Page 103 of The Narrow

“I won’t let you go. Not ever,” I say.

“Seems like she’s made her decision,” Ruth says, approaching. “Breakups suck, I get it. Time to move on.” She crosses her arms, and it takes all of my control not to fling myself at her, tear her face with my nails. Zoya puts an arm around Grace’s shoulders. Veronica steps in front of her, wedging herself into the scant space between us.

“Del made her decision. If you really love her, you’ll accept that,” Veronica says.

“You don’t know what love is,” I say. “Love is not patient. Love is not kind. Love is hunger. It’s a knife in your guts and your skin on fire. Itshouldfeel like you’re drowning. That’s how you know it’s real. I will never let anything come between us again. Never.”

I fix my eyes on Grace, whose shoulders are slumped in Zoya’s embrace.

“Leave the girl and come with me. Back where you belong. Or Eden drowns with me instead.”

Grace gives a shuddering, startled gasp. She straightens up. “No.”

“You know me. You know that there isnothingI wouldn’t do to keep you,” I tell her. I love her too much to let her walk away. “There’s nothing you can do to make me spare her, except coming with me.You know me.”

Veronica looks back at Grace. A muscle in her jaw twitches. I can read her perfectly—because Eden can. She believes me. And however sympathetic she might be to Grace, she isn’t going to let Eden be sacrificed to her stubbornness.

“You already died, Grace,” Veronica says haltingly. “This way at least Eden and Del get to live.”

Grace looks at her with hollow eyes. “Eden would. And another girl would. But Del?I’mDel. Whoever is here when Grace is gone, it won’t be me.” She shuts her eyes.

I take a step back. Toward the edge. “Time to choose. I’m not going into the river alone,” I warn her. “With you or with Eden. Choose.”

“Don’t hurt her,” Grace says, voice ragged.

Exultation and anger twine through me. She’s going to agree. She’s going to come with me.

ForEden. Not for me.

“I’ll go with you. But only if you let me say goodbye.” Her chin tilts up, a sliver of defiance. She’s never had more than that. Not in this life or the last. Thin, vanishing moments when she madean impulsive demand, struck out. She ended both our lives with such a foolish split-second act. But I’ll give her this.

“Don’t. This isn’t right,” Zoya says.

“Isn’t it? The living live. The dead keep on being dead,” Ruth says, but she sounds disturbed. They will each have a hundred stories they tell themselves about tonight. The stories that say it isn’t their fault—or it is—or they could have done something differently—or it was always going to end like this.

“Let her go,” Veronica says. It isn’t an order. Her voice trembles. But the other two girls act like it is. They absolve themselves of the decision. They peel away from Grace, falling back with gratitude they dress up like reluctance. Veronica, too, retreats, and once again it’s just me and Grace and the river softly gleaming.

“Well?” I ask as Grace approaches. “Say goodbye.”

“Not to you. To Eden,” she says, fingers curling into fists. “Let me talk to her.”

She doesn’t realize how cruel the request is—that her last request before returning to me is to talk to the girl she loved in my place. But I can forgive her. I can forgive her anything as long as she comes back to me.

“Only a minute,” I tell her.

I shut my eyes and plunge back below the surface of Eden’smind.

EDEN

34

I BREAK THEsurface gasping. At first I don’t know where I am or why—or how Del could be here, under the dark sky, holding on to me as if for dear life. Then my heel hits the edge of the rock and I realize what lies at my back, placidly waiting for that single careless slip.

I freeze. The events of the last twenty-four hours present themselves like murky images, scenes watched from below the water.

“Eden? Is it you?” Del asks.

“It’s me,” I say, voice grating.

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