“So here we are,” said a cheerful voice.

He looked to his left, to the corner of the room, and there was Death, smiling and leaning against the wall.

“So here we are,” Xander said dully, turning back to the bed, to his parents begging him to please wake up, please, please, open his eyes.

“They’ve all come to see you,” said Death. “Your parents, of course, but they never left. Isabella. Suzanne. Edward. Others from school. They’ve come to pay their respects and share their wishes. Some have said goodbye. Others keep hoping you’ll get better. Suzanne’s been here every day, yelling at you to wake up already.”

“I don’t understand,” Xander said. “I was with Riley. We were together. Weren’t we?”

“In the world you created, absolutely.”

Xander’s mouth opened, closed, opened again, but no sound came out.

“It’s one of the things I like best about you people,” said Death. “Your uncanny ability to create. Goes hand in hand with your innate ability to lie to yourselves, and to believe those lies.”

“What . . .” Xander’s voice cracked. He licked his lips and tried again. “What are you saying?”

“It was quite the crash,” said Death. “Broken bones. Massive brain trauma. You were in surgery for hours. You’ve been comatose for weeks.”

A lump formed in Xander’s throat, and he swallowed thickly.

“The doctors have told your parents that tests indicate you’re brain-dead. The staff have been speaking to them about your quality of life. Your parents have been praying for a miracle. And you? You created a world within your mind. That was your reality, Xander—at least, for a little while.” Death smiled. “You were both the hero and the author of your own story.”

“So me and Riley . . .”

“Never dated,” Death said gently. “You crushed on Riley for years, but nothing ever came of it. You thought you were in love, so you applied to Stanford. And you know how that turned out.”

Xander blurted, “But what about you? Your lost soulmate? Your being suicidal?” Now he was shouting: “What about the Horsemen? The end of everything? What was all that?”

“That was you, Xander. Your world. Your rules. Your story.”

“Oh God.” Xander hung his head. “None of it happened.”

“It happened, Xander,” Death said. “Whether in that world or this one, it happened. And one thing is true in both worlds: It really is the end of everything.”

Xander whispered, “Today’s the day the world ends.”

“For you, yes. The doctors have convinced your parents that there’s nothing they can do, that all that’s left for you is this bed and those machines. Today’s the day your parents are going to take you off life support.”

By the bed, his father begged Xander to breathe.

“You have to decide,” Death said, “right now, whether you want to live.”

“I wanted to die. I was going to die.”

“You were on your way to wrapping your car around a tree,” Death agreed. “But at the last second, you cut the wheel and hit the brake. Something made you want to live. What was it?”

Xander said, “I don’t have Riley.”

“You never did.”

“I don’t have college.”

“For now? Certainly. But that doesn’t have to be for always.”

“My best friend betrayed me.”

“Only if that’s how you choose to see it.” Death chuckled. “There are always other sides to every story, even the ones you think you’re writing. You just have to be willing to listen.”

Xander looked down at his feet. “Even if I die,” he said quietly, “Mom and Dad still have Lex. It’s not like they can’t forget me and move on.”

“Xander,” Death said patiently, “what did your parents call you when you were a baby? What was your nickname until third grade?”

He remembered. “Oh, no.”

“Yes, Xander. You were Lex until third grade, and ever since then you’ve been Xander.”

He whispered, “No.”

“You’re about to die, Alexander Atwood.”

He begged, “Please, no.”

“I’m afraid so. You don’t have to. There’s still a chance. But you have to meet me halfway. You have to open your eyes, Xander. You have to breathe.”

He stammered, “I don’t know what’s going to happen to me.”

A soft laugh. “No one does, Xander. That’s part of what makes life so interesting. It is what it is.”

Xander closed his eyes. “How can life be interesting if there’s nothing left to hope for?”

“The thing about hope,” said Death, “is that it changes over time.”

Xander remembered kissing Riley. He remembered holding Lex. He remembered getting accepted to Stanford. He remembered all of that, and more.

He remembered that was all a lie.

He could take the lie with him to the grave.

Or he could live, and find out whether, after all this time, he could find a different hope.

The coin weighed heavily in his pocket.

“It’s time, Alexander Atwood,” Death said gently. “What do you want to do?”

