Page 141 of Grim

Regret washes over me.Why didn’t we ever do this?It sounds so wonderful.

“And maybe you can introduce me to this handsome mystery man.”

“Ah,” I sigh out. “Now your true motives are revealed. I knew something seemed fishy!”

“I’ll bring soup,” she continues.

“Oh, no, Mom, please not soup.” I groan. “Spaghetti?” I offer.

“You hate my spaghetti.”

“But you love making it.”

That gets a laugh. “You little shit.”

“My big tyrant.”

“My perfect brat.”

There’s a pause.

“Well, I’ve gotta run, Rue. There’s always something going on! But I’m so glad we had this catch-up. What a talent you are. And with a man. This weekend. I can’t wait.”

“I’ll see you then,” I lie.

“Wonderful. Until then.”

“Goodbye, Mom,” I tell her truthfully.

She ends the call.

And I sit there until the screen goes dark. Until my reflection stares back at me in the black mirror of the phone. Pale, small, and unraveling.

It’s just me again. Me and the kitchen. Me and the ache. Me and all the words I couldn’t bring myself to say.

“Brutal,” Big D says before shoving another fistful of popcorn into his mouth.

My jaw tightens. I don’t look at him. “She didn’t tell her,” I say quietly. “Her mother doesn’t know. And Rue didn’t tell her.”

“Of course she didn’t.” D’s voice is halfway bored. “That’s the entire tragic point, Kane. These mortals, with their little soft bodies and their ridiculous insistence that what they do matters. That they candosomething.” Hewaves a hand, the popcorn in his palm scattering across the floor. “Rue didn’t have it in her.”

“She can do anything she wants.”

D turns to look at me, raising one sharp brow. “No, she cannot. That’s not how this works. Have you been payinganyattention?”

“She wrote that poem. Those fucking words.”

“Yes! Now you’re on to something, Kane.Art,my friend. Art is the antidote to all that humans cannot control.” He gestures wildly with his hands. “It’s their most noble delusion. Their attempt to tame chaos with rhythm. To answer all those pesky questions that claw at the inside of the skull—how, why, what if.”

I interrupt his ceaseless musings with an earnest plea. “Take me there. There’s still time.” I lock eyes with him, hoping I can climb my way to some compassion beneath those obsidian orbs.

“In which of your ten languages,” D says, his tone dripping with mock pity, “do I need to explain to you, that is not going to happen? Hmm?”

I cry out a guttural, hopeless sound.

“Oh look!” Big D replies gleefully as he points toward the screen. “She’s on the move.”

Each step feels taller than the previous one, and I cannot say if that’s my body playing tricks on me or a design flaw of the house I did not previously detect. I feel like Alice trying to walk out of the rabbit hole. My legs quake beneath me, but onward they march. Halfway up the stairs, I stop. It all feels like too much. Too much effort, too much pain, too much to face. Lingering midway, I seriously entertain the thought of resting here, taking a seat for a minute. I need more strength, and then I can press on.