Page 85 of Styx & Stones

Her organs have been removed, her casing sewn up, as if she were a teddy bear someone pulled the stuffing out of. I should be glad pieces of her have gone on to save other lives, but I’m not. How can someone else live with a heart that used to beat only for me?

Inside that coffin is a girl I used to know. Now she’s just flesh, bone, and embalming fluid. She was killed by a fucking aneurysm, her organs picked apart for the living. Her brain is dead and left to rot in what was the prettiest head I’d ever seen.

I stagger to my feet. Mom grabs my hand, but I shrug her off. I walk away without a backward glance because that girl in the casket, that empty shell? That isn’t my Stones. She isn’t anything. The girl I love is dead, and I won’t find her in this church. I won’t find her anywhere on this Earth.

My Stones is long gone. And I won’t be far behind her.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

STYX

Three days later

Mom knocks on my door. I don’t answer. She’s probably just trying to get me to shove more food in my face. I don’t wanna eat. I don’t want to get up and shower, or leave my room.

I watch all of the videos of Alaska I’d saved to my phone. I play her highlights on Instagram, over and over, and scroll her feed, read our messages, and listen to the voicemails she left me. None of it brings her back. All of it makes me feel like shit, and yet I do it anyway. I replay our trip to Disneyland in my head, and every conversation we ever had; every look or smile she shot my way is etched in my memory. And that’s all I have—memories.

Mom opens my door and peers in. I’d tell her to fuck off, but I don’t even have the energy for that. “Honey, there’s a phone call for you.”

I scowl.Who the hell would be calling me? “Take a message.” I roll over in bed and stare at the wall.

Mom comes into the room and offers me the phone. “You’ll want to take this.”

I’m sure I don’t, but if it will get her to leave me the hell alone, I’ll do it. I hold my hand out and she places her cell in it.

“Hello?”

“Styx, it’s Dean. I run Clarion—”

“I know who you are. What the hell do you want with me?”

“Alaska Stone came to see me.”

I grit my teeth. “Alaska Stone is dead.”

“Before, dude. She came to see me the night you cancelled. She painted a mural.”