“Your mom said we have to sleep in separate rooms,” Nelle says. “I’m going to Midi’s. She’s at a friend’s house, so I hope she won’t mind.”
“She won’t.”
James watches Nelle go, hoping she will turn around one last time.
They drive through walls of morning mist. It blankets the town square and curls like gray snakes around the trees on either side of River Road.The fog doesn’t clear until they reach Blackwood and James takes a left. He hasn’t looked at Nelle since they got into the truck. He can’t even remember what she is wearing. He glances. A cream sweater and brown pants. Delicate silver earrings—must be Midi’s—gleam in her lobes. When did she get her ears pierced?
James tries to drive slowly, but eventually the mailbox markedQuillrises from the trees. Now he regrets coming at all. It would have been easier to let Nelle disappear, not to witness her death. Tires grind on the gravel, stirring up dust, and he brakes halfway down the driveway.
Shit.
The house is gone. Blackened grass covered by a thousand square feet of ash. Shreds of warped tin gleam under the morning sun. Clumps of wood stand here and there, but nothing of the original structure remains upright. Nothing but the lone brick chimney watching over the destruction.
James climbs out and circles the vehicle to open Nelle’s door, but she is already out. She stalks down the driveway, cutting through the yard to what was once a porch, and stops where the front door stood. She steps gingerly over the ashes, and James traces her footsteps to the center of the house, where the chimney stands.
Nelle closes her eyes. Wind sweeps through, clearing the mist, picking up swirls of ash, playing with her golden tendrils.
Strangely, James’s nervousness is gone. In its place, he feels both crushing sadness and an eerie calm.
“We should’ve picked up coffee,” Nelle says.
James laughs. “Yeah, we should’ve.”
Nothing, absolutelynothingabout this feels right.
“I don’t want to go.” She curls a finger around his. “Ask me to stay.”
This is what you want!screams his gut.Tell her to stay.But his brain knows better.
There is a reason she bleeds ink. A reason she can’t be harmed. A reason she can’t die a mortal death. She is not a human. Her dying isimpossible because she was never meant to exist in the first place. Some might call her a mistake, but James calls her a miracle. He doesn’t tell her to stay, but he can’t tell her to leave, so he lets his silent tears speak for themselves.
Nelle nods in understanding, her face crumpling.
James wraps her in his arms, lifting her off the ground as she breaks down. Her arms loop around his neck, and they kiss in the ashes of 23 Blackwood Road.
As they part, salt on their lips, James eases Nelle back to her feet.
She breaks into a teary-eyed grin. “Thanks for busting me out of this place.”
He can barely see her through his bleary vision, so he reaches down and takes her hands.
“All I want to say,” he says, lip trembling, “is that I love you. We got out of theretogether. I was miserable before, and no one saw that but you—you, Nelle, are the only reason I’m happy now. I just ...”
Say it. Just say it.
“I want you to stay.”
Nelle’s forehead hits his chest.
He is running out of time to talk her out of it. To list the thousands of places she has yet to see, the experiences she has yet to have. Scuba diving and charcuterie boards and bad movies and stale chips and birthday parties and—
“Goodbye, James,” Nelle whispers, her voice vibrating through his chest.
The words cleave him. He will never be whole again.
“I can’t watch,” he says. “I can’t. It’ll kill me.”
Nelle’s hands tighten. “Go sit in the truck and count to thirty.”
