Page 143 of Find My Way Down to You

Time to stop blaming yourself, Auggie.

London’s in my head. In my chest. He always has been.

“I needed closure. To say goodbye to him. The right way. And I let that desperation turn me into something I’m not.”

Cary gives me a blank stare, unresponsive.

My face scrunches. “I should’ve told you the truth from the beginning. I shouldn’t…You deserved better.”

After a beat, Cary looks away. The flowers and serenading water take us left. Then left again. Out of nowhere, he says, “You were right.”

When I stumble, his hand catches my elbow. Fast as lightning. He steadies me, then adds, “I did not understand mortals. I did not understand you, August.”

His gaze is back on me. I open my mouth, but I’m unsure what to say. So I listen instead.

“There are millions who will never know that kind of love.Who will never experience what it means to be loved in that way.”

I swallow, struggling to keep eye contact. His intense stare refuses to let me look away.

“Grief needs to befelt,” he says. “It is not a burden. It is a reminder. You were given the choice to love. To be loved. And you took it. You let it grow and become bigger than even you imagined.”

My eyes burn with fresh tears. I don’t blink.

Softly, seriously, he says, “That is agift, August.”

I lose the war with tears. Only a couple fall. Cary’s fingers catch them.

He smiles. “But I did not understand how heavy that gift was until you. Until I saw the pain and guilt and loneliness that comes with it.”

We stop somewhere in the middle of a passageway. His thumbs brush my cheeks dry.

“Sorry I never stuck around to see what happens after.” He studies me. “I wish I had. I wish I had known sooner how that pain changes who you become.”

Cary stays like that. Gentle hands cupping my cheeks. His attentive stare following my reactions, reluctant to look anywhere else.

Feverish want gnaws at my heart.

I want him in ways that are dangerous. Thathurt. Because I know what it means to lose someone.

Because I can’t have him.

Cary can never be mine, fully. He’s the ferrier of souls. They need him and he won’t leave them for…me.

I know it. In every bone. That doesn’t stop my heart from slamming into my sternum, begging me to say something.

Tell him.

We’ve kept too many secrets from each other. Left too many words unsaid in our silence. His mouth quirks like he’s reading my mind.

“Say it, Auggie.”

My breath catches when he says my name. When he calls meAuggie. It’s a new collection of notes, a forte that echoes through my head.

I reach up. My hands rest just under his ribs. He leans forward, exhales lowly. All I can think about is how that noise has unraveled me time after time.

“You give to all of them,” I manage, voice shaking. “Every single soul. Let me give to you, Cary.”

“Give what?”