“Nowish. I only wanted to say good-bye.” He sees my stricken expression. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep in touch.”
He gets up. He smiles like everything’s peachy, but I can feel that this is killing him. Leaving me goes against all his instincts, all that his heart is telling him.
“I meant it, what I said in hell,” he says. “You’re my glory sword, you know that? My truth.”
“Christian—”
He holds his hand up like, Let me finish. “I saw the look on your face when he died. I saw what was in your heart, and it’s real. All this time I kept telling myself that it was a crush, and you’d get over it, and then you’d be free to be with me. But it’s not a passing phase, or this stubborn refusal to accept what you think is your destiny. You’re not going to get over it. I know that. You belong with him now.” He swallows. “I was wrong to kiss you that day in the cemetery.”
There are tears in my eyes. I wipe at them. “You’re my best friend,” I whisper.
He looks down. “You know I’m always going to want to be more than that.”
“I know.”
An awkward silence stretches between us. Then he shrugs and gives me his devil-may-care smile, rakes his hand through his wavy brown hair. “Well, you know, that Tucker guy’s not going to be around forever. Maybe I’ll catch up with you in a hundred years or so.”
My breath hitches. Does he mean it, or is he being flippant to save face? I swing my legs over the side of the bed and stand up, carefully, in case I’m still weak. But I feel surprisingly fine—refreshed, even. I look at him solemnly. I think about the word longevity. “Don’t wait around for me, Christian. That’s not what I want. I can’t promise you—”
He smirks. “I won’t call it waiting,” he says. “I have to go.”
“Wait. Don’t go yet.”
He stops, something in his expression that doesn’t quite dare to be hope. I cross the room to him and pull up his shirt. For a second he looks totally confused, but then I put my hand on the long gash in his side, which still hasn’t healed. I clear my head as much as I can, then call the glory to my fingers. And it comes.
He gives a pained gasp as his flesh knits itself back together. When I take my hand away, the cut is completely healed, but there’s a long silver scar stretching down his ribs.
“Sorry about the scar,” I say.
“Wow,” he laughs. “That was just like E.T. Thank you.”
“It’s the least I could do.”
He moves to my window and pulls it open, bends to step out onto the eaves. Then he turns to me, the wind ruffling his hair, his green eyes full of sorrow and light, and he lifts his hand in a wave. I lift mine.
See you later, he says in my mind, and summons his wings, and flies.
I take a bath. I scrub every part of my body, shave my legs, work the dirt from under my fingernails, until finally, at long last, I feel clean. Then I sit at my desk in my bathrobe and tackle the arduous task of combing the tangles out of my hair. I smooth moisturizer over my face, put on some lip balm on a hopeful whim. In my closet I stand for a while staring at a yellow sundress my mom once gave me for my birthday, which I wore the night Tucker first took me to Bubba’s, which was, in a backward way, our first date. I put it on, along with some strappy white sandals, and go downstairs.
My black hoodie, the one I was wearing all through this whole ordeal, is laid carefully across the back of the couch. I pick it up. It smells like lake water and blood. I walk to the laundry room to toss it in there, but first I check the pockets.
Inside the left pocket is a silver charm bracelet. I hold it in my palm, examining each charm. A horse, for when they took off across the countryside. A fish, for when they met. A heart. And now a new charm.
A tiny silver sparrow.