And I wanted it. Desperately.

“You never know.” Coco lifted a casual shoulder as she closed the drawer. “Maybe Absalon has found peace.”

Peace.

With a long-suffering sigh, Beau helped himself to another sticky bun in response.

I couldn’t shake the word, however, as Ansel’s eyes locked with mine, and the levity of the scene fell away. Even the firelight seemed to darken. And that pull in my stomach—it returned with a vengeance. This time, however, I couldn’t discern exactly where it led. Part of it seemed to tow me away from this place, away from Ansel, but the other part . . . I tilted my head, studying it closer.

The other part seemed to tow me toward him.

A siren’s call.

With another sad shake of his head, he leaned forward. His voice dropped to a whisper. “No, Lou.”

Beau lifted a finger, pointing it between us accusingly. “Stop it. No secrets allowed.”

Coco returned to her seat and cut the deck. The cards snapped between her deft fingers. “I do hate when they whisper.” Her eyes flicked to Ansel, and she added, albeit playfully, “I am her best friend, thanks very much. If she’s going to whisper with anyone, it should be me.”

“It should be me.” Reid crossed his arms, eyes sharp on the deck in her hand. “And I saw that.”

She flicked the card from her sleeve, grinning without remorse.

“I’m okay, Lou,” Ansel continued softly, ignoring them. He didn’t so much as glance in their direction as the protests began anew. When my chin began to quiver—when the room blurred through my tears—he lifted a hand to stroke my back, consoling me. “I’m okay. You’re going to be okay too.”

The tears fell thick and fast now, salty on my lips, and my entire body trembled. I forced myself to look at his face, to memorize him—the color of his eyes and the shape of his smile, the sound of his voice and the scent of his clothes, like sunshine. Pure sunshine. That was Ansel. Always the warmest of us all. “I don’t want you to go.”

“I know.”

“Will I ever see you again?”

“Not for a long time, I hope.”

“Can’t I come with you?”

He looked to Reid and Coco and Beau then, who’d just started up a game of tarot. Beau cursed roundly when Coco took the first trick. “Is that really what you want?” he asked. Yes. I choked on the word, face hot and wretched, before shaking my head. He smiled again. “I didn’t think so.” Still he made no move to rise, content to remain sitting with me for as long as I needed. He wouldn’t force me to go, I realized. It would have to be my decision.

The tug in my stomach grew stronger, more insistent. I clenched my fists against it and bowed my head in response, shoulders shaking. Not yet. Not yet not yet not yet. “I can’t just leave you, though. I can’t do it. I—I’ll never see you blush again. I’ll never teach you the rest of ‘Big Titty Liddy,’ and we’ll—we’ll never go to Pan’s or sneak spiders into Jean Luc’s pillow or read La Vie Éphémère together. You promised to read it with me, remember? And I never showed you the attic where I lived. You never caught a fish—”

“Lou.” When I looked up, he was no longer smiling. “I need to find peace.”

Peace.

I swallowed hard around the word, my eyes wet and swollen.

Peace.

It felt foreign and strange on my tongue. Bitter.

Peace.

But . . . the ache in my chest expanded to thrice its size. It also felt right. Exhaling softly, I closed my eyes in resolve. I couldn’t count the number of times I’d done wrong in my life—and I regretted few of them—but I would do right by Ansel. He wouldn’t spend another moment following me, restless, trapped in a world where he no longer belonged. He would fix my mistakes no further. I didn’t know how he’d managed to stick around in the first place—whether it’d been his choice or mine—but I couldn’t keep him here. I’d finally give him what he needed. What he deserved.

He deserved peace.

Nodding, numb, I allowed the tug in my stomach to pull me to my feet. He rose with me, and the scene around us began to swirl and shift in waves. “Was any of this real?” I asked as Reid, Coco, and Beau continued their card game, oblivious to the waters. Pressure pinched at my shoulders. “Or did I drown and imagine everything?”

Ansel’s eyes twinkled. “A little bit of both, I think.”

We stared at each other, neither willing to move.

“I don’t think—”

“It’s funny—”

“You first,” I insisted.

A touch of wistfulness entered his expression. “Do you think . . . before you go . . . you could sing me the last verse?” He rubbed his neck, sheepish once more. “If you feel like it.”

As if I’d ever had a choice.

“Their babe they named Abe,” I sang on a watery chuckle, “his brother Green Gabe. Then Belle and Adele and Keen Kate. Soon dozens came mewling, but still they kept screwing, even outside the pearly gates.”

His face burned so vivid a scarlet it rivaled my every memory, but he grinned from ear to ear regardless. “That’s indecent.”

“Of course it is,” I whispered. “It’s a pub song.”

His eyes shone too brightly now, brimming with tears of his own. Still he grinned. “You’ve been to a pub?” When I nodded, smiling so hard it hurt, my chest aching and aching and aching, he shook his head in horror. “But you’re a woman.”

“There’s a whole world outside this church, you know. I could show you, if you wanted.”

His grin faded slowly, and he touched my cheek, bending to brush a kiss across my forehead. “Thank you, Lou. For everything.”

I clutched his wrist desperately as the last of the house darkened, as the tug in my stomach deepened to a burn. The pressure at my shoulders increased, and my ears popped. Shouts penetrated the thick haze of my consciousness, echoing all around as if from underwater. “Where will you go?”

He glanced back to where Coco had sat at our table, shuffling cards and laughing. The wistfulness in his expression returned. “I have one more goodbye to make.”

The burn in my chest became near unbearable. Icy needles pierced my skin. “I love you, Ansel.”

My vision clouded as the waves truly descended, shocking and brutal. Though they pulled me away from him, I’d remember his smile until the day I died. Until the day I saw it again. His fingers slipped from mine, and he drifted backward, a beacon of light in the darkness. “I love you too.”

With a powerful kick of my legs, I surged upward.

Toward fear.

Toward pain.

Toward life.

Another Pattern

Reid

We broke the surface together. Water sluiced from her face, golden and freckled, and her hair, long and brown. She clutched my shirt as she gasped, spluttered, before tipping her face to the sky and grinning. Those clear blue-green eyes met mine, and she finally spoke. “Do you have something in your pocket, Chass, or are you just happy to see me?”

I couldn’t help it. I threw back my own head and laughed.