Epilogue A Long-Awaited Redemption
Trevor
The cemetery is all slope and shadow, a ragged grid of stones gnawed down by time.
At the edge of the city, the graves are packed tight, names fighting for territory in the brittle grass.
Half the markers lean in toward each other, gossiping in the hush.
The air is cold enough to frost a lung. My hands are empty except for the flower and the key fob in my pocket, which I click obsessively as we walk, some idiot’s talisman to keep the ghosts at bay.
Aleatha Romero is easy to find. Her grave is low and flat, the stone worn blank where the elements got to it first, the name and years eroding back toward dust. There’s no ornament—just the little oval set in the granite, a grainy photograph of a girl with straight black hair and a smile so tentative it looks like an apology.
The ground around her is pocked and uneven, the grass never quite growing over the wound.
There’s a beer bottle at the base, empty and half-sunk.
Kayleigh nudges it away with her sandal and says nothing.
I stand there with the flower, watching the picture, trying not to let the old itch crawl up my neck.
I used to dream about Aleatha’s funeral.
I didn’t even go because I didn’t know she’d passed at the time, so my dreams are of an imagined funeral that never actually happened.
But I can see it in my mind’s eye—the color of the sky, the faces in the crowd, the feeling that everyone was just waiting for me to confess.
They all knew. Every single person knew that I was the reason she was in the ground, and that made it worse than any sentence.
But I know better now. Aleatha was very sick, and the guilt I felt was the reeling of a young man who didn’t know better.
Meanwhile, Kayleigh doesn’t say a word. She waits, her body close but not touching mine.
She’s in a sundress, grey with white dots, the kind of thing a vintage shop would price at $8 but I’d pay a grand for just to see her in it again.
Her hair is loose. There’s a blue-green streak on one arm where she leaned against a fresh-cut juniper at the park. She looks gorgeous, as always.
I kneel, slow, my knee joint clicking loud enough for her to hear. I set the white flower on the grave, right next to the photo, and brush the dirt from my palm. The stone is cold, but the light is warm—amber and low, just bleeding through the trees like the last exhalation of the day.
I think about the last time I saw Aleatha alive.
It’s always the driveway that gets me—the way her arms wrapped around her elbows, the way she stared at the sky like she was waiting for an answer that would never come.
She knew I was going to break up with her.
She knew it before I did. The only thing I ever gave her was a confession, and by then it was way too late.
Kayleigh puts a hand on my shoulder. Not a squeeze, just a presence. I let her rest it there for a minute before I stand and dust the dirt off my knees. The grass stains my jeans a little, and for some reason that’s the thing that makes me want to laugh and punch something at the same time.
We stand there. The silence is so deep it echoes in my teeth.
“I used to come here and just stand,” I say, not looking at Kayleigh.
“Sometimes in the winter, I’d have to dig through the snow just to find her.
Other times, I’d just drive by, circle the block, park where I could see the headstone through the fence.
Like she was a checkpoint, or a speed bump.
Sometimes I’d say stuff out loud, but it never made me feel any better. ”
Kayleigh is quiet. She lets the wind fill in the blanks.
I go on. “Therapist says that’s normal. That you keep circling the thing that hurts you until you learn to walk around it. But I never got past it. I just wore a rut.”
She moves her hand from my shoulder and slides it down my arm, threading her fingers through mine. Her skin is cold, but her grip is strong.
“I learned something,” I say, staring at the grave.
“Last session, he told me that I can stop trying to bury the secret. That maybe the worst part wasn’t what happened, but the fact that I wouldn’t talk about Aleatha after she was gone.
Like if I just didn’t talk about her, she wouldn’t drag me down with her. ”
The grass shifts in the wind, a soft sizzle.
I look at Kayleigh. She’s watching me, her face calm and open, the blue of her eyes so pale in the dusk it looks lit from inside. I love her for this—for the way she lets me be ugly and weak and not hate myself for it.
“I don’t want to keep secrets anymore,” I say, the words scraping up my throat. “Not about her, not about us. I want it to be out in the open, no more shame, no more hiding. We’re not a fucking mistake, Kayleigh.”
She leans in and puts her hand on my jaw, turning my face to hers.
“I never thought we were,” she whispers. “And you haven’t. We’ve been out to everyone for a few months now: our parents, our friends, your work even. Everyone knows and no one cares that we’re stepsiblings. Isn’t that grand?”
