Project: Perfect Summer.
Status Report: Week 3.
Items Completed: 4/7.
It turns out, stealing a traffic cone is harder than the movies imply. Mostly because Ethan insists on a risk assessment before they even leave the car.
"It's municipal property," Ethan says, hands at ten-and-two on the steering wheel of the Mustang. It is 2:00 AM on a Tuesday. "Theft is a misdemeanor. If we get arrested, your medical schedule is disrupted."
"Ethan," Violet hisses. She's crouching by the passenger door, wearing a black beanie that covers her purple hair. She looks like a cartoon burglar. "Just drive. I grab. You go. It's physics."
"It's delinquency."
"It's Item Number Five!"
She kicks the door open. She runs into the construction zone—which is deserted—grabs a battered orange cone, and sprints back. She dives into the passenger seat, breathless and laughing.
"Go, go, go!"
Ethan floors it. The Mustang roars, peeling away from the intersection of 5th and Main like they just robbed the Louvre.
Violet clutches the dirty orange cone to her chest like a prize.
"We did it!" she cheers. "We are hardened criminals."
"I am a CEO," Ethan mutters, checking the rearview mirror for police lights. "I was featured in Forbes Under 30. Now I'm a traffic cone accessory."
"You love it," she accuses.
He looks over at her. Her cheeks are flushed. Her eyes are bright, reflecting the streetlights. She isn't thinking about white blood cell counts. She isn't thinking about the three different pills she took with dinner to stop the tremors.
She's happy.
"Yeah," Ethan admits, the ghost of a smile touching his lips. "I love it."
He doesn't love the crime. He loves the spark. He will burn down the entire city if it keeps that spark in her eyes for one more second.
Item #2: Paint a Mural Legally.
Ethan doesn't do "illegal" art. He buys property.
Three days later, he drives her to a brick warehouse on the edge of the Arts District. It's a massive, blank wall facing the sunset.
"I leased the rights to this vertical surface for the next ninety-nine years," Ethan informs her, opening the trunk. It's filled with buckets of high-grade exterior acrylic, rollers, and scaffolding.
Violet stares at the wall. Then at him.
"You rented a wall?"
"I bought the building," Ethan clarifies. "It was faster than the permitting process."
Violet laughs. She presses her hands to her face. "You are absurd. You are the most absurd human being."
"The wall is yours. Make it permanent."
She looks at the vast expanse of red brick. Her expression shifts. It goes soft, vulnerable.
"That's a lot of space," she whispers. "I don't know if I have enough paint in me to fill it."
"I'll help," Ethan says. He takes off his jacket. He unbuttons his cuffs and rolls up his sleeves.
Violet eyes him. "Ethan with the Shiny Shoes? Getting dirty?"
"I'm broadening my horizons."
They work for six hours.
Violet directs. She sketches the outline in charcoal—large, sweeping arcs. Wings. But not angel wings. They're mechanical, geometric wings breaking out of a storm cloud. Abstract. Chaotic. Beautiful.
"Indigo!" she shouts from the top of the ladder. "Mix the indigo with the silver! I want it to look like bruising!"
Ethan mixes. He climbs. He paints the high corners she can't reach because looking up too long makes her dizzy.
By sunset, they are both covered in paint. Ethan has a streak of silver across his forehead. Violet is basically a walking rainbow.
She stands back, wiping her hands on her already-ruined overalls.
"It needs something," she murmurs. "The center. It's too empty."
She stares at the gap between the wings.
"It needs a heart," Ethan suggests.
"Too literal." She taps her chin with a paint-stained finger. She sways slightly.
Ethan steps in behind her, hands hovering near her waist, ready to catch. Always ready.
"What about a clock?" she suggests softly. "A broken one."
"Violet."
"Because time is broken, isn't it?" She turns to him. The sunset paints her face in fire and shadow. "It feels broken. We're moving too fast and too slow at the same time."
She reaches out, dipping her thumb into a can of pure gold paint.
"Hold still," she orders.
She presses her thumb against his white shirt, right over his heart. It leaves a perfect golden print.
"There," she says. "A heart of gold. For the man who bought a building just to see me smile."
She turns back to the wall. She walks up to it and presses her gold thumb against the center of the mural.
"Now we're linked," she says.
Ethan stares at the smudge on his chest. It will ruin the shirt. He will never wash it.
"Let's finish it," he says hoarsely.
They paint until the streetlights buzz on.
When it's done, it's a masterpiece of desperation. The wings look like they're struggling to lift the heavy brick wall into the sky.
Violet sits on the curb, drinking a Gatorade. Her hand is shaking violently now—the adrenaline crash.
"Hey, Ethan?"
"Yes?" He's cleaning the brushes, scrubbing hard to hide his own trembling.
"Do you think people will look at it? When I'm gone?"
The question stops him cold.
"Violet."
