When I don’t say anything further, she rises and offers me her hand once more. “Well, thank you for contacting me. If you find anything else, you know how to get in touch.”
“I do.”
Just as she’s about to leave, she adds, “Their matcha and white chocolate muffins are heavenly, if you’re looking for a bite.”
My lips pull into a smile.It’s finally over.“I’ll think about it.”
“Take care of yourself,” is her departing message.
She’s talking on her phone before she even makes it out of the door.
Lynx rounds on me, confusion drawn all over his face.
“What the fuck is matcha?”
EPILOGUE
Lynx
Inever thought I’d get to have a life after death.
It was never in the cards for me. Pain, torture, and being tortured—that was all I had to look forward to once I was dead. An eternity in Hell. No future. No chance of having my own family, a career, stability. A place to call home. As soon as the flames engulfed my soul, everything I’d ever wanted in life burned with me.
But now I get to have all of those things.
To be hand in hand with a girl I fall in love with more each passing day is just an added bonus.
We were both given a second chance. A clean slate, with everything we’ve ever wanted in the palms of our hands.
“It took me forever to find this place,” my girlfriend—such a fucking weird term the humans coined—says beside me, pointing toward the back row of headstones, sitting under a large tree and shaded from the blistering sun. “I’m still a bit jetlagged.”
The first time she dragged me onto a plane, I thought I was going to die all over again. The metal death trap had shaken in the air, and I’d grabbed Sable’s hand so tightly, her engagement ring had cut into my skin. I’m certain airport security will never want to see me again either after a few intense stare-downs, until Sable nudged me with a very aggressive warning to be on my best behavior so I don’t end up on the “no fly list”—another foreign concept because in case no one has worked it out, humans can’t fucking fly.
“You’re quiet. Are you sure you’re ready for this?”
I swallow and nod. “It’s been over a year since we broke our curses. If I don’t do it now, then I don’t think I’ll ever be ready.”
My issue isn’t seeing his stone. My issue is truly knowing—solidifying what that means. He no longer walks the same world as me. No longer breathes the same air or lives the same kind of life. My brother being dead has always been the most likely scenario, but there was still a chance that somethingothermight have happened; that he might’ve traveled the same path as me and found the same fate; that he was somewhere on Earth with a partner by his side, guiding him as Sable does me.
But as we stop under the tree, Sable grips my hand, and my breathing stops as I stare at the carved letters on the headstone.
Dylan Taylor.
Beloved father and grandfather, husband to Grace, died peacefully, surrounded by his loved ones.
Never forgotten.
Never once have I forgotten about my little brother. Every day I’ve wondered what his life was like. If he was happy. Questions constantly running around in my head: if he wastaken into the system, did he find a family who loved him unconditionally? Did he get to have a normal childhood?
Looking at the gravestone, I know everything I need to know.
Dylan got to have his life.
So, in a way, I didn’t fail him.
The sound of footsteps pulls my attention to our right. It’s a woman and a little boy, hands clasped together, each carrying a single red rose.
“Who are you?” the boy asks, still holding on to what I presume to be his mom’s hand.
