Page 102 of The Narrow

I wrap her shirt around my fist, against the small of her back, crushing her against me, our faces only inches apart. “I told you that you were wrong. That I was never going to let you go, no matter what. I said I would tell your family everything you’d been doing, and then you would see whattheirlove was worth. You wouldn’t have anyone left but me, and then you’d understand how much you needed me.”

“Let her go,” Veronica calls warningly, forcing me to remember that they’re there. Like they can do anything about what’s happening. This is older and bigger than them. They’re nothing next to us.

“It’s all right,” Grace says, but her voice shakes.

I put a finger to her chin, directing her gaze back to mine.“That night,” I say, searching her eyes for signs of recognition. “Do you remember how clear it was, until suddenly the wind rose up, and the clouds rolled over the sky? Do you remember how it started to rain all at once, soaking us through to the bone? Do you remember what I said to you?”

Remember, I will her.Remember what I hid from Eden.

What happened after I turned away from Oster and he left me there.

Do you remember, Grace? You, emerging from the trees. The rain pummeling us. Me, trying to find the perfect combination of words to make you see how much I love you, how much we need each other. They spill out of my mouth in an endless torrent, all meaning and meaninglessness. I am begging you, pleading, making a thousand impossible promises, and my fear becomes rage, and my hands that hold you grip too tight, and I’m hurting you—

And I realize it, and I let you go. More words bubble up.I’m sorry.And another word repeats and repeats in my mind.Forever and forever and forever.

And I say, with all my being—I will never let you go.

Your face goes slack, empty. You nod, and I think you finally understand.Let’s go, I say, and you nod again. I turn. Our future is on the other side. I stretch out my hand to take yours.

You shove me hard in the back. Here at the edge of the Narrow, in the pouring rain with the moss and rocks turned slick and treacherous. You aren’t strong, but it’s enough, and I fall

forever

and I twist and reach out for you

can’t let you go

and my hand closes around your arm, I pull you with me, because

forever and forever and forever

we are destined for each other. We are infinite.

We hit the water, and I wrap my arms around you. I hold you as the river drags us down. As our lungs burn. As the cold steals the life from our limbs. As the current dashes us against the rocks, once, then twice, then three times. The water pins us against a snag of rock and holds us there together. My hand in your hair, your empty eyes staring into mine.

And there we stay.

Forever.

“I killed you,” Grace says, her voice so soft only the two of us can hear. Tremors run up and down those limbs that aren’t hers. There are tears on her cheeks. No, not tears. River water, streaked with silt. Memory rises up like the river around her, and she is not so whole as she supposes. “Ikilledyou to get away from you. Why would you want to be together after that?”

“Because I love you. I forgive you. It was one mistake, that’s all,” I tell her, smiling. “If I can forgive you for that, you can forgive me for what I did, can’t you? We love each other too much to let it stand in our way.”

“But I don’t love you,” she says softly.

I stumble back as if struck.

“Grace did,” she says. “Up until the very end, she loved you, and I remember that love. I thought I still felt it, but it’s only a memory. I’m someone else now.”

“That’s only because of the girl. You’re notyou, but you can be again. When you come with me,” I say, but she’s shaking her head.

“I wanted to leave you.Gracedid. It was never going to be forever, Maeve. We were never infinite. Not really.” She pulls free of me, stepping away. The others have obediently held back, but now the balance shifts. They move forward, closing the distance between us.

Grace is wrong. Confused by her muddled existence, by the childish mind she’s been forced to inhabit. She loved me even as she pushed me into that river. I loved her as I dragged her down into it with me.

She will understand. I will make her. When she is Grace again, she will love me again. And if she doesn’t—

We will have eternity either way.

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