The Thief and the Globetrotter

Chapter Twenty-Five: The Executor

Gwen.

Rei sunk into a chair, her heart sinking with her. For all their disagreements, their growing apart and colliding again, Rei couldn't make herself believe that Gwen wasn't hurt by this. She came, choosing to brighten up the hospital room for her own sanity, to give herself something to look at while she sat in the same chair Rei currently occupied. Grief was not Rei's to own, though she had been granted especial right to a brand of it. She had the authority to stop everything.

She reached for Angelo's too-cold hand, cupping it in both of hers. His face, drawn and sallow from the weeks without sunshine and expensive imported wines, was almost too difficult to look at.

It was time. Her heart ached for not accepting that sooner. She wanted to be the person that Angelo thought she was, the woman who could make decisions, the right decisions, when not everyone could have that strength. She wanted to be the kind of person Sébastien thought she was, too.

The tears stung in her eyes and she squeezed them shut, fighting off the water works. It wasn't supposed to come to this. In a different version, an alternate universe, he recovered and maybe it wasn't easy, but it gave Rei the chance to repay him for all the time he spent supporting her and pushing her toward her potential.

In that alternate universe, maybe Gwen returned to Temperance for a while, but she always went back to the catwalks and magazines shoots where she was more at home than she ever was in the city on the coast. Maybe Sundial collapsed under Cheng's watch when something finally gave in his grand scheme, probably pulling Rei, Angelo, and Sébastien all down with him.

Instead, Rei was handed a different deck, one dictated by a string of choices that were all hers. Give Angelo what he wanted. Doom her brother. Come to the hospital despite knowing that it meant seeing Gwen.

The tears slipped down her cheeks and Rei brushed them away in frustration.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, wanting to desperately believe that the nurses were right when they said that even the comatose could hear voices. She was sorry for it all, for disappearing and letting Angelo lie alone in the hospital bed. She was sorry for attempting to run from the responsibility he granted her, for not even considering the possibility that he could be right and she could, in fact, handle his passing gracefully and fairly. Did he know that dying would upset her universe the way it did, that it put a target squarely on her back?

Rei stood, taking a deep, shuddering breath.

"Goodbye."

She couldn't risk that chance that she might not have another opportunity. Rei had the power to interfere with the living will, but if she did nothing... Well... Rei briefly considered finding herself an alternative route out of the hospital, but the idea soured for two reasons: 1) Rei did not share Sebastian's building-climbing abilities and 2) it would return Rei into the state of cowardice she was attempting to shred.

Drawing herself up on shaky legs, Rei turned from the bed and left the room. She closed the door behind her slowly, as though the thud of it against the jamb would wake Angelo from his sleep. Nothing would. She was sure of that much, and yet...

"Hello, Rei."

Rei squeezed her eyes shut, drawing out the moment to give herself time to prepare. The entire way to the hospital, Rei played this conversation out in her mind, but Gwen was never that predictable. Rei could never accurately fill in the blanks where Gwen's dialogue would go.

"Gwen," Rei said, finally willing herself to look up. Her little black dress wasn't truly made for mourning, but it was the right colour. There was a sharp jab in her chest of all the things Gwen reminded her of. Gwen stealing the attention of every boy that even considered Rei, Gwen walking runways in Italy while Rei settled in Temperance, but also both of them getting Italian ices while on holiday, keeping each other entertained while their parents took care of their grown-up business.