CHAPTER THIRTY

Pain.

Overwhelming, sickening pain.

In the darkness, with no sense of direction, no grasp on his surroundings, Aurelio couldn't even tell where the pain was the coming from, which made it all the more excruciating.

All he could do was whimper.

It took him a few seconds to be able to open his eyes, and when he did, he saw the inside of his parents' car. He was leaning his head back, looking up at the roof. He lowered his chin to check on Matt and Leslie, but his neck throbbed so hard and so suddenly that he froze instead, clenching his jaw and squeezing his eyes shut again.

"Matt," Aurelio mumbled. "Leslie?" No answer. Aurelio's chest tightened, and he forced his torso forward, only to hiss and blink back tears as a burning pain fired through his stomach. Breathing heavily, he strained to check the area and the sight nearly made him pass out.

The windows had shattered, and a few shards had cut his stomach open. Blood trickled around the wound, spilling over his leg and the seat. Bile rose up Aurelio's throat. He desperately swallowed it down and locked the fear and anxiety in his chest just so he could be able to act. Setting his eyes ahead, he tried to pinpoint any movement from Matt and Leslie, but they were both horrifyingly quiet and motionless.

It was this terror of losing them that made Aurelio reach for his door. After some pushing and pulling, he managed to open it, then he scooted to the edge and eased himself to the ground with a grunt. Except that the second he let his weight onto his legs, a sharp twinge hit his right knee, and he almost collapsed. He quickly held onto the door to keep himself upright. Then he limped over to the driver's seat, where Matt was.

"Matt." Aurelio's voice shook, and his watery eyes made the scene wobble and ripple before him; he could barely make out Matt's bloodied face, the wounds all over him, the tiny pieces of glass sticking out of him, the blood trickling from a cut above his brow over his eye and cheek. With a shaky hand, Aurelio reached a finger over to Matt's nose, checking his breathing.

Alive.

For now.

The air bags had exploded. All their phones were broken. Aurelio couldn't call an ambulence. He looked behind him, wondering if he could manage to hurry to the nearest place and ask for help, but the street was way, way too far away from any building. At either sides of the road were trees and land.

In front, there was the Jeep they'd crashed into, and to the side, a safe distance away, another car. And a man standing near it.

Aurelio's mouth fell open. "Hey," he managed. "Hey! Call an ambulence!" He looked at Leslie's limp body next to Matt. "We need help."

Silence. Aurelio gritted his teeth. "Please!" he shouted. "Please." His angry voice melted into a low, pleading one, and he tried wiping his tears with his sleeve, but he ended up crying into it instead. "They won't make it if you don't hurry." He looked up at the man again; his face was expressionless, emotionless, unbothered.

"I don't have my phone." The man shrugged.

He had a familiar voice. Aurelio frowned, squinting at him.

Uncle Ian.

"Uncle?" Aurelio said, but he had no time to question. "Then go get help. Go get someone to call an ambulence for Matt and Leslie." He glanced at them and his heart ripped apart. "If I move them on my own, I could accidentally make their injuries worse. Hurry."

Black smoke rose from the crushed hood of the Toyota, and Aurelio's gut squeezed. His heart skipped a beat. He froze to the core.

"Oh my God," he whispered, eyes widening with terror. "No, no, no. That's...That's gonna explode!"

Aurelio broke past his paralyzed trance and dashed towards Matt's side. "Uncle," he said as he tried opening the crumpled, jammed driver's seat door with trembling hands. "Help me. The car might blow up. Get Leslie, but try your best to keep her in the same position--" While trying desperately to dislodge the door, Aurelio glanced back at Uncle Ian. He was standing, doing nothing. Just staring. Aurelio frowned. "What the hell are you doing? Help me with Leslie! We have to get them both out before this thing blows up!"

Uncle Ian shook his head. "I can't help. They won't make it anyway."

The door broke and cracked against the ground, narrowly missing Aurelio's foot. Aurelio pushed it aside, numb to his own pain. Too consumed with worry over Matt and Leslie to even heed his injuries, to feel them.

"Open the doors of you car. I'm gonna put Matt and Leslie in there."

No answer.

"Then I already told you go get someone to call an ambulence for us!"

No answer. No movement. No intention to help.