"No, really," she says, matter-of-factly. "Will they just walk by? Or will they stop? I want them to stop. Even just for a second."
Ethan walks over. He sits next to her on the dirty curb. He takes her paint-stained hand in his.
"I will make sure they stop," he says. "I'll put a plaque. I'll light it up. I'll force every employee at Sterling & Cross to walk past it every morning."
She rests her head on his shoulder. "You're intense."
"I'm efficient."
"I'm tired, Ethan."
"I know."
"My arm... I can't feel my left arm."
Ethan freezes. "Numbness?"
"Yeah. Since the third coat of silver. Just... pins and needles. Now nothing."
He checks the list of symptoms Dr. Wells gave him.
Peripheral neuropathy. Late stage. Tumor compression affecting motor cortex.
"It's the painting," he lies. "Overexertion. Muscle fatigue."
"You're a bad liar," she mumbles, closing her eyes. "But thanks for trying."
She leans her weight against him.
"Take me home, Jeeves. I need my pills. The scary ones."
Status Report: Week 7.
The decline isn't a slope. It's a staircase. She stays stable for days, then drops down a step suddenly.
Violet stops humming.
Ethan notices it on a Wednesday. He's making breakfast—pancakes, attempting to replicate the ones she likes from the diner. She's sitting at the island, staring at a coffee mug.
Usually, she hums while she waits. The three notes. Mmm-hmm-hmm.
Today, silence.
"Vi?"
She looks up. Her reaction time is delayed. Lag time: two seconds.
"Yeah?"
"You okay?"
"Just thinking."
"About?"
"I don't remember," she says frankly. "I had a thought. Then it dissolved. Like cotton candy in water."
She looks at her hands.
"Ethan. I can't hold the fork."
Ethan drops the spatula. He walks around the island.
Her hand is curled into a claw. The muscles are rigid.
"Cramp," he says calmly. "We'll massage it."
"No," she says. Tears pool in her eyes. "It's the claw. The doctor said the claw would happen."
She pushes the plate away with her elbow.
"I can't eat. I'm not hungry."
"You have to eat," Ethan pleads. "For the energy. For the List."
"Screw the List!" she snaps. It's sudden, angry. "I don't want to go waltzing, Ethan! I can't even hold a fork! Stop pretending this is an adventure! It's a tragedy! It's a horror movie!"
She sweeps the mug off the counter. It shatters on the floor.
Coffee and ceramic shards everywhere.
Silence.
Ethan doesn't flinch. He doesn't look at the mess. He looks at her.
"Okay," he says. "It's a horror movie."
"I hate it!" She's crying now, ugly sobbing. "I hate being weak. I hate you seeing me like this."
"You think this scares me?" Ethan asks.
"It should! It scares me!"
Ethan walks through the broken glass. He doesn't care about his feet. He reaches her and pulls her off the stool, into his arms.
She fights him for a second, hitting his chest with her good hand.
"Let me go! I'm broken!"
"You're not broken," he says into her ear. "You're just... abstract."
She stops fighting. She sags against him, weeping into his neck.
"I miss myself, Ethan. I miss who I was two months ago."
"I know," he whispers. "I miss her too."
He holds her until the sobs turn into hiccups.
"I'll clean this up," he says eventually.
"No," she says. "Leave it. It adds texture."
It's a joke. A weak one. But it's there.
Ethan smiles sadly. "Texture. Right."
Item #6: See Something Bioluminescent.
They don't go to New Zealand.
By Week 9, Violet needs a wheelchair for anything longer than a trip to the bathroom. Her left side is unresponsive.
But Ethan Cross is a man of his word.
He transforms the spare room.
He hires a lighting crew from a theater production company. He covers the walls in black velvet. He installs thousands of fiber optic cables in the ceiling, programmed to mimic the exact star pattern of the night she was born.
And in the center of the room, on a pedestal, a tank.
"Close your eyes," Ethan says, wheeling her in.
"They're closed," she murmurs. Her voice is slurred now. The tumor is pressing on the speech centers.
"Open."
She opens her eyes.
The room is pitch black, except for the tank. Inside, hundreds of tiny, glowing blue lights are swirling in the water.
Bioluminescent plankton. Flown in from Puerto Rico on a private jet, kept in a climate-controlled environment.
Violet gasps.
"Magic," she whispers.
"Biology," Ethan corrects gently, kneeling beside her chair. "Chemical reaction. Luciferin and oxygen."
"Magic," she insists.
She leans forward. The blue light reflects on her face, turning her pale skin spectral. For a moment, she looks like a spirit already.
"Touch it," Ethan says.
"Can I?"
"I asked the marine biologist. He said yes, as long as your hands are clean. Which they are."
He lifts her good hand—the right one—and guides it into the water.
The water is warm. As her fingers disturb the surface, the plankton flare brighter. Swirls of neon blue trail from her fingertips.
"I'm painting," she breathes. "Ethan, look. I'm painting with light."
