“You already are.” Dustin's voice broke and he couldn't say anything more.
This wasn't fair.
How was Dustin supposed to stand here and watch Greg destroy his clipboard—destroy himself?
Greg was going to die.
And he'd known it—he'd known it when he'd kissed Dustin in the parking lot, and he'd known it when he'd asked to be taken somewhere nice and now he was standing on Tyler's hill in the afternoon sun asking for a lighter so he could die clean.
Greg reached over and took Dustin's hand. His grip was warm and solid and real.
“I need the lighter,” Greg said.
Dustin didn't move.
“Please.”
Dustin reached into his jacket pocket. His hand found the lighter — a cheap Bic, orange, nothing special.
He held it in his fist.
“Thank you,” Greg said. “For the diner. And the motel. And the ice cream.” He looked at the lighter. “And for wiping ketchup off my face. I think that might have been when it started.”
“Greg—”
“I'm ready.”
“I'm not.”
Greg's hand tightened on his. “I know. I'm sorry.”
Dustin opened his hand. Greg took the lighter.
His clipboard was barely there now. More suggestion than object. The sun shone through it.
Greg flicked the lighter. The flame was small and ordinary, flickering slightly. Greg held it to the corner of the clipboard.
The clipboard caught.
It didn't burn like metal and paper. It burned bright and sudden, a white-blue flame that climbed the surface faster than should be possible.
Greg held on.
His fingers were in the flames and his jaw was clenched, but he didn't let go. Dustin watched his knuckles go white and then red. The skin blistered. “Greg, your hand!”
“Let me finish,” Greg said through his teeth. “I need to hold it.”
The pages curled into nothing. The forms turned to ash and scattered in the wind, and then the frame itself collapsed inward until there was nothing left in Greg's hands but ash and air.
Greg opened his fingers.
The ash blew off his palms. He stared at his empty, burned hands.
“Done,” he said.
And then his edges blurred.
It was fast. One moment Greg was solid — and the next his outline was dissolving into the afternoon light like chalk in water.
