LATER
I didn’t know what to do with myself now. It was a school day, but I couldn’t bear the thought of sitting through classes or talking with friends who felt more like strangers with each passing moment. Instead, I spent the next few hours wandering from place to place like a stray pup looking for shelter. I remember going home to shower and change. Then somehow I was in the driveway of Maryanne Duke’s old house. Then I was standing in the concrete stairwell that led to the basement apartment where Daniel had lived until he’d taken to the forest. I must have stood there long enough to look lost, because Zach poked his head out one of the main floor windows, almost scaring me half to death, and asked if I was okay.
“Yeah,” I said. “Will a couple of you go sit with Jude? We had a run-in, and I don’t think he should be alone.”
“Sure thing,” Zach said. He almost looked happy to have an order, reminding me that his former alpha had treated him like a soldier instead of a boy.
I slowly walked down the steps and unlocked the old yellow door to Daniel’s apartment. I stood in the middle of his room for a few minutes, soaking in the fading scent of him there. I willed my hands and feet to move again, and I picked up a few of his notebooks from his desk, and found his half-filled-out Trenton application neatly stored in its envelope. I took that and his beat-up laptop, and stuffed them into the satchel bag I’d brought along. Next, I sorted through the stacks of Masonite boards and stretched canvas that leaned against his wall, choosing the best of his paintings and designs. I hoped they’d be the same ones he would have chosen for his Trenton portfolio. My chest felt so tight as I pulled the apartment door closed behind me when I left, thinking about how the things I took with me would be the only traces of Daniel’s human side left in this world if I failed to change him back.
My next stop was the hospital, where I alternated between sitting next to Dad’s bed, holding his too-still hand, for the twenty minutes of each hour I was allowed in his hospital room, and standing outside the elevator that would lead me up to my mother’s room in the psych ward.
When I couldn’t stand the beep of Dad’s heart monitor or the ding of the elevator anymore, I went to the hospital cafeteria and found an empty table where I could set up Daniel’s laptop. Between flipping through his notebooks and poking around in his computer files, I found six different drafts of his Trenton essays.
They were good but unfinished. I chose the best and filled in the gaps, channeling the things Daniel had always told me about wanting to use his talents to improve people’s lives. I only hoped my words could do his passion justice.
Crowds of diners came and went, and I was about to log off the computer and head back to Dad’s room again when I noticed a Word file titled: for grace.
I hovered the curser over the file, wondering what it could possibly contain. Wondering how Daniel would feel if he knew I opened it. Wondering if I could stand not to.
It said it was for me, after all.
I tapped the touch pad and opened the file, knowing I wouldn’t be able to do anything until I knew what Daniel had left for me. What I found was a poem.
For grace—
I was walking in the cool night air
Watching simple leaves gusted off
Blown by the same wind that blows through my window like thoughts filling boxes in crowded basements Self-inflicted thoughts
Sorted cards and picture books
Jumbled thoughts of you
Walking slowly and thinking clearly
I was watching the moon rise and fall Thinking about bare feet and candlelight walks About soup-filled dreams
Smooth silk hands and violet eyes