She set her foot down and kept walking. The chalk could live for another day. They exited the artwalk and went down a small street lined with cafés, tables with ornate wrought iron chairs set out, waiting. But she didn’t want to sit. She didn’t have much money left, and coffee made her sick. Not because she couldn’t drink it, but because it tasted wrong. And she could no longer feel the heat. Plus, if they sat there, she would be alone again—she’d have to pretend that the bag was full of books. And it was nice to just walk and talk with someone, even if that someone was a hated head. So nice that she forgot where they’d been going, and walked so long that they missed the sunset.
“Is it dark enough for me to come out yet?”
“What, you mean like, out-out?” she asked.
“That would be enjoyable. Someplace quiet, and off the beaten path. Where nobody else goes?”
“It’s the city—people go everywhere,” she said, but she tugged him closer and turned down an alley. She didn’t know where she was going anymore. She didn’t know where she was, not that she could really get lost.
“There,” he said. “Over there, those trees. Is that another park?”
Maria sniffed the air. That was no park, and he knew it as well as she did. It was a graveyard.
“Are you trying to be coy?” she asked. “Taking me to dinner?”
Ethan laughed. “Actually this is the first time I haven’t been hungry in six months. But we can go look, for you.”
She crossed the street, keeping out from underneath the streetlights, which had started to turn on. The graveyard was behind a low wall of rough stones—it was easy enough to pop Ethan on top of it and climb up after. Then she grabbed him and held him to her chest, and jumped down into the new grass and shrubs.
“I’ve never been to this one before,” she said.
“Me neither.”
“There won’t be anything here to eat. Look how old these graves are.” They walked past row after uneven row of markers, tilted and worn away with time. All lives lived in the previous century. Many of them short. But, she supposed, no shorter than hers and Ethan’s.
“So what? You’ve never had beef jerky?”
“This would not be jerky,” she said. “It would be like chewing on a dusty towel.”
“Stop,” said Ethan. “You’re far too pretty to be so pessimistic.”
She set him down in the grass and plopped down beside him, angling him so they could look at each other and still have a good view of the graveyard.
“I can’t be pretty anymore. I’m dead.”
“You’re dead, but you’re not finished.” He gave her another crooked, ridiculously earnest smile. “And you’re not really a pessimist.”
“I’m not?”
“That stunt you pulled back at the chalk painting. Acting like you were going to destroy it. Like you hated it. Whenreally you loved it. You were drawn to it like I was and for the same reason.”
“What reason is that?”
“The hope.”
“I don’t hope for anything anymore.”
“You hoped to kill me,” he said, and grinned. “And you did it. See? Anything you put your mind to.”
She pulled up grass with her fingers and threw it at him. “For such a successful kill, you sure are chatty.” She crossed her legs and rested her elbows on them. “Ethan, why did you go off-grid? Were you running from something?”
“Yeah.” He arched a brow. “The future. College. I intended to make it a gap year and use the experience to write this great essay to get me into the school I wanted. At least that’s what I told my parents. My brothers. My friends. Really I just wasn’t ready. I needed time without them around, waiting for me to do something. I needed to disappear. And look! It would be impossible to become any more invisible.”
“They’ll never know what happened?”
“I thought about going home. Seeing if they wouldn’t mind a ghoul for a son. But no. Better that they’re left to imagine the worst. Because the worst is still better than the reality.”
“Maybe not.”
