Page 89 of The Narrow

“She doesn’t mean to. She hates that she did that to me,” I say. “But it’s getting better. She’s getting stronger, remembering things. She can even...” I trail off.She can even touch me. Kiss me. She almost feels warm. She almost feels alive.

Yes, she’s still angry, still wounded, still confused. How could she be anything else? With the things she’s been through, of course she lashed out. She didn’t mean to. It just happened.

“What’s your plan here?” Veronica asks. “Grace is dead, presumably. If her ghost wanted to hang around, she would have, right? We’re not ghost hunters or mediums or whoever could handle this kind of thing. Maeve needs to move on.”

“Would you?” I ask. “If someone was trying to keep you and Remi apart, wouldn’t you do whatever you could to be together?”

“Within reason,” Veronica says. “But if he fuckingdied, I’d move on eventually. Don’t get me wrong, I’d be completely wrecked, but he’s my high school boyfriend. Who even knows if we’re going to be together when we leave for college, much less forall eternity? You can’t know that at eighteen.”

“My parents got married when they were eighteen, and they’re still together,” Ruth says. “But they only got married because they’re super religious and wanted to bone.” There’s a beat as we stare at her. “Sorry. Not helpful,” she says with a mortified chuckle.

I rein in my anger. Veronica is trying to help. But she doesn’t know Maeve like I do. She doesn’t understand. She certainly wouldn’t understand what I’m planning to do.

Veronica comes toward me, hands outstretched. I let her take mine, holding them gently in her own. She stares meaningfully into my eyes, but I look down.

“Maeve is hurting you, Eden. I know you say she doesn’t mean to, but honestly, I don’t care. Maeve isn’t my friend, you are. And I’m not going to stand by while you let yourself get hurt like this.”

“Let myself get hurt?” I ask. “What, like I’m inviting it?”

“That’s not what she’s saying,” Zoya says.

I pull my hands away from Veronica’s and step back, looking between them. My eyes are watery. My throat has a hard, painful lump in it, and my chest aches with a pressure that feels ready to explode. They’re wrong. I have no idea how to make them see how wrong they are. And worse, they think I’m an idiot. They think Maeve is some villain.

“It doesn’t matter, does it?” I ask curtly. “I’m locked out of Abigail House for good. I’ve already lost Del. I doubt I’ll see Maeve again anyway.”

Veronica searches my face. I know she’s trying to tell if I’m lying. And I know she’ll never be able to figure it out. I’ve been lying to her for far too long.

“Eden,” Veronica begins.

I hold up a hand. “No. Stop talking, please. I want to be alone.” I whirl away. They don’t stop me. I wait for them to call after me, for Veronica to grab me.

I shut my door behind me. I stand there for long moments, my fingertips braced lightly against the wood.

From the other room comes the low murmur of conversation. I turn my back on the door and sink down, wrapping my arms around my knees. Tears leak down my cheeks, but I don’t make a sound.

They’ll see. This will work, and they’ll see that I’m doing the right thing. All this fear inside me, quick and dark and sharp-toothed, will vanish. Del and I will be together. Maeve will have Grace again.

I’m not extraordinary. I’m not a prodigy. I will never produce a masterpiece or win a gold medal. But this, I can do. With this, I can matter.

Everyone will live, and all the pain will be worth it.

Together forever.I shut my eyes against the tears.

—

The rain starts an hour before midnight. I lie in my bed and listen. Did Grace do this the night they died? Lie waiting in her bed for the moment to throw off the covers? Was she excited? Terrified?

Someday, when the memory doesn’t fill her lungs with water, she can tell me. We will share all our secrets and learn to survive them. But tonight, it’s my turn to swing my legs off the bed, to brace myself and listen. No one stirs.

I slip out of my room, easing the door shut behind me. We aren’t actually locked into the dorms, for fire code reasons, but opening the front door would send an alert to the house parents and campus security. The second-floor laundry room, though, has a window with a broken lock and a sturdy branch growing just outside.

It’s colder than I expected. I pull my knit hat down and bend my head to protect my face from the rain as I walk quickly away from Westmore. This is the part where someone is most likely to spot me. Once I get under the cover of the trees, I can walk along the fence without fear of being noticed, unless security is feeling particularly extra.

I reach the safety of the shadows without incident. I relax—and then I start shaking. Am I really doing this?

Yes. Of course I am. It’s what we decided.

I don’t know exactly what it will do to me. How it will change me. But maybe being a different version of myself wouldn’t be so bad. Maeve is electric—intense, compelling, charismatic, even in her damaged state. She loves so fiercely, so intensely, that she has defied death to find Grace. There is not one ounce of surrender in her.

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