Page 150 of Veil of Death and Shadow

He stood there, an unreadable expression on his face, dressed head-to-toe in black, looking as mysterious as he always did—like a shadow made solid.

My breath caught, and it felt as if I was drowning, as if I’d never reemerged from the lake at all.

“You’re alive,” I said, not bothering to fight the quiver in my voice.

“I am.” Something flashed in his eyes, there and then gone, before his careful mask was back. “How’ve you been?”

For several seconds I couldn’t speak—couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.

And then I snapped.

“How have I been?” I popped the seal on my paddleboard so it could start deflating. Then, with rigid restraint, grabbed my oar to start disassembling the pieces. “How’ve I fucking been?” I tossed the metal back onto the dock, abandoning the pursuit where I started it, and walked up to him. “Fifteen months.” I jabbed my finger into his chest, keeping my sightline there, because I couldn’t stand to meet his eyes. Couldn’t bear what I might find there. “It’s been fifteen fucking months of no word.”

“I—”

“You showed up on my doorstep a breath away from death, disappeared in the morning, and I haven’t heard from you since. Not a,” I bent down, folding my board to hurry up the process, my back to him, “‘Hey Mareena, I’m doing fine by the way, hope you’re okay.’” My fingers trembled as I stuffed the board back into its bag, not bothering to take the usual care to dry it off or make sure everything fit inside properly with the pump. “Not even a damn phone call.”

I threw the bag back on the dock, abandoning the useless endeavor.

“Mars,” he said, and I felt him close the distance between us, though he was careful not to touch me. “Mars, look at me?—”

“You don’t get to call me that,” I snapped, finally meeting his stare.

He flinched at whatever he saw reflected in mine.

Good.

“You want to know why I hate when anyone but Sora calls me that? Because nicknames are for people who fucking stick around. She’s stuck around, that’s why she’s the one exception I’ve made. You . . .” My voice cracked. He wasn’t going to get to see my cry over him. “You fucking let me think you were dead for over a year, Levi. I thought . . .” I swallowed back the knot in my throat. “I thought you were dead. I thought you were dead because of me. That I, my curse, killed you. I—and all this time?—”

I hunched over, burying my head in my hands as I tried to calm down, to maintain some shred of composure, though I knew it was futile at this point.

Something curled around me, enveloping me in warmth and the soft smell of spicy citrus.

I felt him sit down on the dock next to me, though he was smart enough to keep some distance between us.

For a moment, I considered tossing his stupid hoodie back in his face.

But I was cold, and as angry as I was, I couldn’t deny that there was something comforting about being cocooned in its warmth right now, like he was handing over a piece of my armor I’d long abandoned in his presence.

So, instead, I shoved my arm through the holes and pulled the cotton down over my knees.

“I broke a lot of rules that night,” he said, cracking through the thick silence. “I shouldn’t have come to you in that condition, shouldn’t have done that to you.” He let out a frustrated sigh. “I should have never inserted myself into your life in the first place, but I did.”

His words cut like a knife through my chest, burning as they slid through my veins.

That was what I’d wanted, right? No more friendships, no more . . . whatever the hell this had been.

I’d spent over a year wishing that I’d been stronger, that I had pushed him away and ignored his attempts at friendship, diet and regular alike. That if I’d followed my own damn rules, he might still be alive.

So why did hearing that he shared that same regret twist and strangle so much?

I watched him from the corner of my eyes, not ready to look at him properly, not trusting what my brain might conjure up with the full view of him.

The last fifteen months had been filled with nightmares in which he had a starring role—of his death, of that night—but somehow the worst were the dreams that weren’t nightmares, the ones that imagined possibilities of what our lives might have looked like if I wasn’t haunted by this curse. If he didn’t have the life or job that he did. If we’d been permitted the space to enter into an easy, simple friendship—maybe even something more.Of what it might have looked like to be loved by someone other than Sora.

Waking up from those dreams, to the absence of him, to his presumed death, was like losing everyone I’d lost all over again.

Seeing him now, I realized how off my dreams had been— a pale imitation of the man next to me. My brain didn’t have the capacity to create the exact storm of his eyes, or the way his expression shifted so slightly when he was battling some inner demon he didn’t want me to see.

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