“How are you, Benji?” my father finally asks, his voice light and happy. It’s such a ridiculous question I can’t help but laugh out loud. And even though he may not understand, my father starts to laugh just the same. Such a big fucking sound. “Okay,” he says, chuckling. “That might not have been the best way to start.”

I grin at him, my anger temporarily forgotten. “It was the only way to start. I’m okay, Dad. You?”

He smiles faintly before looking back out at the river almost longingly. I don’t quite get the look, but I ignore it for now. “I’m better now,” he says softly. “Better than I have been in a long while. It’s been quiet here, since the others left.”

I feel a chill at his words. “What others?” I ask, looking around. There’s no one else in sight, and it doesn’t seem like anyone else is watching us.

He shrugs. “Just some people came and went,” he says. “I only talked to one of them. He was a… an odd man and he wanted me to go with him, but I couldn’t. I don’t think he understood, but I had to stay here. So he left.”

“Why here? Why didn’t you just leave?”

“I tried,” Big Eddie says, squeezing my shoulder. “I

tried to walk home, but….”

Tears well in my eyes yet again, and I brush them away. “You couldn’t make it?”

He nods. “Every time I started walking down the road, I would get tired. I would need to sit down to rest, and before I knew it, I’d be asleep. And every time I woke up, I’d be right here again. I tried everything. I tried running. I tried sleeping before I left so I wouldn’t be tired. I tried cutting through the forest. I tried going the other way. It didn’t matter. I’d make it maybe half a mile, right before mile marker seventy-seven changed to seventy-six or seventy-eight, and then I’d have to stop.”

“What about the river?” I ask. “Did you try crossing the river?”

He tenses immediately, and I want to take the words back, though I don’t know why. “No,” he whispers, unable to look at me. “I never crossed the river. That’s what he wanted me to do, and I just couldn’t.”

“Who?”

“He called himself the River Crosser. He took the others across the river in this little boat, but I couldn’t go. I just couldn’t.”

Through the fog and haze, I hear the Strange Men, both light and dark, whispering in my head about crossing. I can’t quite remember what they said. It’s lost, at least for now, as the haze swallows it again. But that’s okay. It doesn’t matter.

“I’m glad you stayed,” I say, leaning my head on his shoulder. I try to ignore the unease that starts to prickle my skin.

“Me too,” he says quietly.

We’re silent for a time. Then, “Dad?”

“Yeah?”

I don’t think I’ll be able to get the words out, but I have to try. “Why did you have to go?”

And when he speaks, I already know the words he’s going to say. I already know because I’ve said the same things to Michael. I’ve said the same things to Michael, and he told me things in return. About my father, about Cal. About the design of the world. About Seven and the child’s shadow on the wall. But I can’t seem to get his final words out of my head, about receiving a gift and my duty as a son. I am supposed to stand, but I don’t know for what. I am supposed to make a choice, but I don’t know what that choice is.

“I didn’t want to leave you,” my father says, looking down at the water. I follow his gaze and see his reflection in the water staring back up at us. “That was the last thing on my mind. I just… I couldn’t just sit by and let these things happen. I couldn’t let Roseland be taken over like I knew it would be.” He frowns. “I overheard Griggs and Walken talking one day, and I just couldn’t let it go. It wasn’t right.”

“You made a sacrifice,” I say, understanding my own words for the first time. Hearing them from him is different than hearing them from Michael or myself. It actually means something; it has truth behind it.

“Although I wish I hadn’t, now.”

I’m surprised at this. “Why?”

“Because it took me away from your mom. It took me away from Abe. It took me away from my life and everything I had in it. But most of all, it took me away from you.”

“I was angry,” I admit hoarsely. “For a long time.”

“I know. I could feel it. I could feel it here, like a storm was brewing somewhere far away.”

“I’m sorry.”

He snorts. “You shouldn’t be the one apologizing, Benji. You didn’t do a damn thing wrong. I know these last few months have been hard on you.”

Tags: T.J. Klune Romance
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