After a minute, they switch places. Iris mutters, “Do we do breaths? I can’t remember, they changed it,” and Roya says, “Don’t worry about it, just take over,” and then Iris is doing compressions. As she presses down, something in Josh’s chest makes a crackling noise.
“Hey,” Roya says, looking me in the eyes. “Call my mom.”
“But—” I hesitate, but she keeps her eyes locked on mine as she holds Josh by the head, and I nod. “Right. Right, yeah.” I take my phone out of my pocket and make the call.
As soon as Roya’s mom picks up, I start talking. “We found him, we found Josh, we’re doing CPR, he’s here—”
“Where?” she interrupts.
“Where?” I repeat, realizing I have no fucking clue where we are. “Um, we’re—it’s a little off the path, it’s—”
“Are you with people? Do they know where the trail is?” Her voice is calm, direct, and I want to lean into it. She knows what to do. Someone knows what to do.
“Yeah, hang on, let me—” I look to Marcelina, who’s standing frozen, gripping Paulie’s arm. “Do you know where the trail is from here?” She nods. “Yeah, okay, Marcelina knows where it is.”
“Give her the phone,” Roya’s mom says, and I do. Marcelina doesn’t take her eyes off Josh as they talk. I watch her because I don’t know what else to do. I don’t know what to do.
She hangs up and gives me back the phone. “She told me to go find the trail, and then call her and tell her, uh.” She pauses, staring at Josh, until I snap my fingers at her. “Right. I’m supposed to call and tell her what marker we’re at, and she’ll come meet us.”
“I’ll go with you,” Maryam says softly, and Paulie doesn’t say anything, but together they all disappear into the trees, back the way we came.
“Fuck,” Iris whispers. “I don’t think this is working.”
“One more round,” Roya says.
“Can I help?” I ask, and Iris nods.
She grabs me and pulls me to where she’s kneeling, behind Josh’s head, and she shows me how to hold his head in place. His hair is so soft, the way it was when I buried his head in Marcelina’s woods near that broken tree. “Just like that,” she says. “Hold him still just like that. You’re keeping his airway clear so he can breathe if—if that’s something that can happen again.”
His body jolts every time Roya shoves the heels of her hands into his chest. I stare into his face, a face I kissed. This boy who would be alive if it wasn’t for me. I try to hold his head steady enough. If I just hold his head the right way, maybe he’ll breathe.
Please let this work, I think. Please let us save him. Please please please—
There’s crashing in the trees, and voices, and then everyone is everywhere. I hold Josh’s head as Roya and Iris stand up, as hands grip my shoulders to try to pull me away. If I hold his head, he might breathe, and they don’t understand, and they’re trying to pull me away. I open my mouth to yell at them—but then there’s a hand on my shoulder, and Paulie’s sending a sharp spark of magic into me, enough to jolt me away from Josh. She puts her hands under my armpits and hauls me up and away from him.
“Let them help,” she whispers in my ear, pulling me away from the body. “We’ve done what we can do.”
I look up. Everyone is here—Paulie and Roya and Marcelina and Maryam and Iris, and Roya’s mom, and the gray-haired cop from the school, and a half dozen others, all crowding around and doing things to help. They’re all helping, and I’m just … here. Useless.
I can’t fix it.
Paulie leads me to where our friends stand, half-huddled in a circle, leaning on each other. They look exhausted. Roya is flushed and sweating, and her eyes have taken on the same don’t-talk-to-me distance that they get after a swim meet. Iris is staring at the palms of her hands. Behind me, I can hear people loading Josh onto a stretcher. The sound of sirens is a rising howl in the distance.
“We did what we could,” Maryam whispers, wrapping her arms tight around Marcelina. Paulie squeezes my shoulder. “You did everything you could.”
She’s right. I did everything I could.
It just wasn’t enough.
23.
ROYA’S MOM PUTS OUR NAMES into a report, then tells us that we can go home. She says she’ll call us later, take our statements when our parents can be nearby for them. We leave together, even though she dismisses us separately.
We’re quiet for the entire walk back to the parking lot. No one really knows what to say. We bump into each other. I tangle my fingers loosely with Roya’s for a few paces, then drop them. It doesn’t feel right. Nothing feels right.
When we get back to the cars, we stand together awkwardly, not wanting to say goodbye but not wanting to stay here either. After a little bit of uncomfortable shuffling, Maryam looks up at me, visibly reluctant to say whatever’s on her mind.
“The arm,” she says.
“Yeah?” I ask.
Paulie clears her throat. “Did you … Where did it go? The arm that was cut off?”
It takes me a moment to catch up to what she’s asking. “I didn’t—no, I didn’t rip his arm off,” I say, trying to make it sound like a joke. Like something ridiculous.
Everyone looks at me.
“Do you really think I’d do that?” I ask.
“No,” Marcelina says quickly. “Of course not. Not on purpose. It’s just … maybe you did it by accident.”
Roya takes my hand again. “It’s okay,” she murmurs.
I shake my head. “No, it wasn’t me. I didn’t do that. He was like that when I found him.” It sounds like I’m lying, and I catch Iris looking out of the corner of her eye at Paulie. I don’t know how to make them believe me, so instead of saying anything else, I hold out my pinky finger.
After a second, Marcelina links her pinky with mine. “Okay,” she says.
“Right,” Maryam agrees. She adds her pinky to ours. One by one, so do the rest of them. It’s awkward—Roya has to bend her elbow at an angle that makes me cringe—but we all shake on it.
“No secrets,” I say.
“No secrets,” they repeat.
That awkward silence returns. Roya slips her arm around my waist and I lean into her. She’s warm.
She’s alive.
All of us are alive.
Iris clears her throat. “Can one of you drive me home? I, uh. I hurt myself while I was doing compressions on Josh.” She holds up her hands. There are crescent-moon cuts there, fingernail wounds. The blood that’s run across her palms and down her fingers is dry, but the wounds look deep and painful. “I held my hands wrong, I wasn’t—I wasn’t thinking. They tell you not to make fists, but …” She trails off helplessly. “I must have made fists.”
A pull flickers deep in my belly.
I couldn’t help with Josh. But I can help with this.
I take a deep breath, deep enough that white spots flare in my vision, and then I reach out and grab Iris’s fingers. Everyone gathers in close to look at her hands, to see what I’m doing. I grip them hard, look her in the eye, and whisper, “Hold still.”