Page 148 of Life and Death

“It’s the other way.”

I pivoted. “Okay.”

She took my hand and we started walking slowly toward a dark patch of forest.

“I’m sorry I laughed.”

“I would have laughed at me, too.”

“No, I was just a little . . . agitated. I needed the catharsis.”

We walked silently for a few seconds.

“At least tell me it worked—the mind-over-matter experiment.”

“Well . . . I didn’t get sick.”

“Good, but . . . ?”

“I wasn’t thinking about . . . in the car. I was thinking about after.”

She didn’t say anything.

“I know I already apologized, but . . . sorry. Again. I will learn how to do better, I know—”

“Beau, stop. Please, you make me feel even more guilty when you apologize.”

I looked down at her. We’d both stopped walking. “Why shouldyoufeel guilty?”

She laughed again, but this time there was an almost hysterical edge to her laugh. “Oh, indeed! Why shouldIfeel guilty?”

The darkness in her eyes made me anxious. There was pain there, and I didn’t know how to make it better. I put my hand against her cheek. “Edythe, I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

She closed her eyes. “I just can’t seem to stop putting you in danger. IthinkI’m in control of myself, and then it gets so close—I don’t know how to not bethisanymore.” Eyes still closed, she gestured to herself. “My very existence puts you at risk. Sometimes I truly hate myself. I should be stronger, I should be able to—”

I moved my hand to cover her mouth. “Stop.”

Her eyes opened. She peeled my hand off her mouth and placed it over her cheek again.

“I love you,” she said. “It’s a poor excuse for what I’m doing, but it’s still true.”

It was the first time she’d ever said she loved me—in so many words. Like she’d said this morning, it was different, hearing the words out loud.

“I loveyou,” I told her when I’d caught my breath. “I don’t want you to be anything other than what you are.”

She sighed. “Now, be a good boy,” she said, and stretched up on her tiptoes.

I held very still while she brushed her lips softly against mine.

We stared at each other for a minute.

“Baseball?” she asked.

“Baseball,” I agreed much more confidently than I felt.

She took my hand and led me a few feet through the tall ferns and around a massive hemlock tree, and we were suddenly there, on the edge of an enormous clearing on the side of a mountain. It was twice the size of any baseball stadium.

All of the others were there. Earnest, Eleanor, and Royal were sitting on an outcropping of rock, maybe a hundred yards away. Much farther out I could see Jessamine and Archie standing at least a quarter of a mile apart. It was almost like they were pantomiming playing catch; I never saw any ball. It looked like Carine was marking bases, but that couldn’t be right. The points were much too far apart.