He took a breath and opened his eyes. He looked at his body, at his parents, and he turned to face Death, his death.

And then he gave his answer.

Xander’s mom and dad held hands as they watched their son lying on what would surely be his deathbed. Hours of tears had left delicate patterns on their cheeks, painting their sorrow on their skin. But now there were no more tears. Eyes burning, mouths grim, they sat in their hospital chairs and stared at their son. Even their prayers were used up, finished.

All that was left was saying goodbye.

And then Alexander Atwood opened his eyes.

THE END

When I wrote
Hunger,
the character Death just happened. I hadn’t planned on making him any certain way; he pulled an Athena and sprang fully formed out of my head. I hadn’t even been into Nirvana at the time, and yet he was the spitting image of Kurt Cobain, down to playing the guitar and singing. Death: wise-cracking and all-knowing, patient with just a hint of scary. I liked him.

As the Riders of the Apocalypse series progressed, Death revealed himself more and more. In
Rage,
there was a touch of intimacy; in
Loss,
there were flashes of Death as something else—something old and powerful and so far removed from humanity that we can’t begin to comprehend what he really is. Something
other.

And then I really,
really
liked him.

When it was time for me to write Death’s book, his origin didn’t pull an Athena. Instead, there was music. Sure, there was Nirvana—specifically, Nirvana’s cover of the Meat Puppets’ song “Oh Me.” And there were other songs from other groups that all go on the
Breath
soundtrack, including Breaking Benjamin’s “I Will Not Bow” and Linkin Park’s “In the End.” But there was one song in particular that hit me right between the eyes: “Snuff
” by Slipknot, on the album
All Hope Is Gone.
I heard this song, and suddenly Death’s origin began to unfold. At its center were love and betrayal—and how slim the line is between hope and hopelessness. When Death gives up on life, what hope is there for the world?

The answer to that is
Breath.

Just as this is Death’s story, it’s also Xander Atwood’s. He’s a boy with a secret, a boy with a connection to Death—a boy who can save the world. Because at the end of the day, when it’s
our
world that’s crumbling, it’s up to us to save it.

So
Breath
is about Death, yes, but it’s also about life, and living, and the choices we make. It’s about the shift from being powerless to being empowered.

It’s about hope.

***

If you’re wondering about the last scene with the Four Horsemen together, here’s the answer: Spalding Gray. It came to me in a dream. Not quite the same thing as pulling an Athena, but it’ll do.

***

Safe to say that we’ve all been hurt before, some of us more than others. Sometimes, something happens and we get so hurt that all we can feel is that pain. It’s like we’ve become an open wound that will never heal.

This has happened to me before, a few times. And my God, it was bad. I felt like the ground had been ripped up from beneath me, and then I was in a state of free fall. But the bottomless pit wasn’t bottomless after all—I hit, and hit hard. And then I was so far down that there seemed no way out of the hole. I walked around in a daze, disconnected from everything. How could I focus on living when I felt like I was dying?

Depression sucks. There’s no candy-coating it. There’s no bright side. Depression sucks, period.

I got out of that hole, thanks to a small group of people whom I trust completely. That was hard, too, because when the ground had been ripped up beneath me, my trust had been shattered. But the people who love me were there for me, unquestioningly, unflinchingly. And they not only helped me out of that hole, they filled it. None of that would have happened if I didn’t trust them and hadn’t told them how I was feeling. I talked to them, and they listened. And they helped me.

If you’re hurting, don’t keep it inside. Talk about it. You can always contact the terrific people at To Write Love On Her Arms. TWLOHA is a nonprofit organization dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, self-injury, addiction, and suicide. TWLOHA also invests directly in treatment and recovery. For more information about the organization, please visit the TWLOHA website:
www.twloha.com
.

Just like with
Rage,
a portion of
Breath
proceeds will go to TWLOHA. If you bought this book, thank you for helping to make a difference.

Visit
www.hmhbooks.com
to find all of the books in the Riders of the Apocalypse series.

J
ACKIE
M
ORSE
K
ESSLER
is the author of the the Riders of the Apocalypse quartet for teen readers, along with several paranormal and dark fantasy books for adults. She lives in upstate New York. Visit her at
www.jackiemorsekessler.com
.