Page 44 of Find My Way Down to You

“And I am,” I argue, all my will keeping the tremble out of my voice. “But I can’t go to UCSB.”

“It’s a great university,” he says. “Your dream school.”

Our dream school, I want to yell.

The frustration licks hotly against my skin. I crumple up the unfinished taco. My hunger is gone.

Dad pulls a hand through his swoopy hair. It sticks up at weird angles. “Auggie,” he strains, his patience thinning. “You can’t put your life on pause forever. You have to stop giving up on yourself.”

“I’m not giving up,” I say, unconvincing.

“This isn’t the life you planned.”

He’s right. Because London planned it all out. From the applications to what classes we should take as freshmen to which dorm we’d live in.Everything.Now I can’t imagine stepping one foot on that campus. I’m not even sure where to start if I did.

Life and death don’t care about the plans you make. How detailed and organized they are. Most times, the future looks nothing like you imagined.

I wish I didn’t learn that so young.

“Plans change,” I whisper.

Dad’s smartwatch lights up. “I have to finish my shift.” He gathers our trash. Before he stands, he pushes my curls off my brow. Tips my head back until our eyes meet.

“I’m sorry this is hard for you,” he says, gentle and sincere. “But I’ll never stop wanting the best for you.”

He kisses the top of my head. Like he did when I was just a kid. On those days when I couldn’t get out of bed because the pain of grief was too heavy.

“I love you, Auggie.”

He disappears into the hospital before I finally say, “I love you too.”

I stay behind for a beat. I know what’s on the other side of those automatic doors: Memories. Cold rooms filled with loud machines. Sterile beds where bodies once were. A torrent of grief ready to knock me off my feet like a flood.

But I might find something else—the ferrier of souls.

My hands grip the hem of my shirt. How many times has Cary been here? Escorted someone’s soul away? Left behind a loved one to cry over a cold body? How many times has that cruel, hardened face been the one to guide someone to whatever happens after we die?

I need answers.

I need to see London.

In the distance, sirens approach. Their wail is a warning. Death is coming closer.

I can do this, I tell myself.

My pulse knocks hard under my jaw. All I have to do is take one step. Then another.

Before I can, from behind me I hear, in a taut, familiar, annoyed voice:

“Looking for me?”

7

Cary glares at me.

It’s unsurprising. As is his all-black attire. The blade-sharpness of his jaw, the cut of his black eyes. That single curl resting on his forehead. Everything about him is captivating except for that cruel, flat mouth when he sighs, bored.

“Well?”