Aurelio set his jaw, tears flooding his vision. He didn't understand why Uncle Ian was acting so cold, and he didn't have time to convince him to do something. So he cursed and cried silently and walked to Uncle Ian's car and opened the passenger and backseat doors.

"Fine!" Aurelio shouted, his voice breaking. "Fine. Just stand there. I'll do everything myself. But if...if something happens to them, I'm gonna kill you."

Then, disregarding the pain nipping at every inch of him, Aurelio walked back to Matt. The wheel had dislodged, pressing into Matt's stomach. Aurelio carefully removed it.

Matt's neck was hanging to the side, and Aurelio knew he couldn't move it. So he bent enough to slot his shoulder under Matt's cheek, supporting his neck, making sure it wouldn't move. Then he slipped an arm under his knees and another behind his shoulders. He scooped him out slowly, cautiously, keeping him in the exact same sitting position so he wouldn't make any injury worse.

He carried him carefully towards Uncle Ian's car, his lips parted for air because breathing through his nose wasn't enough anymore.

Aurelio stopped once he was near the car. He was straining his whole upper body to keep Matt as still as possible, and his knee felt like it could buckle under him any moment. He placed Matt in the backseat, looking at his dying face, swallowing down the sob in his throat.

Aurelio turned back and hurried to get Leslie.

"Don't bother," Uncle Ian said. "There's an easier way to deal with this."

What Aurelio didn't bother doing was responding to his uncle. He made his way to Leslie's side and lifted her the same way he had lifted Matt, then carried her towards Uncle Ian's passenger seat--a safe space away. If the crashed cars exploded, at least Matt and Leslie would be safe from that. At least they would survive it.

"Just look the other way," Uncle Ian continued. "They're dead if you look at them, and they're alive if you don't. Right? Isn't that your philosophy? Avoiding the problem?"

"They're not dead!"

"You're doing it again, idiot."

Aurelio tried to ignore his uncle's words. After placing Leslie in the backseat, he gently brushed off her sweaty, bloody hair that had stuck to his face and neck as he'd carried her. He watched her chest rise and fall to the beat of her breath.

Anything. Anything but losing Matt and Leslie.

Aurelio faced Uncle Ian.

"I don't ignore my problems anymore," he said. "I told Leslie everything. I told her everything I was feeling and everything that was happening. And I told my therapist too." He leaned back against the car, breathless. His shirt and pants were soaked from the blood gushing out his stomach, and it made walking even more tiring. He couldn't even comprehend where he'd gotten the strength to function from with his own injuries stealing his energy. "Give me," he breathed, "give me your keys if you don't wanna drive us."

Uncle Ian held the keys out, then took them away just as Aurelio stretched over to grab them. Aurelio slumped back against the car, empty-handed and exhausted.

"I uprooted my life for you, Elio," Uncle Ian said. "I changed my entire view on life for you. I changed my entire personality for you."

"Keys," Aurelio repeated. "We don't have time."

"I moved back into this stupid town for you," his uncle said, anger bubbling in the undertone. "I could have uprooted your life, Elio. I could have taken you away from Matt and Leslie. But no, for the first time in my entire life, I had to think about someone else's feelings. I had to put someone else first."

Guilt.

The guilt returned like a violent wave, filling Aurelio's lungs.

"I don't understand," Aurelio said. "I don't understand what this has to do with any of this." Some of the tears and blood on his face had dried, and they felt sticky against his flushed skin, and the place smelt like death and terror, and he just wanted Matt and Leslie to live. "But we'll talk about this later, Uncle. Please just give me your keys now."

Aurelio stumbled over so he could snatch them, but Uncle Ian pulled them away from his reach again. A wave of nausea hit Aurelio right then, dark spots swirling along his vision. He doubled over and clutched at the wound, grunting, but the stinging pain only intensified, and his knee couldn't hold him any longer. But before he could collapse, Uncle Ian gripped his arm and helped him to the ground.

Aurelio looked up at him, confused and hurt and heartbroken.

Uncle Ian was crying too now.

"One second I was a selfish man living alone," Uncle Ian continued, "and the next, my sister and my best friend were dead. And the next thing I knew, I had to raise a kid. A stupid little teenager. I never paid attention to the world, Elio. I never paid attention to anyone. And then suddenly I had to take care of a kid. And the worst part is that I ended up loving that stupid kid, but that kid didn't love himself, and he never took my advice. The worst part is that I ended up smiling when he smiles and..." His voice wavered, and he shook his head, aware of the tears trailing his face. "And crying when he cries."

