Page 212 of What We Bury

“Same thing, sometimes.” He reaches over and scoops a bite of cake. “I’d love to meet them—officially, I mean.”

“You will,” I say, easy, already turning the phone back to type something cruel to Milo. “They’d love you.”

FIFTY-SEVEN

SAGE

Holden’s alarm goes off at six-thirty and I feel him reach for it in the dark, silencing it. The mattress shifts as he sits up, and I keep my eyes closed, listening to him move through the room, the soft rustle of clothes, the click of his belt, the quiet zip of his bag.

He’s stayed over enough now that I know the choreography of his mornings. He dresses in the dark so he won’t wake me. He makes the bed around me if I’m still in it. He leaves his phone charger plugged in by the couch because he knows he’ll be back.

I should be sleeping. Instead, I’m running the same thought loop I’ve been running since Saturday—Eli.

The last couple of days have been a blur. Besides forcing myself to go to the café with Amy and perform “normal,” I’ve done a lot of wallowing. The guys have held me through the worst of it, rotating in and out with soup, groceries, memes, and the kind of quiet watchfulness that doesn’t ask anything of me. I appreciate them more than I can express.

Somewhere in there I thought about texting Eli—three versions, angry, needy, apologetic, all deleted before sending. He can reach me if he wants. There’s nothing left to say.

Yesterday, I worked a double, keeping my head down, counting hours. When Jamie came in he took one look at my face and ordered an extra scoop of ice cream on his pie, which he then shared with me. We sat, we ate, and he didn’t ask a single question, which is how I know he’s becoming the kind of best friend I always wanted.

But the whole time—through the soup and the memes and the pie—Eli’s voice has been looping in my head.

Teaching is the only thing that keeps me human.

I’m afraid of what I’ll become.

He’s wrong. Catastrophically wrong about himself.

He thinks the classroom is a cage he built for the monster, but I’ve met his violence and his gentleness, and neither one is fake. The man who plants milkweed for butterflies is the same man who cleaned me up the night I murdered Brock. He is not good in spite of the darkness. He is both, all the way down.

And I won’t let him punish himself for loving someone who carries darkness too.

“I know you’re awake,” Holden says from somewhere near the dresser.

I open my eyes. He’s silhouetted in the gray pre-dawn light, pulling a shirt over his head, and even in the dark he’s irresistible.

“Where are you going?” I ask, even though I already know.

“Meeting. Final briefing before the kill tomorrow.”

“At the club?”

He pauses. Something in my tone, probably. Holden doesn’t miss much. “Yeah. Why?”

I sit up, pulling the sheet around my chest. “Can I come with you?”

“No.” He doesn’t even think about it.

“Holden—”

“It’s an operational meeting, Sage. Odin will be there. We’re running through the final plan for tomorrow. You can’t be in the room.”

“I don’t want to be in the room. I want to talk to Eli.”

He stops moving. In the low light, I can see his jaw tighten. “It’s not a good idea.” He pulls his shirt down, careful and deliberate, all the extra tension running through his arms. “He’s not ready, and we need to be focused.”

“I’m not asking if he’s ready, I’m telling you I need to see him.” My voice is level, colder than I mean, but I roll with it. Sometimes you have to force people to see you as you are, not as they want you to be. Holden turns to look at me, arms folded.

“You’re not responsible for fixing his damage.”