Death's Temporary Home For Lost Souls

Chapter Twenty Nine: Death Wish

While I can hear my father banging around in the kitchen below, I can't bring myself to leave my room. Instead, I slide open my window and climb out onto the fire escape. I've spent many an angst-ridden night out here; kissing boys that only went on to break my heart, hiding away when I was too tired or fed-up to work my assigned shift in the restaurant, crying when I didn't get into my dream college. It feels like now I'm looking back at those memories from a distance, through a pair of binoculars. It doesn't feel like they belong to me anymore.

My first order of business is to text Analia and Eric, to explain everything and to apologize for ghosting them. Surprisingly, it's infinitely more difficult to type out the truth than to speak it, but after a while I manage to get all of the words down. Once I send the messages, I immediately silence my phone and toss it through the window so that it lands on my rug. I'm not interested in more pity or explanations right now; instead, my mind is preoccupied with the things my mother and Sarah had told me last night.

If anyone had asked me just a month or so ago what I thought about ghosts, visions, or any kind of mysticism, I would have laughed straight in their face and assumed they were high. But I've experienced too much now to think that my dream last night was anything but real.

What is your unfinished business?

I don't know, I think instinctively, but that feels just as false as saying that I want to stay here in New York. The city rushes by below me like a living whirlwind, and while I can appreciate the memories I've made here, it doesn't fit anymore. It doesn't make me happy.

So what does make me happy? I watch a middle-aged couple through the window in the apartment building across the street. They sit comfortably side-by-side in recliners and sip on mugs of coffee, laughing at something that glares at them from the television. I know what I want.

Death. The answer is simple; so simple that I'm not sure how I've been denying it so easily. But there's more to it than that; I don't just want to be with Death. I want to help his residents, the same way that I helped Sarah and Paul and Louis. I want to teach them about the world. I want to keep Mem company during her busiest shifts. I want to be the mother that Lisa lost. I want to dance with Death next Halloween, and the one after that, and every one after.

But the question is: how do I get around Love and her strict rules? How do I ensure that by achieving my unfinished business, I don't doom Death at the same time? Before I drown too much in my own despair, something that Sarah had said itches in my brain: Become part of the balance. How do I do that, if humans have no part to play in the business of Immortals?

All of a sudden, I feel as if the air has been knocked from my lungs. I bolt up to my feet. "Holy shit." The answer was there the entire time; how could I have been so stupid as not to notice it? "Holy shit."

I rush back into my room, get dressed, brush my teeth, shove as many clothes as I possibly can into my largest suitcase, and rush downstairs. I nearly run into my Dad as he leaves the kitchen, a towel slung over his shoulder. He only has to glance at my face and the bag in my hand once to realize the truth – or at least part of it.