When your tox screen came back—no drugs, clean, surprisingly—along with the full coroner’s report, the cause of death was a catastrophically ruptured aorta. Is there any other kind of aorta rupturing? I won’t shame you here, now, about how you were supposed to be monitoring and taking care of your heart, however one does such a thing. I can’t help but think that it didn’t have to happen or didn’t have to happen this way.

What are the odds of your heart grenading in Eddie’s garage, though, right? Has to be at least 3 to 1.

Sorry, I have to joke, or I won’t be able to finish this. The hard part is still coming.

The reality of the timing of your heart attack doesn’t work as fiction because people will think it contrived. Though, maybe not, since this is about you being a vampire and fulfilling your—ugh—fate of eventually being buried, and then coming back fully, vampirically blossomed. But you’re not coming back. That’s the part that sucks. No vampire pun intended?

Goddammit, Art.

All your mom’s money—what little is left—and the house is in probate, so I helped your dad pay for your plot and your burial. I couldn’t find any living will of yours and I wasn’t going to show anyone this manuscript, not yet anyway, not until it was ready. I know your mom was cremated, but it wasn’t wholly clear to me if you wanted to be cremated too. Sure, given the implication(s) of your choice in the last chapter, you probably wanted to be cremated so you wouldn’t “come back.” A novel is hardly a living will, though. I didn’t want to guess at something like that, so when your dad insisted that you be buried, I didn’t fight him. Burials and ceremonies are for the living anyway. And yeah, I was being a little selfish here too. I wanted you buried. I planned on seeing you again.

I won’t put you through the details of who and how many people came to your wake and funeral. Suffice to say, it was a healthy crowd. The services were nice, tasteful, and the speculation about what you were doing at Eddie’s was kept to a minimum among the attendees. I made a playlist of your favorite songs that played on low, murmur volume during the wake. Your dad picked out a plot at St. Mary’s Cemetery.

I’m sitting in your room as I write this. I’m not going to stay in your house much longer. Not sure why that feels important enough to write down.

Okay, I think we’re here, Art. Here’s the end-end. Maybe not the one you wanted, but the one this book needs.