Chapter 41
Dustin found himself back at the cemetery gates two days later.
It looked different in daylight.
Or maybe that was just because, for once, he wasn’t here to summon a supernatural entity.
“Do you want me to come?” Greg asked.
He was holding his coffee with both bandaged hands, palms wrapped carefully around the cup.
“Yeah,” Dustin said. “But give me a minute first?”
Greg nodded. “Take your time.”
Dustin got out.
He found Tyler’s headstone without trouble and without hesitation. The sunlight made the stone look almost white, the name and dates carved sharp beneath the infinity symbol.
He still wasn’t sure if he believed his twin’s spirit was here.
But it was somewhere.
“Hey,” Dustin said.
He felt silly.
He didn’t let that stop him.
“So. A lot’s happened. I met someone.” He rubbed the back of his neck.
“His name’s Greg. He was a reaper. Now he’s a guardian, apparently, which mostly means he worries about me professionally.
He burned his clipboard on the hill behind school and almost dissolved, and I think you might’ve had something to do with the fact that he didn’t. ”
A breeze stirred the flowers on Tyler’s grave.
Dustin’s throat tightened.
“Thank you for that.”
He crouched and brushed a leaf off the base of the headstone.
“You’d like him,” he said. “He’s weird. He eats junk food like it’s a religious experience. He cried at Mom’s chili and said it hurt him like the beans were in a vendetta against him.”
A soft laugh escaped him.
Then it faded.
“I pulled out of Devil’s Needle,” he said.
“I know it was your dream to do that jump one day, but I don’t think it’s such a good idea anymore.
Hell, you probably wouldn’t even want me to go through with it.
If I’d been the one who died…” He swallowed.
“You wouldn’t have been so stupid about it, would you?
You would’ve grieved and moved on. It’s what I would’ve wanted for you. ”
The stone was warm beneath his fingers.
Probably from the sun.
Probably.
Dustin knew better.
“I’m going to be better,” he said. “For both of us.”
He stayed there for another moment, hand on the infinity symbol.
Then he straightened and pulled out his phone.
He opened the camera app and pointed it at himself. Tyler’s headstone was in the background, slightly out of focus.
He didn’t angle it away.
He hit record.
“Hey,” he said to the camera. His voice was steady. “So I’m stepping back for a while. From jumping, from stunts, from all of it. I found some reasons to stay on the ground. That’s all I’m going to say about it.”
He ended the recording, watched it once, and uploaded it without editing.
For the caption, he wrote:
See you around.
The comments would be a disaster. People would come up with all kinds of explanations. Rehab, injury, scandal. Maybe even a secret pregnancy, because the internet had never let reality stop it before.
Dustin put the phone in his pocket and refused to think about it.
Instead, he turned around.
Greg stood a few rows back, giving him space. The morning light caught in his glasses, and his hair was more ruffled than usual. Dustin wanted to run his fingers through it. He wanted to grab all of Greg and hold on forever.
“You okay?” Greg asked.
“Yeah.”
Dustin crossed the distance between them and kissed him.
“I think so.”
They stopped by Cathy’s place before the long drive back to Dustin’s apartment.
Cathy had packed enough food for a three-week expedition.
Dustin stared at the counter, which was covered in Tupperware containers, foil-wrapped packages, a gallon-sized Ziploc of cookies, and what appeared to be an entire lasagna.
“Mom.”
“It’s a long drive.”
“It’s five hours.”
“You need to eat.” She was already loading a cooler bag. “The lasagna keeps for three days if you refrigerate it. The chili is in the blue container. Don’t microwave it in the Tupperware. Put it in a pot.”
“We’re not going to eat all of this.”
Cathy looked at him as though he’d said something very stupid.
“Greg,” she called. “Come help carry these.”
Obedient as ever, Greg picked up the cooler bag. It slipped immediately because his bandaged palms couldn’t grip it properly. He caught it against his chest with both arms, staggered slightly, and carried it toward the door like a man transporting precious cargo.
“I’ve got the lasagna,” Dustin said, grabbing it before Greg could attempt a second trip and drop an entire casserole on the porch.
They loaded the truck.
It took three trips.
By the time they were finished, the passenger footwell was entirely Tupperware.
Back in the kitchen, Cathy leaned against the counter with her arms crossed. The same posture she’d had the first night, when Dustin and Greg had shown up at her door.
But her face was different now. The brace was gone from her shoulders. The tightness around her eyes had loosened into something that looked, if not relaxed, then at least unguarded.
“Call me when you get home,” she said.
“I will.”
“I mean it. Don’t text. Call.”
“I’ll call.”
“And answer when I call you.”
Dustin’s chest tightened.
“I’ll answer.”
Cathy studied him.
Then she crossed the kitchen in three steps and hugged him.
Dustin wrapped his arms around her. “I’m sorry,” he said into her hair. “For all of it.”
“Stop apologizing.” Her voice was muffled against his shoulder. “Just come back.”
“Of course.”
She held on for a few more seconds.
Then she let go, wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand, and turned to Greg.
Greg stood in the kitchen doorway with his bandaged hands. He looked like he wasn’t sure he was included in this moment but desperately wanted to be.
Cathy walked up to him and hugged him.
Greg went rigid. His arms floated out to either side, unsure where to land. His eyes darted to Dustin over Cathy’s shoulder in pure, panicked confusion.
Dustin shot him a look that said, hug her back, idiot.
Gingerly, as if Cathy might break, Greg placed his bandaged hands on her back.
“Thank you,” Cathy said. She pulled back and looked at him. “For what you did.”
Greg blinked rapidly.
He must have been thinking about all the things he had actually done. The soul trade. The grocery store. The dissolution. All the things Cathy didn’t know and might never know.
“Take care of him,” Cathy said.
“That’s literally my job now,” Greg replied sincerely.
Cathy looked at him for a beat.
Then the corner of her mouth turned up.
“Good.”
She walked them to the door.
Dustin grabbed his bag, checked his pockets for his keys, and stepped onto the porch.
“Drive safe,” Cathy said.
“We will.”
They got in the truck.
They took Highway 550 north, back the way they’d come.
The mountains were on their left, the valley floor stretching out to their right, and the road unwound ahead in long, familiar curves. Dustin drove with one hand on the wheel and the other resting on his thigh.
Greg sat in the passenger seat with his bandaged hands in his lap, looking out the window with open attention, as if the world were showing him something new even when it was the same stretch of highway they’d driven last week.
They didn’t talk.
Not because there was nothing to say. There was enough to say to fill every mile between here and Montrose and then some.
But the silence was comfortable.
Dustin moved his hand from his thigh to the center console. Then farther, finding Greg’s knee.
He left it there.
Greg looked down at the hand. Then up at Dustin. His expression shifted into something warm and surprised, as if affection were still a novelty he hadn’t gotten used to.
“What’s your apartment like?” he asked.
Dustin chuckled. “A disaster. I haven’t been there in weeks. There’s probably mail up to the door handle and a dead houseplant.”
“Oh.” Greg considered this. “I could organize it.”
“Absolutely not.”
“But I would enjoy it.”
“You’re not cataloguing my apartment.”
“I could just clean up a little.”
“Maybe,” Dustin allowed.
Greg’s face lit up.
“It’ll be your place too, after all,” Dustin added.
“Oh,” Greg said softly.
His hand settled over Dustin’s.
The road straightened. The canyon opened into the broader valley, the mountains falling back as the sky went wide and blue above them.
Dustin drove north.
Toward the apartment with the dead houseplant and the piled mail and the disaster that was about to become something else.
Home.