Page 158 of Find My Way Down to You

I don’t fight my own grin when someone stands next to me. Thick, shiny black hair. Reddish-brown skin, soft as clay. Tall and lanky and impeccably dressed. The boy who found me, who brought me to August.

The messenger.

“Are you stalking me?” I ask.

Henri scoffs. “No. You’re not cute enough for that kind of wasted energy.” He chuckles. His attention drifts. “How are they?”

Between songs, Cary touches the inside of August’s forearm. New ink maps out a flower beneath his daffodil. An asphodel. Like the ones in the Meadows. Though neither August nor Cary remembers them.

August ruffles Cary’s hair. It sticks up everywhere. The children giggle. When Cary leans over to kiss August’s cheek, they gag and pretend to vomit.

I finally answer Henri. “Happy.”

“As they should be,” he comments, yearning in his voice. He misses them. But he’s not angry with Cary’s decision.

My eyes study August for a moment.

We were not forever. But we werefor now. Neither one of us knew it then. How beautiful and rare that is. To have the chance to love and be loved equally.

I do now. I think he does too.

“Come. You know the rules.” Henri tugs on the sleeve of my navy Henley. He smells like coffee. My favorite scent. “They’re waiting on you.”

I hear them. The souls all over this realm. Death’s whispered call to guide them.

Grinning, I say, “Since when do you care about rules?”

A smirk flexes his lips. “Don’t stay too long.” Gold flashes over his eyes. “I’m waiting on you too.”

His lips brush my cheek the same way Cary’s did to August. But not with sweetness. With suggestion and promise.

A blush burns against my skin. That isn’t such a bad way to spend the afterlife either.

Henri disappears into the shadows. I stay a second longer. A minute. Until I don’t know how much time has passed.

I take August in. Smiling, healthy, growing.

One day, I’ll come back, and he’ll be graduating from UCSB. One day, he’ll be in the middle of Shoreline Park, on bended knee, proposing. It’ll be spontaneous and completely him. He will get a dog: a Great Dane. Maybe he’ll get three.

One day, he’ll get married. I’ll watch, smiling proudly. Oneday, August will have kids. He’s gonna be an amazing dad. They’ll live in a beachside house where August can listen, write music to the roaring waves and the laughter coming from every room.

One day, he’ll be old. Gray and wrinkled, but still so in love with life. Grateful for his time.

And I will come for him. He won’t recognize me, but maybe he will. Maybe Lethe’s magic isn’t as powerful as the one inside him.

Maybe love is its own kind of magic. One that cannot be stripped or dulled or erased. One that can never truly be forgotten.

When August returns to Aides, I’ll make sure he’s with Cary, wherever that may be.

But that’s later.Muchlater.

For now, I watch him for one more breath.

His fearless smile. The way he lives in the moment. Every single one. His life is unplanned and…happy. The way it should be.

He loves Cary. And Cary loves him.

Together, they are myths made to be recited in song and stars.