Chapter 2
Dakota and Freya headed upstairs.
I floated after them. The hallway lights were still busted, paint was peeling off the walls, and there were flyers and graffiti everywhere.
It had been four years, and this place hadn't changed at all.
Dakota walked up to the fifth floor and stopped in front of the apartment I used to live in.
The lock was rusty, and he had to twist it a few times before it finally turned.
As soon as he pushed the door open, a cloud of dust hit them. Freya coughed a couple of times, and Dakota immediately shielded her behind him. "Step back a little."
He went in first.
The place was dark, curtains drawn, furniture draped in white sheets. No one had set foot here in two years, and the whole place reeked of mold.
Dakota stood in the center of the living room, scanning every inch of the space.
The apartment was tiny, a bedroom and a living room, barely fifty square yards. All the furniture was old junk left behind by the landlord.
The couch had a hole in it, and on the coffee table sat a takeout box I never got around to tossing before I died. Now it was growing fuzz.
He walked into the bedroom and pulled open a drawer.
The drawer was a mess, filled with all the random stuff I left behind, receipts, half-used lipstick, and a few hair ties.
He rummaged through it and, at the very back, found a manila envelope.
He opened it up and pulled out a stack of medical records and a single sheet of paper.
The medical records read: [Kelsey Robinson, female, 26 years old, Acute Myeloid Leukemia.
[Diagnosis date: March 15, 2022.
[Date of death: July 22, 2022.]
And the other paper was a bone marrow donation consent form.
[Donor's signature: Kelsey Robinson.]
And in the recipient's name field, clear as day, was written: [Freya Madden.]
The date was March 16, 2022.
That was the day after my diagnosis.
I signed it.
Dakota's hand was trembling as he held the paper.
He looked down and flipped through the medical records, page by page. At the end, he found a handwritten note from me.
It read: [Mr. Herman, if you ever need my stem cells for Ms. Madden, don't bother asking. Use them. I owe you, anyway.]
He gripped the note so hard that his knuckles went white.
Then he started tearing through the other drawers like a madman, spilling their contents everywhere.
He found even more medical records, chemotherapy reports, bone marrow biopsy results, and critical condition notices.
On every single critical condition notice, the next of kin's signature line was left blank.
Because there was no one to sign for me.
My mom was back home taking care of my sick dad, and Shane was in the military, out of contact.
And Dakota, my boyfriend in name only, the only one I had in four years, was off in Peyham.
He flipped through the medical records, his hands shaking harder with each page, until he was trembling all over.
"Kelsey!" he suddenly shouted, his voice rough. "Kelsey, where are you? Show yourself."
He stormed around the apartment like a wounded beast, ripping out drawers one after another and throwing their contents onto the floor.
"Kelsey. Kelsey." He kept calling my name, each cry more piercing, more heart-wrenching than the last.
Freya stood in the doorway, backing away a couple of steps, clearly frightened. "Dakota, stop, you're scaring me."
Dakota didn't hear a word she said.
He crouched on the floor, clutching his head, his whole body curled up in a ball, his shoulders shaking violently.
I floated above him, watching from above.
I spent four years loving him, and in the end, he never gave me a real look.
Now he was crouched in the room I used to call home, looking like a lost stray dog.
But inside, I felt nothing.
Because I'd already died.
The day I died, I left all my love behind on that cold slab in the morgue.