Just like Dexter and I would never be together. Not that we were some epic love story, but it was sad to know we never would be. At least Dexter wouldn’t remember us, and I would have my thirst to distract me. Sal and Lina had to keep spinning in the same universe, and when I saw the pain in Lina’s face as she stared at that photo, I decided it was probably for the best that Dex and I were going to end before it got any harder to say goodbye.

Thirty-Two

So Much for the Sun

The day of the Halloween Hoopla dawned gray and chilly, and the clouds remained thick throughout the morning, as floats and flatbeds clustered at the edge of town, lining up for the march down Main Street. I stared up at the sky, looking for any cracks of light, but the gloom was solid. I guess the sun just wasn’t much for goodbyes.

“Earth to Charlie!” Sydney tugged on the hem of my fairy dress. “What’s wrong, you not get enough coffee yet this morning? Need me to call Lina for a special delivery?”

Sydney was sitting on the bed of the float, at the edge of our paper-mache graveyard, gluing some fallen letters back onto their Styrofoam headstone. I dropped down beside her, perched on my knees, so that my fairy wings wouldn’t touch the ground.

“Yeah, just need a caffeine fix,” I said.

But that wasn’t true. Sal and I had split a pot of coffee that morning, the two of us watching the sunless dawn break over the cornfields in total silence, both drowning in our own thoughts. I wondered what we would be to each other by nightfall. Friends or foes? When we reached the cold dregs at the bottom, Sal clinked his mug once against mine. Friends, I hoped.

But I was fooling myself. Unlike everyone else in Nowhere, Sal would remember us, would know what we did, and how could he ever forgive? Eventually, he disappeared into his woodshed, and I went to cover myself in glitter.

Which I was regretting now that the glitter had seeped into a few very itchy places. I wiggled side to side, trying to scratch without being obvious about it. Itching was, by far, the worst part of being human. I would not miss it in the slightest.

“Have you seen Dex, yet?” Syd asked, eyes on her headstone repairs.

“Not yet,” I said. “The Future Farmers float is way up at the front.”

“He is so Iowa.”

Sydney put the last letter in place and adjusted her horns. Somewhere nearby, her mirror image was sporting a halo.

“You know,” I said. “If you and Soph really wanted to come in costume, you should be the angel and she should be the demon. Because we all know which of you is the good girl.”

Sydney feigned offense. “I can be good!”