He said, “There were good days. Many good days. But they weren’t all that way. Sometimes we’d fight over stupid things. You spent the night at Gordo’s a couple of times. Or that’s where you said you were going. But without fail, the next morning, I’d find you sleeping outside the bedroom door on the floor. Even when you were mad at me, you couldn’t stand the thought of being away for long.” A tear trickled down his cheek, and he wiped it away. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be so—”
“No,” I said hoarsely. “It’s okay. It’s fine. I like hearing this. I need it.” That didn’t seem quite right. I shook my head. “I want it.”
“I should have done more,” Kelly said, and his chest hitched a couple of times before he got it under control. “I wasn’t… I wasn’t strong enough.”
I shook my head furiously. “No. Kelly, that’s not—you couldn’t have stopped him. I don’t think anyone could have.”
He was getting worked up, brow furrowing, the corners of his mouth drawing down. “That’s what everyone told me. That’s what I tried to tell myself.” His eyes shone in the pale moonlight as he looked at me. “But how could I have let this happen?”
I squeezed his hand so tight, I thought his bones would turn to dust, the blade of grass still between us. He didn’t try to pull away.
I said, “You’ve gotta hear me” and “you’ve gotta listen to me” and “Kelly, Kelly, Kelly, it doesn’t matter now. It doesn’t matter because no matter what happened, we’re still here. We’ve still found our way back. I know it’s not like it was, and I don’t know if it ever will be, but god, look at us. Look where we are. Even after everything. I don’t know you well yet, but I want to. And I don’t know that I’ve ever wanted anything more.”
He said, “You don’t know that, you don’t know what you want, how can you, how can you even know if this is—”
A peal of thunder rippled overhead.
Water splashed against my hair. Against my cheeks. The tip of my nose. Our joined hands, trickling between us, wetting the blade of grass.
I looked up to see thick clouds rolling.
The fireflies winked out.
“It’s raining,” I said, and I didn’t know why it felt monumental. “I saw you.”
“When?”
I closed my eyes against the sprinkle of rain. It was warm and cleansing, and wolves began to howl. “In Caswell. I don’t know if it’s a memory or a vision, but we were walking together. Just you and me. I didn’t know it was you. You weren’t clear. Like a haze. Fuzzy. But we were together, and you were holding my hand, and you were acting weird. You’d told me I needed to come with you, and I said you were acting all—”
“Mysterious.”
I opened my eyes. “Yeah. Mysterious. And you said it wasn’t bad. That it was good. You hoped it would be good. And even though I didn’t know who you were, I believed you. Because I knew you would never lie to me.”
He was quiet for a moment. Then, “It wasn’t a memory. At least not for you. It was… from me. When we found out where you were, Aileen and Patrice thought we could reach you somehow. That even though Livingstone had a hold over you, the bonds between us all were stronger than any magic he had. They said that if any of us could get through to you, it’d be either Joe or Ox.”
“Or you.”
He nodded. “Aileen said I needed to show you something bright. Something warm. Not necessarily the best thing that ever happened to us, but something personal and significant.”
I felt like I was on a precipice. My toes were at the edge, and all I needed to do was lean over into the void and it would all become clear. “What did you want to show me? What happened that day?”
I never got an answer.
I never got an answer because the void wasn’t empty.
I stepped off the edge and
(would you hear me, dear?)
(of course you would)
(because even behind the wards)
(even beyond the layers upon layers of magic)
(i see you)
(and i’ll never let you go)