No, you're not alone, and I have had an unanswerable question/unavoidable moment, and it's difficult to write through that, so I'm going to point out three things to help you out here: 1984, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (the actual book, not the movie(s)), and Jane Eyre.
In the Hunchback, everybody dies. Literally everyone. And as I was reading it, I spent the entire novel thinking "maybe this will happen. Maybe that will happen. Maybe they will get out of it. maybe, maybe, maybe, please let it be so. And it was great. Did everyone die? Yes. Does everyone end up unhappy and unfulfilled with the exception of the most cowardly of the named characters? Yes. And was it amazing? Yes. It wasn't amazing because the author killed his darlings, it was amazing because he created so many opportunities for it not to happen and then had each character act in the way that they bad been the entire time.
In the Jane Eyre, the same thing happens, only the ending is the opposite: everyone but the most troublesome of characters lives. There were a lot of ways for things to go wrong, and for either the characters I was cheering for to die (Jane, when scarlet fever came to Lowell school, and when Rochester's wife rips up her veil, and Rochester, during his many trips abroad, during the times when he had to subdue his wife, during either of the fires), or their love to do so (when everyone comes to the manor for that month long house party thing, when Jane is proposed to, when she finds out about Rochester's wife), but it doesn't happen. By each and every character acting in the way they were set up to act (and no small amount of luck, what with the fires and what not) they wind up where they need to be. The whole time this is all happening, I'm just, like: please don't die please don't die please don't die.
And, finally, 1984.
The ending was obvious from the start; Winston spends the entire book reflecting on the nature of society, acknowledging that it would crush him sooner rather than later, and doing what he wants anyways. So even though I knew how it was going to end from the beginning, I still read on. No, Winston and Julie don't die, but their society kills their minds, and that's death enough.
I say all this to say that to have them live or die is not important; it's what simultaneously makes both the most sense and the best story. Good luck.