Page 93 of Stay With Me

“Wait, what? He got SHOT?” I squeeze Tripp’s arm when we see a bloody Patrick in Demi’s lap. “No way he dies. Right?”

I gasp when the realization hits me that it’s Patrick’s ghost watching the scene unfold.

“I can’t believe he dies,” I choke out. “Why would you take me to this?”

“Why do you think it’s the title of the movie?” he asks carefully.

“I dunno! I wasn’t thinking of itliterally.” I frown. “So now what? He’s gonna haunt her until the murderer is caught?”

He takes my fidgeting hand and threads his fingers between mine as we watch the funeral scene.

“If we get to attend our own funerals from the afterlife, everyone better be cryin’ over me and only showin’ off my best photos.”

I frown when Demi screws up her vase. “Aww. I hate seeing how sad she looks. She can’t even enjoy makin’ pottery anymore.”

My heart aches at the grief I can feel on her behalf.

We continue watching as he learns how to go through walls and kick cans, and then the realization of how things are going to continue hits me when Whoopi Goldberg shows up.

“Whoopi’s the psychic medium in this?”

“Technically, she’s a fraud until Patrick shows up, which is why she’s freakin’ the fuck out.”

I snort.

Tripp continues holding my hand and we eat popcorn with our free ones. I’m glued to the screen to find out how the hell this progresses now that someone can hear him.

“Oh, hell no. I see a penny sliding up a door and floating in the air, I’m fuckin’ gone. How is she so chill?”

“Well, if someone showed up after I died and knew privatedetails about us no one else would know, you wouldn’t stay to hear her out?” Tripp asks.

“See, that’d never happen because you’re not allowed to die on me now that we’re finally together. But if you did and were murdered, I’d fully expect your ghost to harass a psychic until she agrees to talk to me so we can figure out how to catch the murderer.”

He grins. “Okay, deal.”

The scenes where Patrick makes Whoopi pretend to be Rita Miller to get back at Carl are thrilling. I want that bastard to rot.

And when the broken window pierces Carl’s chest and he’s taken over by some weird black smoke, I smile wide in victory. It was much more satisfying than Willie’s death, even though he’s the one who actually shot Patrick. Carl was the mastermind behind it.

“Thank God. No one schemes to kill my Patrick and lives to tell the tale.”

Tripp grins. “Just wait now…”

“Ugh, my heart can’t take any more,” I say when we watch the light shining above Patrick and he’s saying goodbye to Demi and Whoopi.

My throat burns as I hold back tears, but when I can no longer keep it together, I let them fall.

And then I wonder how watching this is affecting Tripp with his own personal experience of losing his best friend.

When the final scene ends with Patrick fading away to his new home, Tripp leans over and wipes my cheek with the pad of his thumb.

“So did you like it?”

I glower at him.

“I’ll take that as a…maybe.”

“Of course I did, but goddamn. It was heart-wrenching.”