Epilogue Window
The sound of Irish rain was not as mythic as I imagined, but even amid the lush green hills, fairy mounds, and saltwater billowing in from the sea, I knew it wasn’t home. Everything here was clean, steeped in something ancient, forever moving inside the brine.
“Where’s Nate?” I asked Milly, his younger sister, who sat at the window staring out at the cliffs. She didn’t love it when I called him by his club name, but he insisted we use it. And after that night took everything from us, he wasn’t about to let them take that, too. “Milly?”
Nathem’s family lived in a stone house pulled straight from a fairy tale, the kind of shit little girls wrote about in their diaries. Everything here was picturesque, and you couldn’t help but wonder how Nathem ended up on a rope in the Underworld.
“He’s in the guesthouse,” she said with a yawn, not all that impressed by me.
I huffed a smile at the strawberry blonde drawing penises on the window and tidied her shoes by the library.
Just one of the many perks of having your soulmate sewn into your chest.
Not only had I developed a knack for organization, but I liked to fight, had a bad temper, doodled everywhere, and always had those root beer candies dusted with flour in my mouth. I had even craved a cigarette once, holding it between my lips, but never fully committing.
Everything hurt without him.
Every single thing.
I pushed open the wooden door to the cobbled path leading to the cottage beside the garden. It was no bigger than my Seattle apartment, but Nathem preferred spaces where his mind could get extra loud. Not a safe idea for either of us.
“Nate?” I called out, banging on the door. These old houses liked to swell, and I couldn’t get it to budge. “Nathem!”
Still no answer.
I rounded the corner, running my fingers along the purple and gray stones until I found the only window left open, its gossamer curtains billowing in the breeze.
Despite being banned from all physical activity, I hoisted myself over the ledge, nearly crashing down when my feet hit the stone surface.
“Nathem?” I peered into the darkness, my eyes falling on the man sitting on the mattress that had been tossed on the floor.
He leaned against the wall, smiling as he eyed me from the shadows.
Despite several doctors confirming that his throat had healed, Nathem did not speak; the events of that night forever dying inside him.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, watching his phone fall from his fingers onto his lap. “Swiping left, huh?” I winked. “Don’t worry, we’ll find you someone who prefers the strong, silent type.”
Nathem scooted to the side, allowing me to crawl next to him, the way I had done every day for the last few months. That’s when I noticed there were no blankets on the bed, just a thin white sheet. He had been thrashing.
“Nightmares again?” I asked, and he nodded, releasing a heavy sigh into the room.
While Nate had always been my best friend, we had grown since we left Seattle. Quieter. Keeping each other close, but only ever speaking when the silence got too loud.
“You know what Thay used to say about nightmares? Stop being such a wuss, Daph, and suck it up. That shit isn’t real. It’s in your head. You know what’s scary? Not eating tomorrow. Now move your ass over before I fall off the goddamn bed.”
Nathem laughed, a smile reaching into his eyes before he nudged me over in a playful shove.
“But he was wrong. Sometimes our mind is the scariest place of all.”
Nate stilled, his bright eyes drifting into the distance.
“Look, I want to die, too,” I admitted, turning into him.
“I can’t regulate. I don’t sleep. I’m never hungry.
I’m always crying, and I just fucking hate this world without him, but you convinced me to stay.
You told me to give Thay a life, and while I don’t have any fucking clue how to do that, I am here. ”
Nathem blinked, his eyes telling me what we both knew. I had Thay inside my chest, but all he had were ghosts.
“Listen,” I said, pulling off my shirt and pressing the flat of his palm to my scar, when my fingers reached for the burns on his neck.
“I loved all the guys, but you are different, and you know it. You have the most heart, which means there is still something in there left to heal. And it will, Nathem. Just like mine.” I stared down, missing Thay more than I could ever put into words.
“Maybe not perfect. Or in the way we expect, but we have to let it try.”
Nathem inhaled, his eyes closing briefly before leaning back against the wall.
“Promise me, asshole, that we’ve got each other.”
He huffed, staring at me.
“Can you imagine if God had left me with Blade?” I cheesed, nodding at him in heaven.
Nathem laughed, nearly knocking me over.
“I’d be on an orange sofa right now in Aberdeen, hunkered down in a trailer eating uncooked mac and cheese.”
He wiped a tear from his eye and leaned forward, pressing his head between his legs.
It was difficult to think about them.
“Nathem. Promise me.”
Finally, he nodded, pulling me into a hug that slammed against his chest.
“What are you reading? Smut?” I picked up a copy of Fight Club from the side of the bed. He loved being read to, and ever since we arrived in the hills of nowhere land, we had devoured half the books in his parent’s library. “Aw, The Tale of Frankenbitch and The Mute. My favorite.”
He shot me a look that told me he would try. That even when I was screaming in the shower at two in the morning for Thay and Wolfe, or he drank himself into a four-day coma, we would still have each other. All we could do was take it one minute at a time.
It was all we had, and for now, it was enough.
I rubbed at my scar, flipping open the pages, making up the words as I went.
She fled into the forest, carrying the heart of a monster inside her chest as the blue of night broke behind her.
It was strange, the way the shadows parted, and the creatures that lived in the dark turned when she passed.
She loved the sound of her heartbeat, how it moved her blood and filled her mind with something new.
A little off, but she didn’t care. She had been threaded together, three bodies into one.
An amalgamation that would make even Mary Shelley weep.
A bell chimed in the distance, and her feet paused, turning toward the tower. Her greatest friend and only ally was calling her home.
The townsfolk called him The Mute, for the way his nightmares sat in his throat and clawed there. But he was more than that. More than the night that made him and the things he did to see dawn. The Mute had special powers. Sexy powers. The kind that…
“Ouch,” I laughed when Nate fell onto my lap, pinching my leg. “What? It is a good story.”
I lied. It wasn’t. It was a tragic tale that ended with me on a mattress. Irony at its worst.
My eyes shifted to the curtains when a chill settled low, sending a shiver through my body. My mind drifted to Wolfe and how much I missed him. Keeping him always inside my bones.
“It is freezing in here,” I mumbled, shuffling toward the window, only to see Thay smiling at me from the other side. Wherever he was, he wasn’t hurt. Wasn’t broken. And most of all, he was mine.
I thought about the window in Seattle and every one I had ever opened since. If Thay couldn’t get to me, my body would lock down, the terror arresting me completely. But now that he was inside my chest, I knew I was safe.
A hot tear rolled down my cheek to the stone below, but I didn’t move to wipe it away. I had learned that letting them fall helped with the pain I knew would always live inside me. It was dark. Violent. And alive.
Just like me.
Nathem patted the mattress, and I stepped forward, running my fingers along the edge of the old wood. I took a breath, the drum of Thay’s heart kissing my pulse in a slow, thick, almost overwhelming rhythm…
I closed my eyes, leaning into the glide of Thay’s hand sweeping down my shoulders and over my fingertips.
And then... we shut the window together... for the very first time.