Page 23 of Reaper and Ruin

Now, by the way his mother was acting, that was over.

It just felt like another part of me had been ripped away.

Warren squeezed my hand after his wife disappeared into their son’s room. “It’s not you. She’s just struggling with her grief. We just need to get some clothes from his room. His body has been released, so we’ve organized the funeral.”

“Oh,” I said quietly.

He let my hand go and followed his wife into Toby’s room.

I leaned heavily against the wall, staring numbly at the closed bedroom door. The sounds of their grief echoed back, her sobs, his comforting words with a voice so broken it brought tears to my eyes.

X found me there but said nothing, just wrapped his arms around me from behind. We stood there like that until the door opened again and Toby’s parents emerged, Judy’s arms full of her son’s clothes.

“We’ll let you know when the funeral is.” She sniffed, her gaze not meeting mine, but her voice a little less harsh than before.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” I said pathetically, knowing it wouldn’t help.

They’d lost their only child. There was no consoling them.

She gave a curt nod. “And I for yours.”

Those few simple words went a long way to easing the guilt building inside me. I saw them to the door and locked it behind them.

I’d thought I’d been doing okay with my grief, but seeing them made me realize I’d just been keeping myself too busy, too distracted, to feel it.

It all rushed in like a freight train of destruction.

X moved to Toby’s door. “I’ll close this.”

But I shook my head, striding across the room. “No. I need to face it. I can’t keep ignoring he’s gone.” I swallowed hard. “I can’t afford this place by myself. I need to box up his things so I can get a roommate.”

Just saying those words out loud crumpled the last tether I had on my grief. I choked out a sob but pushed on anyway, stepping into Toby’s bedroom.

X followed close behind me, not giving me any personal space, and I was grateful for it.

Toby’s room looked like it did most days. The bed a tangled mess of sheets and pillows and blankets because he didn’t believe in making it just to get back in a few hours later. Brightly colored clothes were flung around, like he’d tried them on, dismissed them, and then sent them flying. Various posters hung on the wall, advertising his varied interests, from LGBTQ support to the urban photography he’d come to love in the past few years since he’d found a decent camera at a pawnshop and come home claiming he was going to be the next Andreas Gursky.

It had surprised us both when he’d actually been good at it.

I picked up his camera from his bedside table, accidentally knocking off a pile of black-and-white printed photos beneath it. X knelt and picked them up for me, his attention catching on them.

He sat back on his heels and flicked through the images. “Damn. These are really good.” Then he shrugged. “At least they look good to me. I don’t know anything about photography.”

I didn’t really either, other than what I’d learned from Toby. I took the images as he passed them to me, studying each one, taking my time on the details he’d somehow managed to bring out. I smiled at the places around Saint View I recognized. “The Dead End should have this printed on their wall. Place looks better in this photo than it does in real life.”

The greasy diner on the main strip of Saint View was a cheap, run-down place but popular with the locals nonetheless, mostly because of the prices. But Toby’s image, taken at night, with the lights on behind the grubby glass windows, and shadowedsilhouettes of people moving around inside had captured something beautiful about it.

I shifted through the other photos, taking in the familiar sights, all taken at night. The strip club. Dax’s tattoo shop. Psychos. Even Clean Sweep, nestled in between other stores in the worst part of town.

X paused, staring down at one photo.

I waited for him to pass it in my direction, but he bit his lip.

“What?”

“I don’t think you’ll want to see this one.”

Of course, that only made me want to see it more. I reached over and plucked it from his fingers.