I don’t know how to tell them that it’s not awhenbut anif.
As I open my contacts, I think of what I’ll say. What updates I’ll give that my friend will never hear.
Hey, Harper. Jasper is gone, and Finn is gone, and I can’t do a damn thing about any of it. How’s the afterlife?
I dial, and it rings once before a shrill beep comes through the phone, followed by a mechanical “The number you have dialed is not in service.”
A sob pushes up my chest and out, and I wrap my arms around my torso like it will keep my heart in my chest, like it will keep it from fracturing further.
Harper is dead. She has been for months, and I know it, but a tiny part of me was waiting for her to pick up the phone.
Harper is dead, Finn will be dead soon, Jasper is gone, and I am alone.
“Jo?” Margot’s voice comes from behind me. She steps tentatively out the front door, coming to stand at the top of the porch.
“I’m fine. I was—”
“Oh, shut up,” Margot says, and drops onto the porch step beside me, throwing her arms around me. I’m too stiff, making it hard for her to hold on, but she doesn’t let go. “Don’t lie to me.”
Another sob slips out, and with that, the rest are close behind. I’m crying like I haven’t since Harper, my whole body shaking with it. Like all the grief and the fear and the loss are spreading into my limbs, vibrating on a cellular level. It’s a pain so big I can’t see around it.
“I’ve got you,” Margot says softly when I finally curl into her, like I’m the little sister here. She doesn’t tell me it’ll be okay. Doesn’t make any false promises. Because that’s not who Margot is. She doesn’t tell me the storm will pass; she vows to remain through it all.
When I finally pull back, having effectively drenched Margot’s sweatshirt in tears, her face is as wet and red as mine.
“We have to find him,” I say, voice thick with tears.
“We don’t even know where to start,” Margot says. “And we don’t know how much time he has.”
“Finn thinks they’re all still alive. Jasper, Sloane, Aisha, even himself.”
“Hewhat? And you’re just telling me now?”
“I’ve been a little preoccupied,” I snap. At Margot’s stiffening, I add, “I’m sorry,” and fill her in on Finn’s theory.
She sits on it for a moment before she says, “All we have are some maybe-not-dead kids and an assumption that they’re stuck at our house because they’re physically here. But if they are, why can’t we find them?”
It’s the same question haunting me. Finn, Sloane, and Aisha have combed every inch of the property they can. Sloane even went through every room in the house across the street, the attached vet clinic, and the empty barn off to the side. The only thing unchecked is the space past the creek; the abandoned power plant that sits behind a fence. A dilapidated, untouched building isn’t much of a flare. It’s barely anything. But that’s all I have. The only option in a list of nonanswers.
It’s not much of a starting point, but it’ll have to do.
—
Margot heads back inside as the day’s warmth turns cold. Another half hour passes before I drag myself off the porch and through the front door. It’s like walking through film; the world has blurred at the edges.
The house is as quiet as I left it when I step into the foyer. As I make my way past the piano, I notice a folded piece of paper sitting on top. Flicking a glance toward the living room where my mom sleeps, I creep to the piano and grab the paper, unfolding it. It’s not one piece but two pressed together. A piece of notebook paper ripped out and a piece of sheet music filled in with Finn’s writing.
At the top, it reads:Thanks. For everything. I’m sorry. Love, Finn.
The song I was working on the night I met Finn. My handwriting, with his chicken scrawl additions dotted throughout.
I drop onto the bench without thinking, tracing my finger down the paper.
He’s finished the song. Taken my lyrics and added pitch, rhythm, chords. He did the thing I’ve been circling since the day Harper died. He found the music.
I heard once that heartbreak can cause physical pain—every poem and love song attest to it—but I didn’t really believe it until I lost Harper. I swore to never get close enough to anyone to feel it again. The heaviness in my chest, like I was Atlas struggling to hold up the sky. The spark of panic and rolling nausea each time I forgot and then remembered she was gone.
And here it is again, that horrible, overwhelming feeling. As hard as I tried, I still couldn’t outrun it.
