“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.