Chapter 2One Like to Pull the Plug

The moment the oxygen was severed, the symphony of machines keeping Colin's body alive erupted into a frantic, flashing panic.

Alarms shrieked. The monitor above his bed began to draw jagged, desperate lines, warning us both that the meat suit on the mattress was rapidly expiring. The green line of his heartbeat began to flatten, stretching out like a long, terrible sigh.

It looked exactly like the monitor next to my grandmother’s bed, on that rainy Tuesday when I sat beside her, sobbing because I couldn't afford her life.

It took a few agonizing seconds for Colin to realize what I had done.

I wasn't playing a game. I wasn't being dramatic. I truly, deeply wanted him to die.

His ghost froze, staring at his own suffocating body, and then he began to scream. He threw himself against the heavy oak door of the ICU suite, pounding his fists against the glass, screaming for help.

But the universe has a wickedly ironic sense of humor.

He was a ghost. I was the only one who could see him. I was the only one who could hear his terror.

Realizing he was trapped, he floated back to me, dropping to his translucent knees.

[Jocelyn, stop being crazy! Plug it back in! Call the doctors!]

[What happened to your grandmother and our baby... that was an accident! But what you're doing right now is murder!]

[Are you trying to throw your life away for me?]

[I'm begging you. Plug it in. I promise, the second I wake up, I won't hold this against you. We can go back to how things were!]

I let out a sharp, breathless laugh.

Go back to how things were? A hundred dollars a like?

"I don't think so," I said, my voice shockingly calm. "You might have stopped seeing me as your wife a long time ago, but legally speaking, I am still your next of kin."

I reached over to the rolling tray and casually picked up the Do Not Resuscitate order the doctors had asked me to review. I waved the paper in the air.

"Which means I have the legal right to sign away your life. I can legally, rightfully, and completely lawfully pull your plug and send you straight to hell to apologize to my grandmother and my baby."

I leaned in closer to his shimmering face. "Besides, I played by your rules. I waited the agonizing fifteen minutes until the post got a like before I made my move. I learned this all from you, Colin. Did I do a good job?"