There was silence for a moment. Uncle Ian backed away. The pain Aurelio had suppressed so he could carry Matt and Leslie swallowed him now, overwhelmed his entire being, and he couldn't stand no matter how hard he pressed his palm to the ground to raise himself.

"It's been three years, Elio," Uncle Ian said. "Three years. Three years of trying to get you to accept reality. Imagine it on yourself...Imagine that you're dead--"

"Stop," Aurelio choked out. "Please, please stop."

"You're dead, and you look down on your loved ones. And what do you find them doing?"

"Stop."

"You find them living their lives like nothing happened! You find them acting like you didn't die! What would you feel, Elio?" Uncle Ian crouched down in front of Aurelio, curling his fingers around his chin, harsh and unforgiving. "Tell me," he said, "what would you feel if they didn't mourn, didn't grieve, didn't even visit your grave once!"

"Nothing! I wouldn't blame them!"

Uncle Ian let out an ugly snort. "Nothing? You wouldn't blame them?"

"Yeah, I wouldn't!" Aurelio pushed his uncle's hand off. "I mean it. I would understand that maybe they loved me so much they can't comprehend that I'm gone. Maybe they're ignoring reality because it's too difficult to accept. Maybe they're just in denial."

Aurelio's eyes widened at the words that came out of his mouth. He tensed.

Denial.

Aurelio's breath hitched, and the world lagged. No, it stopped. The earth stopped rotating. Time froze. Noises muted. Everything reduced to nothing.

And then nothing sprouted into everything again.

All at once.

All the events of the past week flashed in Aurelio's head.

His dad. Matt. Smoking. Finding himself walking to his uncle's house. Blair. The lake. Swimming. Kissing. Being with Blair, but liking Leslie. Leslie's mom and the incident with her. Leslie's card. The other Elio. Never feeling comfortable. Everything reversing. Fear. Consequence.

Puzzle pieces in the wrong places.

Details mixed up, events warped by a convoluted truth--a convoluted reality.

A reality Aurelio had accepted at the expense of everything else. At the expense of his relationships with his friends. At the expense of his own sanity. A reality he'd constructed to cope. To never taste the bitterness of loss or the pain of change.

All the confusion, and its starting point. No, the changing point: the car crash on the news.

This car crash.

All this time he'd tried to convince himself it wasn't his tragedy.

But it was.

God, it was.

Aurelio looked around him, dumbfounded, the epiphany too heavy on his heart. A chill slowly passed across his spine. His shoulders shuddered. His whole body did.

Uncle Ian was starting to stand up again, but Aurelio grabbed his sleeve and tugged at it until he crouched again. Aurelio looked at him for a moment with soft, sad eyes, then leaned forward, hugging him, resting his cheek on his shoulder.

Uncle Ian stiffened, all the anger turning into shock. "...Elio?"

Tears trickled along Aurelio's cheek, hung at his jaw, then dropped on his uncle's shirt. "I'm sorry."

"Uh...?"

Aurelio pulled away, giving Uncle Ian a watery smile. "You're a good man," he said, patting his shoulder. His uncle's expression became more incredulous. "I kept feeling so much guilt whenever I was around you. I didn't understand why, but now I do." Aurelio sniffled and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. "I didn't mean to hurt you. I didn't mean to make you worry. It was hard for you too."

"Elio...I don't understand."

"I figured it out," Aurelio said.

"Figured what out?"

"What's happening. Everything makes sense now."

Uncle Ian didn't say anything else, and Aurelio prefered it that way. Aurelio forced himself to stand, holding onto the car for support. But his bloodied hands slipped off and he dropped onto his knees again, only this time he didn't bother trying to get up. Only this time, the pain in his chest anchored him down.

He leant his side against the car again, letting out a shaky breath. The feeble thread keeping his heart sown together broke now, and the tragedy of loss consumed him like a blackhole. He tucked his knees to his chest, curling into himself, hiding his face with his arm.

And he laughed, and he cried, and this ending world was a terrible, terrible, beautiful place.

• • •

If you're still confused, no worries!! in the next chapters (only 2 left btw) the truth will be explained more clearly. Tysm for reading/voting/commenting <3