She kisses me. Slow and steady, like it’s the most natural thing in the world to kiss your boyfriend in a graveyard.
Her lips are soft, almost sweet, and she tastes like the watermelon lip balm she uses sometimes.
I run my thumb along her wrist, feeling the fine bones under her skin, and kiss her back until my jaw aches.
The air is thicker now. The last bit of sun knifes between the branches, painting her hair white at the crown. When she pulls away, her breath is fogged and fast.
I kiss her again, harder this time. Her mouth opens and I slide my tongue inside, tracing her teeth, making her gasp. The hand on my jaw migrates to the back of my neck, threading into my hair, and she tugs just enough to make me want to throw her down on the grass and show her how alive I am.
I pick her up by the waist, one hand fisted in the fabric of her dress, the other sliding up her spine.
She clings to me, her arms around my shoulders, her legs bracketing my hips as I walk us both off the path, through the grass, past the row of blank stones.
There’s a little hollow behind a willow, the ground sunken and soft, and I set her down there, cradling her to the earth.
She’s breathing hard, eyes wide and wet. I kneel over her, my hands on either side of her face, and lean down to kiss her again, this time softer. She pushes up into me, her back arching, and the neckline of her dress slips lower, exposing the curve of one shoulder, the line of her collarbone.
I nudge the strap down with my nose, then my lips, then my teeth, dragging it slow until her breast slips free. She isn’t wearing a bra—she almost never does with sundresses—and the sight of her pale, perfect skin against the green grass makes my cock ache.
“Fuck, Kayleigh,” I whisper, and she shivers. “You’re so fucking gorgeous.”
She wraps her hand around the back of my neck, pulling me in, her lips tracing the line of my jaw, then down to my throat. She bites just hard enough to leave a mark, and I groan, pinning her wrists above her head with one hand while my other pulls the dress up, bunching it around her waist.
Her thighs are smooth and golden, the skin warm even in the shade.
I run my palm along the inside of her leg, feeling the tremor in her muscles.
She’s wet already, the thin cotton of her panties soaked through, and when I press two fingers against her slit, she gasps so loud I worry someone will hear.
“Oooh,” she moans. “Oooh yes!”
But there’s no one. Just the sun dying in the trees.
I peel the panties down her legs, slow, watching the way her breath hitches. The damp fabric clings, and when I finally slip it off, I tuck it into my pocket. She laughs, the sound delirious, then covers her mouth with one hand, trying to stifle it.
I kiss her again, then work my way down—her throat, her collarbone, the swell of her breast. I take her nipple in my mouth, rolling it with my tongue, biting just enough to make her squirm. She tries to wriggle her hands free, but I keep them pinned, loving the way she strains against me.
“You’re so beautiful,” I say, and she bites her lip, eyes rolling back when I slide my fingers inside her.
She’s tight, so tight, and the heat of her makes me want to lose control right there.
But I don’t. I work her slow, curling my fingers just so, thumb circling her clit until she’s panting, her legs trembling around my hand.
“You have such a sloppy, horny cunt,” I rasp. “Always so wet for me even in a fucking cemetery. You’re my little whore, the way you always have been.”
She moans, eyes rolling up, and claws at my shoulders, nails digging in. I pull back just enough to watch her face as she comes, and when it hits her, she goes soft and slack, eyes shut, mouth open in a scream.
“Mmmmm!” she shrieks. “Oh oh oh!”
“Fuck yeah,” I grunt, shaking my fingers like a madman in her pussy as she comes, juice squirting. “That’s my little fuckslut.” Then, I pull my fingers out and lick them clean, letting her watch. Her eyes go dark, and she reaches for my waistband, desperate.
“Please, Trevor,” she whispers, “I want you.”
The need in her voice is a knife. I undo my belt, shove my jeans down just far enough, and stroke my cock a few times, watching her eyes go wide at the sight. She’s still boneless from the orgasm, her knees falling apart, but when I line up at her entrance, she rises to meet me, greedy for it.
“Fuck me, Daddy,” she whispers, spreading her legs so that her pussy’s wide open for my huge shaft. “Make me feel it.”
I push in slow, savoring the heat and the way she clutches at me. She’s so wet it’s almost too easy, but the way her cunt milks me is pure bliss. I bottom out, balls pressed tight to her ass, and hold there, letting her feel every inch.