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An unmarked tombstone hiding in a copse of trees.

Her grandmother wanted to be laid to rest beside the cottage she’d raised her daughter and grand-daughter in. But with no name to call her own, Astoria explained—tears welling in her eyes—that they had decided to leave it blank.

My chest tightened as she knelt in front of the moss covered stone. Astoria brushed her fingers over the worn, uneven letters. Loved and Never Forgotten.

I stayed a step behind, letting her have this moment. She deserved as much. More than that, honestly. The wind stirred the trees overhead—a soft, sighing sound, as the earth itself mourned alongside her.

"I used to come here," she said finally, her voice barely louder than the rustle of the leaves. "After she passed. I’d sneak out of the house and just… talk to her. Tell her about my day, or something funny I saw, or something stupid I’d done."

She gave a watery laugh, dashing at her eyes with the sleeve of my sweater. "I don’t know if she ever heard me," Astoria added, voice thick. "But it made me feel less alone."

I crouched down beside her, the cold earth seeping into my knees. "You weren’t alone," I said softly. "You never were."

She turned her head, and the look she gave me made it hard to breathe, as though she could see straight through the centuries and right into me.

I reached out, hesitant, and brushed a stray lock of hair from her face.

Her skin was cool from the evening air, and my fingers lingered just a second too long against her cheek.

Maybe she knew it, maybe she wanted me to, because she didn’t pull away.

If anything, she leaned in, just slightly.

The silence between us shifted, molten and heavy, just waiting to tip over and consume us.

"You always do that.”

"Do what?"

She smiled, small and broken and beautiful. "Say the one thing I needed to hear, even when I didn’t know I needed it."

I swallowed, the ache in my chest almost unbearable. "I pay attention." Without thinking I tilted my head and brushed my mouth over her temple. A touch, barely there.

She let out a tiny sound, a hitch of breath, and when I pulled back, she was looking at me with the heavens in her eyes, as if I was the only thing left in her world.

I suppose I was.

"Come on," I said, my voice rough. "Before I do something we'll regret."

My hand found hers anyway, fingers lacing through hers naturally, and I couldn’t help but think they were made to fit. She squeezed once, grounding me. We left the little grave behind, the trees parting to let us through, the past trailing at our heels.

Finally, we looped back to Milly’s . I ordered us two cones, mine mint chip, hers strawberry (like she used to get as a girl) and we sat down on the curb outside, side by side. She was still in her leggings and my oversized sweater, and I was still laughably overdressed. But I didn’t care.

For a while, we just ate. The night air was crisp around us, the ocean breathing quietly against the shore.

"This," she said, licking a drip of ice cream from her cone, "was my favorite place. Milly’s. Back then, she only sold two flavors: vanilla and honey cream."

"Good taste," I said, bumping her shoulder lightly.

She smiled at me, small and a little shy.

Neither of us spoke for a long beat.

"You look good like this," she said suddenly, her voice a little breathless.

I arched a brow. "Like what?"

She gave a tiny, helpless shrug, her eyes darting to my sweater, my messy hair, and back to my face. "Normal. Almost human."

Turning fully toward her, I bumped my knee against hers. "You make me want to be," I said simply.

Her breath caught.

And then the space between us shrank.

Not rushed. Not sudden. Just inevitable.

The air buzzed with everything we weren’t saying, with the thousand stolen glances, the casual touches that lingered, the way her hand had never quite let go of mine.

I leaned in, slow enough that she could stop me.

She didn’t.

Her lips met mine, tentative at first, a kiss built not from desperation, but from wonder. As if we couldn’t believe this moment was real. Both of us, daring to hope it could be.

When she pulled back, her forehead rested against mine. "Thank you... for bringing me here."

I smiled against her skin.

"I'd bring you anywhere."

And I meant it.

Anywhere. Always.

Tugging the chain of the necklace out of the sweater, she held it out between us, flicking the hourglass over.

The sands sat squarely in the bottom, and I berated myself for being such an ass that day.

She thought it was meant as some omen, and I let her believe it was true because I couldn’t control myself.

It was meant as a token of my affection—the hourglass, my sigil.

It bothered me that I’d been given the scythe. My importance represented by a weapon, by violence. I’d chosen the hourglass because it represented the truth.

“I don’t know why I kept it,” she admitted.

“I shouldn’t have said those things…”

“Why do you care?”

I frowned, my head still resting against hers. “You deserve more than what you’ve settled for.”

A shiver ran down her spine as she laughed, bitter and small.

“I don’t think I was meant to have more.

” A confession spoken into the dark so no one else could hear.

“I’ve had all this time, Grim. Decades. Centuries, even.

I went to college—twice. Different names, different hair, different cities.

I started a dozen things and finished none of them.

I told myself I’d try again, make a difference, matter.

But it always fell apart, or I walked away before it could.

I don’t even have a degree on a wall to prove I existed.

” She exhaled hard, pulling away from me. “It’s pathetic.”

“ You’re not pathetic.” I reached for her chin, guiding her gaze back to me. “You’re human.”

“Am I?” she asked, eyes flickering to mine.

“Because sometimes I feel like a ghost in my own skin. Like I got left behind on accident. Like I wasn’t supposed to survive the war or the sickness or that car crash in ’89—and I just did.

I keep thinking I have to earn it. Like if I do something good enough, if I suffer the right way, then maybe I’ll finally be allowed to rest. Or disappear. ”

There was silence after that. Not cold or awkward. Just... true. It was her truth laid bare as a wound that had never stopped bleeding.

“You don’t have to earn your life,” I said quietly. “You don’t have to prove you’re worthy of it. You are worthy. Because you’re here. Because you breathe and hurt and try again even when it’s messy and half-hearted. That’s enough, Astoria.”

She shook her head slowly, a tear slipping down her cheek. “Then why does it never feel like it?”

“Because someone, somewhere along the way, taught you that salvation has to be bought. That rest is a reward instead of a right. But they were wrong.”

I watched her closely. Her lip trembled. She didn’t speak.

“You didn’t survive all this time to perform worthiness. And you don’t owe the world a legacy just to justify your existence.”

Her lips parted, and her chin wobbled.

"You think you've done nothing, but you’ve endured. You’ve loved. You’ve grieved. You’ve woken up every morning in a world that’s forgotten you, and you’ve still chosen to breathe. That’s not nothing.”

She blinked, and I saw it—the way my words hit something in her chest. A stone dropped in still water. A ripple, trembling outward.

“And even if you’d spent these years doing absolutely nothing but drinking bad coffee and watching the seasons pass…” My throat tightened around the words. “You would still be enough.”

She broke then. The soft collapse of a soul too tired to fight its own self-loathing anymore. I pulled her into my arms and held her as if I was anchoring her to the earth, when really, she’d been anchoring me.