I call Ella every day.It helps, even when we’re hundreds of miles apart. Some days that single phone call takes all my strength. On others, I can manage more.
I start taking antidepressants. I also start sleeping at night, managing a few hours at a time. Mom finds my Kindle, and I start reading books, slowly, one chapter at a time, until eventually, something draws me in and I binge. My parents are eager to have me home, and apparently I want that too because I’m daydreaming about drinking Dad’s coffee over family breakfasts and watching true crime on the couch. It helps to have a clear goal in my rehab sessions.
It’s these little things that begin to fill the void inside me.
One day, they take me to visit Mr. Beck’s grave, the fresh dirt covered in flowers. Dad tells me the family was slowing their search for John. I cry, hating Adrial more than ever.
I’ll never forget how the sun shined bright that day, warming the last nice day of fall. It affirmed my newfound resolve, reminding me I can’t hide forever. I’m alive and that is a gift that shouldn’t be wasted.
I sob even harder when they take me to John’s memorial service, my resolve for life growing even stronger.
Now it’s clear, the life I’ve been living won’t take me where I want to go—and it took a damn demon for me to see it. It would be easy to continue, moving forward as I always have, but now the destination seems empty. Lonely.
I can no longer be who I was, but I cannot see who I must become.
On the day of my release, I wait for my dad to pick me up, seated in a wheelchair in my room, once again staring out the window. The curtains are drawn back, letting daylight seep in. I don’t mind it anymore.
Although, I’ve noticed a strange number of crows lately.
Squinting, I gaze at the sun even though it hurts my eyes and try picturing it as Zuriel would, letting the heat of its rays warm my skin. He dreamed of seeing the sun again. Even if he can’t experience it with me, I should enjoy its glow. Like most things these days, I refuse to take it for granted.
The sun—the light—can always be taken away.
“Come in,” I say, when there’s a knock at the door.
Only it isn’t a nurse ready to wheel me downstairs.
It’s Hopkins.
His long gray hair is tied at the back of his neck, the straight part highlighting his eerily symmetric face and stern jaw. He dresses as eclectic as his museum, mixing the bellbottom jeans of a hippie with the baggy suit jacket of a nineties businessman.
I haven’t called him since waking up. I haven’t even given much thought to it. Another voicemail arrived a few days after I woke, telling me to focus on recovery and not to worry about the museum. He said he’s back in town and putting the museum to rights after the ‘incident.’ He added that I had done well. Whatever that means.
Dad ran into him while checking on Ginny. That’s how he knows I’m awake or had ever been unconscious in the first place. Knowing my dad, I bet the interaction wasn’t entirely pleasant, and I’m glad not to have been around.
Seeing Hopkins, after all this time, makes me tense with conflicting emotions. None of them are easy to navigate. Part of me wants to scream, rise from the wheelchair, and slap him, while another part wants to tell him to leave me alone. He doesn’t just get to walk back into my life like this.
It’s not fair.
Except the dangerously curious part of me wants him to explain everything. I want to know what he knows.
“Oh.” I straighten. “I thought you were the nurse.”
He takes a single step into my room. “I heard you’re being discharged today. May I wheel you downstairs? And by the way, congratulations.”
“Umm, sure. Congratulations? For what? Being discharged?” I ask dryly.
“On destroying that pesky demon. He’s been a nuisance, stopping by the museum every decade or so, checking on our gargoyle friend.”
“Oh.”
My lips flatten, my heart stuttering. Hearing him speak so plainly puts me at a loss. Such directness should ease my lingering doubts, except I expected him to deflect.
It’s over and… Zuriel and I won.
What exactly did we win? Peace?
Terrible shit is still going on all over the world. It’s on the news, on my phone, blasted at me from every front.
