Fifty minutes creep by at a glacial pace until finally—finally—the thick, mahogany funeral parlor doors open and Dash strides outside.
He’s got on a green t-shirt and ragged jeans that hang off his hips. His head is bowed, his shoulders hunched. He gets into the car in one smooth motion, and doesn’t look up for a long moment. When he does, I see his face is chalky white.
“You can go.” It’s mumbled.
He leans his head back against the seat and shuts his eyes, folding his big hands together in his lap.
I feel the need to ask if he’s okay, but it’s a stupid question, so I swallow it.
“Where would you like me to—?”
“Just drive,” he snaps.
The funeral home is out in the country, connected to our little suburb town by a winding county road. I pull onto that road and drive beneath the big, tall, leafy trees. The day is shining; farmland behind fences gleams in the white sunlight. Grass looks almost gold. The red dirt and the cracked roads feel like home to me, but there is no peace to be found today.
I cast a covert glance at Dash and find his jaw tight and his shoulders drawn up. Misery rolls off him, permeating me as well. I want to say something so badly, but I’m not sure what, so I just stare out at the road and squeeze the steering wheel and drive toward town.
“Pull over.” His voice is loud and sharp, the order coming out of nowhere.
I run off onto a shoulder, pebbles spinning underneath our tires. Dash’s door is flung open before I get the car in park. He’s out, his shoulders heaving as he bends down near the grass. His hands are on his knees…and then he’s crouching down. I can’t just sit and watch, so I rush after, and find him breathing hard, his fingers curled like talons over the holes in his blue jeans.
He plants his palm over his mouth. Then, with his face still twisting, he gets into the car and slams the door without a word to me. I walk around the front and get in, too. I find him drinking water with his eyes closed.
When he’s finished, I take it from his hand and set it back in the cup holder. God, I want to touch him, touch his arm or take his hand… But I don’t want to make him more upset. Maybe I should give him space.
I start to drive again.
He leans over his lap and puts his face in his hands. Finally, when we reach the first city red light, I put my hand on his back. I can feel him let a long breath out. When he shifts, his head tipped back against the seat again, his hand reaches toward mine. I take it gladly, curling my fingers around his.
“My parents’ house.” His voice is quiet and hoarse.
When I park out front, he gets out of the car and walks around to my side. As soon as I step out, he wraps his arms around me, pressing my back against the side of his car and kissing me hard. As he kisses me, he threads his fingers through my hair. I let out a small cry, and Dash groans.
“Oh…Amelia.”
I can feel his body shaking. Just when I’ve started kissing him back, he pulls back and rests his cheek against my forehead, breathing hard.
“I’m so sorry…” I wrap an arm around his back and Dash squeezes me close.
“It wasn’t her. I kept telling myself…she wasn’t there.”
“No,” I whisper. “It wasn’t her soul or her spirit. Just her body.”
He nods a few times, and I can tell he’s trying not to lose it. When he’s pulled himself together, he takes my hand and leads me around the side of the Frasiers’ big house, to the gate around the pool. Before he reaches for it, he lowers his free hand and shakes his head and redirects us toward the woods. They look the way they always did: big and dark and more vast than perhaps they should, as if stepping into them could get you lost forever.
I know without asking that Dash is taking us to the tree: the one where we once left notes for each other. We walk down the trail that winds all through this neighborhood, moving in the direction of my old house. Dash stops a foot or two from the tree, with its little oval hollow. He looks over at me—blinking slowly, like he’s not quite sure how we got here.
“I still have the drawings that you left in here for me.”
Dash just stands there staring at the tree, and my heart bleeds for him. Finally, he runs a hand back through his hair and blows his breath out. “I said I love you.” He blinks at me.
“You did.”
He blinks a few times fast, looking down before he looks back up at me. His eyes are red. “You’ve been good to me, Ammy, but I’m a bastard. You would be better off not knowing me at all, but if you’re gonna be near me…I want to be sure,” he rasps, “you know that I love you. It wasn’t something I said because I was drunk.”
I nod slowly, my heart pounding. “Okay.” Dash is reaching for my hand, so I take his. Our hands are clasped together as the sun shines through the swaying trees, dancing over Dash’s anguished face.
“I know I fucked things up with you. You feel like you can’t trust me or you’re worried that you can’t.” His lips press together; he gives a shake of his head. “You can now, Am.” He brings my hand up to his lips and kisses my knuckles. “Now that’s all I want. To have your trust. I want to make you feel like you make me feel.”
“How is that?” I blink, because my eyes are leaking.
“Like you’re my end point. Like everything—the bad shit, the great shit—is a big circle around you. And you’re the center. You’re what makes it all make sense, Amelia. Like my sister dies,” he rasps, “and you’re what’s keeping me alive.” He pulls me closer, wraps his arms around me, so he’s speaking into my hair.
“I don’t think I wanted you because I couldn’t have you, Am.” He shifts his weight, putting enough space between us so I see his face, his earnest eyes. “That’s reactive…and how I felt about you wasn’t reactive. I think you were just…the one for me. And maybe it was bad luck, who you were. That you were Lex’s best friend. The girl next door.”
“But that’s how you knew me.” I can’t help but point it out.
He nods. “I think it can be possible that what makes something what it is, can also make it not work.”
“I think they call that fatalism,” I say softly.
“Are you familiar with amor fati?”
I am, as it happens—but I want to know what he’ll say, so I shake my head.
“It’s one of my favorite things. It’s an idea that’s attributed to Nietzsche. It means ‘love of fate’, but what it really means is accepting everything that happens to you, the good shit and the awful shit, as necessary. It’s saying that you want it anyway. You want your life. You’ll take it.”
I swallow. “Is that what you believe?”
“I think it’s what has to be. That’s what I thought before Friday.”