They found a spot on the riverbank and sat on the concrete retaining wall that kept the water in its place. Maria let her feet hang into the water.
“Your shoes are getting wet,” Ethan remarked.
“So what? It’s not like I can feel it. It’s not like I can feel anything.”
“That’s not true. You can still feel things.”
“Really?” She reached down and scooped water in her hand and threw it at him. “Can you feel that?” she asked as he blinked and sputtered. “No, you can’t. Wet or dry, breathing or not breathing, it doesn’t matter. Everything is empty. Like there’s nothing left to anything.”
He was quiet for a long time. She was surprised by her anger. She thought she’d let it go, when she’d only set it down, ready to be picked up again whenever she wanted.
“I don’t think you really mean that,” Ethan said.
“I don’t?”
“I think you mean something else.”
She tensed her whole body angrily, squeezing the concrete so hard, she almost split the dead skin of her fingers.
“Hey, never mind,” said Ethan. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t say stuff like that.”
“No, you goddamn shouldn’t. This is all your fault. You made me this. And you made methis,” she said, and gestured to the river, to the night—the art, the park, the graveyard. “You and your stupid voice. And your stupid face. You made me think I was a person again, like there were things that I could have—”
“You are. There are—”
“Yeah, there are things that I could have. Dead bodies in my mouth. Fingernails full of grave dirt. Maybe a career as a formaldehyde sommelier! Think your little ghoul chat group would be interested in becoming clients?”
“Maybe,” he said. “Formaldehyde is an acquired taste.”
“I hate you.”
“I know.”
“But you don’t know why I hate you.” She clenched her mouth shut. She shouldn’t say any more. She should sink the stupid canvas bag into the river and walk away. What difference did it make anyway? It was almost dawn.
“I hate you because you’re almost gone,” she whispered. “I wish I’d never found you and cut your head off.”
“Well, I’m glad you did,” Ethan said.
“What? Why?”
“Look, we don’t get all of people that we want to. The world’s never fair like that, no matter if you’re dead or undead. We get what we get. Have what we have. And there are worse ways to spend the last night of my life, believe me. And worse people to be killed by. So I’m glad. I’m glad you didn’t just stomp me by your ghoul garden. I’m glad you showed me your city. I’m glad about it all, and my wishing we had longer doesn’t change that.”
Maria reached out and touched his face. She let her hand trail across his cheek, and when she got to his mouth, he smiled softly and kissed her fingers. Over the river, the sky had started to turn dark blue, and then blue gray with the dawn.
“Would you hold me in your lap?” he asked. “I don’t want you to see me when the sun comes up. In case I make some terrible face or something when I die.”
“Okay.”
She set him on her knees and wrapped her arms around him.
“It won’t be so bad for you, Maria. You’ll make it better. I know it.”
“How? I don’t think they let people who eat dead people become superheroes or anything.”
“I don’t know why not. It’s not like eating the dead makes you bad.”
“It doesn’t?” She smiled. “Last I checked, cannibalism was still frowned upon.”
