“Yeah, I…” I scrub my face with one hand. “I know. I know I do.” I look up at her. “But I don’t want to be that far from you.”

She laughs. “You can’t get rid of me. I’ll come visit. But I think you need this.” Sober and serious, then. “You need time alone. You need to…well, exactly as he put it. You need to relearn how to live. This is how you do it.”

I sigh. “I guess there’s really nothing else left to do but just…go.”

She nods, points at the kitchen. “Your marching orders are to first make yourself coffee. Second, as big a breakfast as you can manage. You’ve been starving yourself so long it may not be much, but you need to eat. Third, you have to call Doc Wilson and tell him you’re taking an extended, open-ended leave of absence, starting immediately. For health reasons.”

“Okay.” I blow out a nervous breath. “Tess?”

“Nads?”

“Thank you.”

“Anything, anytime, always.”

An hour and a half later, I was behind the wheel of my car, fed, caffeinated, jobless, with all my clothes packed in the trunk and back seat of my little red A5. All the lights in my house were off. The garage was empty. The doors were locked.

It felt like I was going on a vacation…alone. It felt weird.

I’d said goodbye to Tess, hugged her at least four times, and then she physically shoved me in the car, leaned into the passenger door and input the address for me in the nav system, pressed “GO,” and kissed me on the temple.

“Next time I see you, you’re gonna be a different person, right?” She palmed my cheek.

“Yeah.”

“You have to invest in the process, Nads. Okay?”

“I will.” I booped her nose. “Get some good dick for me.”

“Oh, I’m getting all the good dick. I might even keep one, someday.”

I laughed. “And the rest of the man attached to it, I hope.”

“Maybe. If he’s nice enough.”

“You’re a dork.”

“Bye, Nads. Drive safe.”

“Bye, Tess-icles, I will. Thank you.”

“Don’t call me when you get there. Don’t text. Just turn your phone off, leave it in the car. If I hear from you, it’s because something went horribly wrong. So I don’t want to hear from you. Okay?”

“I can’t promise, but I’ll try.”

She exited the car, closed the door, and stepped back onto my lawn. Waved.

And I drove away.

Next stop?

The cabin.

Resurrection