I throw my arms around him.He hugs me back.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him, have been telling him, for years.
“Only the good die young,” he informs me cheerfully.
“Wait, does that mean—”
“You’re not dead yet, Frankie,” he whispers in my ear.“You are loved, are worth loving.Try to catch up.”
Then he’s gone.I’m… nowhere at all.White on white on white, broken by a single man, who stands as tall in death as he did in life.
“Really screwed up this time, didn’t you?”His tone is kind.
I reach out a hand, touch his shoulder.Warm and solid.I clutch his shoulder in wonder, with longing.Of all the mistakes I’ve made…
“How many bullets do you think you can outrace?”he asks me gently.
On cue, his chest starts to bleed.More blood pours out his back.
“Please,” I try.
“Happiness isn’t something you discover,” he tells me.“It’s something you make.Frankie, try to keep up.”
Then he’s gone, and an emaciated girl, arms lined with track marks, lounges on the floor.The first missing person I ever found, the first dead body I’d ever seen.Now she hums under her breath, while a young mother takes a seat beside her, skeletal legs still trailing lake grass.In another corner, a Haitian teen admires his bloody chest as a little girl in bunny slippers offers him her teddy bear.
Young and old.Children and parents.Lost, then found.By me.Except it was too late for each and every one of them.
“I’m sorry,” I say, but no one pays me any attention.
They’re too busy being dead.
Only I’m overwhelmed with the business of living.
Then, a presence behind me.I hear a voice I don’t expect at all.His arms are strong and steady, as he pulls me back against his chest.
“It’s okay to mourn,” he murmurs.“It’s okay to want.It’s okay to be who you truly are.”
There are so many things I want to say, but in the end, it takes only two words to say it all.
“I hurt.”
“I know,” he whispers.
“We know,” the dead intone.
Then he’s gone.They’re all gone, everything is gone.An all too real person commands: “Frankie, wake up!”
I discover Detective Marc standing next to my hospital bed, hands on his hips, expression frustrated.
I realize two things at once:
I’m definitely still alive.
And I’ve seen one of the kidnappers before.
“IN ALIAH’S DELI.The day before?”I pause, trying to place my memories into some sort of timeline.My head hurts.I can’t even figure out what today is.Trying for anything more sounds impossibly painful.Still: “He was browsing nuts and candy.Bought a few items.Firni pudding!”I pounce on the detail.“Ask Daryl.It’s the afternoon we ate pudding.”
“You’re sure it’s the same guy?A young Middle Eastern male.That’s not exactly a precise description.”
