Page 172 of Sorrow & Strangers

Chapter Seventy-Five

Rafe

Ipick up my phone for the fourth time in the last ten minutes, staring at the dark screen. Summer had sent a picture of the All Souls invitation for the three of us to a group chat we used last year. It consists of all my brothers, her, and myself. She didn’t make a new one to omit the one deceased member, and nobody said anything about it.

Summer

Idiot One and Two, guess what we got?

The small picture is partially blurry, but you can see Summer and Alice holding the invitation triumphantly, both of them holding on to me, forcing me into the frame. My horns are short and twisted into sharp points. I avoid looking at myself in the mirror as much as possible, but I can’t avoid this picture.

Zach

Fuck off, that’s not real.

Zane

There is no way you’re invited to All Souls before us, even less of a chance RAFE is invited before us.

Zach

Also, Rafe, you look like you have two dicks on your head.

Luke

I think he looks nice.

That pisses off Summer, who immediately goes on the defensive.

Summer

Zach, shut up. You look like a scrotal sac.

Zane

She’s not wrong.

Zach

Send us the invite. It clearly got delivered to the wrong house.

Summer nudges me. “They don’t want to be called a scrotal sac by me. They want to hear it from you.”

I wince and type out a half-hearted reply.

Rafe

Summer is right about the invitation and status of sac faces.

Opening my phone to reply means I have to see all the texts I’ve been ignoring. My stomach turns, seeing how many my mom has sent. At least one a day since I fell. She even includes pictures, but most of them are I miss you. Hope you’re doing well. We love you.

Before I can think better of it, I hit the dial button and put it to my ear. I wasn’t ready for them to see me like this. I’m sure Summer has been sending them updates, but it is different doing it face-to-face.

The phone rings only once before she answers.

“Rafe?” my mother breathes into the phone, and I can easily picture her sprinting to answer. She has a chosen ringtone for each of the kids, and my heart aches knowing one of them will never be heard again.

“Yeah . . . It’s me,” I say shakily. There’s a little strangled sound on her end, and I know she’s trying not to cry. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have called.”