"I see it."
"It's... indigo," she decides. "Indigo and stardust."
She swirls her hand for a minute, mesmerized. Then she stops.
She looks at her reflection in the dark water.
"Ethan?"
"I'm here."
"If I come back," she says slowly, the words heavy on her tongue. "If souls get recycled... do you think I'll remember this?"
Ethan grips the armrest of her wheelchair.
"I don't know," he says honestly. "But I will. I'll remember for both of us."
She turns to him. In the blue glow, her heterochromatic eyes are fierce again.
"No," she says. "That's not enough. I want me to remember. Promise me."
"Promise you what?"
"Find me," she demands. "If I go... and if I come back... find me again. Don't let me be lonely. Don't let me fall."
Ethan swallows a lump in his throat that feels like broken glass.
"I'll find you," he vows. "In every timeline. In every universe. I will always find you. 3:47 PM. Under the cherry blossoms."
She smiles. "3:47 PM. That's a date."
She pulls her hand out of the water. Glowing drops fall from her fingers.
"I'm tired, Shiny Shoes."
"Okay. Bedtime."
"Did we finish the list?"
Ethan looks at the list in his head.
1. Gelato (Done)
2. Mural (Done)
3. Waltz (Done)
4. Drive-In (Done)
5. Cone (Done)
6. Bioluminescence (Done)
7. Miracle (Pending)
"Almost," Ethan says. "Just one left."
"The miracle," she whispers. She closes her eyes, leaning back in the chair. "I think... I think you were the miracle, Ethan."
Ethan feels a single tear track down his cheek. He wipes it away instantly. Inefficiency.
"Let's get you to sleep."
He wheels her out of the room of stars, leaving the bioluminescent lights to swirl in the dark, witnessing nothing but the silence.
Two Days Later.
The miracle doesn't come.
The seizure does.
It happens at 3:00 AM. Violent. Unstoppable.
Ethan holds her on the bed, timing it, screaming for Marcus to call 911, breaking his own rule about hospitals because he cannot watch her shake apart.
She goes into a coma in the ambulance.
Ethan sits in the ICU waiting room. He is covered in sweat and terror.
Dr. Wells comes out at dawn. She looks defeated.
"The brain stem," she says softly. "She's not waking up, Ethan. It's time."
"No," Ethan says. "Hook her up to life support. Machines. Keep the heart beating."
"Ethan..."
"I said keep her running!" He slams his fist into the wall. "I need more time! I need to fix it!"
"You can't fix death," Wells says, her voice breaking. "Go sit with her. Hold her hand. Let her go."
Ethan walks into the room.
Violet looks small in the bed. Tubes. Wires. Beeping monitors.
It is the opposite of the Perfect Summer. It is a technological nightmare.
He sits down. He takes her hand. It is limp.
He looks at the monitor.
Heart rate: 42. Dropping.
"Violet," he whispers. "I failed. I tried to maximize the joy, but I failed to stop the ending."
The monitor beeps slower.
Beep... Beep...
He remembers the wish. The loop triggers on Death.
If she dies, does he get another chance? Or was the loop a one-time glitch?
He squeezes her hand.
"If you can hear me," he whispers, leaning close to her ear. "We're going to try again. And next time... next time I won't just distract you. I'll save you. I don't care about the laws of physics. I'll rewrite them."
Beep...
...
...
Silence.
The straight line on the monitor screams a high-pitched tone.
Dr. Wells rushes in. "Time of death..."
Ethan closes his eyes.
He waits for the darkness. He waits for the reset.
But for a horrifying ten seconds, nothing happens. He just stands there, holding the dead hand of the girl he loves, in a sterile room that smells of bleach.
"No," he gasps. "Reset. RESET!"
He screams it at the ceiling.
Dr. Wells puts a hand on his shoulder. "Ethan, she's gone."
"NO!"
Ethan grabs the bed rail. He stares at Violet's face.
Please, he thinks. I know the rules now. I know what to do. One more time. Just give me one more time.
The world flickers.
Like a corrupted video file. The grey walls dissolve into pixels. The sound of the flatline stretches, warps, turns into the sound of... wind?
White light explodes behind his eyes.
Ethan falls.
3:47 PM.
Ethan Cross checks his watch.
He staggers, nearly dropping his briefcase. The smell of cherry blossoms hits him like a physical blow.
"Whoa, watch it buddy!"
A tourist bumps into him.
Ethan looks up.
Pink petals. Blue sky. The fountain.
He breathes. He is shaking violently. He checks his chest—no paint smear. He checks his wrist—no marker drawing of a watch.
It reset.
He turns.
She is there. Violet. On the fountain edge.
Alive.
Ethan doesn't move this time. He just stares at her, tears streaming down his face, paralyzed by the sheer magnitude of his torture and his salvation.
He has to do it all again.
And he has absolutely no idea how to save her.