“Do you want me to come?” Greg asked.
He was holding his coffee with both bandaged hands, palms wrapped carefully around the cup.
“Yeah,” Dustin said. “But give me a minute first?”
Greg nodded. “Take your time.”
Dustin got out.
He found Tyler’s headstone without trouble and without hesitation. The sunlight made the stone look almost white, the name and dates carved sharp beneath the infinity symbol.
He still wasn’t sure if he believed his twin’s spirit was here.
But it wassomewhere.
“Hey,” Dustin said.
He felt silly.
He didn’t let that stop him.
“So. A lot’s happened. I met someone.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “His name’s Greg. He was a reaper. Now he’s a guardian, apparently, which mostly means he worries about me professionally. He burned his clipboard on the hill behind school and almost dissolved, and I think you might’ve had something to do with the fact that he didn’t.”
A breeze stirred the flowers on Tyler’s grave.
Dustin’s throat tightened.
“Thank you for that.”
He crouched and brushed a leaf off the base of the headstone.
“You’d like him,” he said. “He’s weird. He eats junk food like it’s a religious experience. He cried at Mom’s chili and said it hurt him like the beans were in a vendetta against him.”
A soft laugh escaped him.
Then it faded.
“I pulled out of Devil’s Needle,” he said. “I know it was your dream to do that jump one day, but I don’t think it’s such a good idea anymore. Hell, you probably wouldn’t even want me to go through with it. If I’d been the one who died…” He swallowed. “You wouldn’t have been so stupid about it, would you? You would’ve grieved and moved on. It’s what I would’ve wanted for you.”
The stone was warm beneath his fingers.
Probably from the sun.
Probably.
Dustin knew better.
“I’m going to be better,” he said. “For both of us.”
He stayed there for another moment, hand on the infinity symbol.
Then he straightened and pulled out his phone.
He opened the camera app and pointed it at himself. Tyler’s headstone was in the background, slightly out of focus.
He didn’t angle it away.
He hit record.
