Page 47 of Grim Tidings

“Are you the tornado or the butterfly?”

Both. Neither. I don’t know. I drag my fingers over a tear in the bench seat, tracing the ragged edge back and forth. “The final moment could be any variation on a specific set of details. Right now, all I have is wet pavement, cracked—” I pause and snap my mouth shut. “Never mind.”

Gabriel quirks a dark eyebrow and drapes his arm over the back of the bench seat, edging closer. His fingers catch in the ends of my hair. “What’s cracked?”

I know a manipulation when I see it. “Your skull, if you keep digging for answers that violate our deal.”

But the threat lacks heat, and Gabriel knows it. He grins at me from the other side of the truck, boyish and easy, his fingers still twisting in the ends of my hair. My magic rattles in my chest, and I push down hard against it. Now is not the time for unintentional shadow bursts.

“I should—”

I try the door handle, but it’s about as ancient as Gabriel is and it doesn’t budge. He watches me struggle in amusement, then leans his body across mine. The outside of his arm brushes against my collar-bone and I hold myself perfectly still.

“Doesn’t open unless you shimmy it,” he explains, his nose half an inch from mine. His eyes are so blue, I don’t understand how people don’t look at him and immediately know he’s something else.

He jerks the handle, and the door swings open.

I don’t move an inch. Neither does he.

“I’m going to need you to show me that list again, Darcy.”

“Okay.”

Another half smile. “I didn’t expect you to agree so easily.”

“Yes, well. Maybe I’ve had enough arguing for one day.” I slip side-ways across the bench, putting space between us. Any bravado I had when I stripped to my underwear and dove into the river is gone now. I’m back to second-guessing my decision-making, hoarding secrets, and hoping for the best. “I can bring it to you tomorrow.”

He nods, absent-minded. “Why do you have a list like that, anyway?” he asks.

I frown in confusion.

“Cinnamon buns,” he explains. “Ice cream cones. Ill-advised cannonballs off the edge of defunct boat ramps.”

“Cinnamon buns weren’t on the list, and I didn’t do a cannonball.”

“You know what I mean.”

I take my time folding his shirt back into a neat square. “You mean, why is it full of seemingly inconsequential things?”

He nods.

“I was sick for a long time before I died.”

I smooth my hand over the placket of buttons, then extend the shirt across the space between us. Gabriel’s eyes flick down to the flannel, then drag back to mine. He doesn’t take it.

“I was in and out of the hospital almost constantly as a kid. And then, at the end, that small room was all I knew. I had a lot of time to think, and I told myself if I ever got out, I would do all the things that made me happy. All the things I took for granted.”

A smile curls one edge of his mouth. “Bumper cars?”

“My parents took me to Coney Island once,” I say. Sunburn on the back of my neck. Ice cream dripping over my knuckles. Cotton candy stuck to the corner of my mouth. That day feels so very far away now. Like an old picture, the colors smudged and blurred. “The Witching Waves was my favorite ride.”

The very next day, I woke up with a cough and I was back in the hospital. My mom blamed the trip, and they never took me again.

“Anyway, I never did get out of that hospital room. I’ve kept the list with me and made some additions over the years. Things I’ve seen the mortals do, mostly. Things that look like they might be … I don’t know, things that looked like fun. Then I died and—well, here we are.”

Here we are, like I haven’t been struggling every day since to hold on to that version of me. The girl who wore ribbons in her hair and laughed at the Coney Island amusement park until her chest hurt. The girl who was brave and confident and happy, not the shell of a woman shrunk down by decades of disappointment.

Gabriel thinks he’s the only one who has lost something to death. But it’s stolen from me, too.