I throw some clothes on and slip out the back door and toward the road. When it starts to rain, I pull my hood up, but I keep going.
I have someplace to be.
I pick up the pace, jogging until I get to the cross and ribbons.
Gulping, I stand at the side, looking down at the ravine, at the broken trees, at the black marks and bent limbs.
My mother died here.
But I always knew that.
Turning, I cross to the other side, to the side facing the ocean.
Living things are broken on this side too. The bracken and bushes and trees. They’re bent and broken but still living. They thrive on the side of the mountain, coming back from the brink.
The viridem.
The green.
It’s still here, but Finn isn’t.
His car flipped down the side of this mountain and plunged into the water.
Staring out over the glass-like surface, you’d never know that Finn died there. But I do. I know it now.
And it’s too much to bear.
It’s too much.
I sink to my feet and pull my knees to my chest, closing my eyes, feeling the hot tears form beneath my eyelids. Focusing hard, I picture Finn’s face. I picture him sitting right next to me, right now.
“Hey Cal,” he would say. “Do you know that the sloppy handwriting of physicians kill more than 2,000 people each year—from getting the wrong medications?”
I shake my head sadly at him. “No.”
He nods, smug in his superior knowledge of strange death facts. “It’s true.”
“But that’s not what killed you.”
My voice is stark, and I realize that I’m speaking out loud. And I don’t care.
Imaginary Finn shrugs. “No. But everyone is just as dead, regardless of the cause.”
“I’m not ready, Finn,” I tell him weakly. “You can’t go.”
My body is like ice, my nerves like wood. He smiles at me, the old smile that I love, the one that lights up his pale blue eyes.
“I couldn’t help it, Cal,” he tells me seriously. “But you’ve got to deal with it. You’ve got to move on.”
“To where?” I ask him simply. “I can’t go anywhere without you.”
The pain in my voice is scalpel sharp, cutting through me with precision.
“You have to,” Finn replies. “You’ve got no choice, Calla. You have to.”
“Calla?”
The voice comes from behind me, from beside the road. Within a minute, Dare is sitting next to me, staring out to sea with me.