Page 130 of Grim
I read aloud as the Rabbit is left behind, forgotten by the Boy he loved. As he becomes something real, though at great cost.
When I close the book, I realize I’m crying. There’s atrail of warmth down my jaw, and my shoulders shake from the effort of holding the rest of it in.
Then I feel something cool on the back of my hand.
Seek is crying too.
“I don’t want to forget you,” he says, voice small and shaking. “I don’t want you to forget me either.”
“I never could,” I say, and I mean it. “You’re inked into my story now.”
“I don’t think I want to be here anymore,” he says. “Don’t feel like I need to be.”
I nod, even as my throat tightens.
“Knowing you, feeling like I belong, not to somewhere, but to someone—I haven’t felt that since Sophia. I forgot what it felt like. You made me remember, Rue. Made me feel real. Like that bunny did for a time. And you set me free.”
He tries to smile, but it breaks into a million tiny pieces before it fully forms. I lose it then. All at once. I fold in on myself and sob. No holding it in. No being strong. Because Ican’tdo this.
“You’ll always be real to me, Seek,” I say between sobs. “Funny and brave and kind. So real.”
He lets out a shaky laugh, the smallest puff of sound. “You’re gonna make me cry again.”
“Can I tell you something?” I ask him.
“Anything,” he answers immediately.
“I’m scared.”
“I know. Me too.”
He leans back just enough to look at me, and I swear I see his whole life in that one glance. All the missed birthdays and cold nights. And somehow, impossibly, the hope that something comes next.
“It’s okay to miss someone,” he says. “That ache means you remember ’em. And that’s a good kind of hurt.”
“I like that, Seek,” I tell him plainly. “Then I hope I hurt you.”
“And I hope I hurt you.” His smile glows faintly. “But, you know, the good kind.”
He doesn’t say he’s ready.
He doesn’t have to.
It’s in the way his shoulders ease. In the way his hand slips out of mine so gently I barely feel it.
I press a kiss to his temple. “You’re not a lost soul, Seek. You’re found. And your home will always be with me.”
His answer is barely a breath. “Maybe I’ll read a story to you someday.”
I nod, unable to speak.
And then he’s gone.
No flash. No dramatic wind.
Just gone.
The room doesn’t feel lighter.
