Page 15 of The Reluctant Reaper
Or something.
Graham Gray stared into the abyss, which in this case was the muddy ground thirty-some feet below behind the Rolvaag Memorial Library. He wasn’t sure how he’d ended up on the library roof—a walk? A dare? A trance? But he knew why, of all the places to explore the St. Olaf campus, he went for a roof.
It doesn’t matter, none of it matters, and it’s not like I’ll be missed and I’m so so so tired and maybe this wasn’t such a dumb idea after all God knows my folks will be thrilled but even so it’s a mess of my own making AGAIN and I can’t even blame the booze since I quit last year so what’s my excuse now?
Simple. He didn’t have one. And he was tired of blaming everything—the substance abuse, the depression, the inability to connect, the oily T-zone—on his parents. It was past time to hit the Reset button, maybe come back as a muskrat or blue whale or medical transcriptionist or cotton candy vendor.
Or would that be the Delete button? Because he was pretty sure there wasn’t a benevolent God looking down on humanity, giving them little jobs to do so they could trundle about the earth like ants, earning their tiny heavenly merit badges.
“I can’t believe I’m gonna die like this,” he marveled aloud, and the sound of his own voice—small and scared and disbelieving—startled him.
“Not to worry.” The voice came from fucking nowhere and he nearly went over, because that waswaymore startling. “You aren’t.”
“Excuse me,” he snapped, turning. “You can’t possibly—huh.”
A ridiculously pretty woman was standing about eight feet away. She was tall and slender, with shoulder-length brown hair and a pale face, sporting a bright-purple raincoat and black boots with white skulls on the toes. As she stepped closer and he got a better look at her (and at the Jack Skellingtons on her Wellingtons), he was startled all over again. It was probably the light, but it looked like her hair and eyes were... deep red?
Then a lightning flash lit up the roof, and her eyes and hair were ordinary brown. Prob’ly why he’d never heard her come up behind him in the first place. Stupid spring rainstorm! Not only was he about to die, but he’d die wet and shivering and goosebumped. And in his rattiest pair of underwear.
It’s possible I didn’t think this through.
“You look cold,” she observed. “And I am, too.”
“Wow, you suicide hotline people don’t just use the phones to do your thing, huh?”
“I’m not with the suicide hotline. Or any hotline. But you’re chilled through, so you need to get off this roof. Come have hot chocolate with me.”
Annnnnd ofcoursea pretty stranger would ask him on a pity date during his last five minutes on Earth. “You can’t trick me!”
“Pointing out we’re cold isn’t a trick.” She smiled. Smiled! Like this wasn’t a matter of life or death! Like she thought he was doing something... cute? “It’s an observation.”
“And don’t try to grab me, either,” he warned, though under different circumstances, he would have welcomed all the grabbing.
“There’s no need to grab any part of you. I told you. You don’t die today.”
He liked her voice, a calm, confident contralto. “You can’t possibly know that.”
“Of course I can.”
“I don’t recognize you.” He pegged her at about ten years older than he was. Maybe more. A line from his mother’s least favorite movie came to him. “You don’t even go here!”
“Correct. I’m here for the funeral.”
“So Iwilldie.”
“Not tonight.” She laughed. “But that’s quite the ego on you, assuming I showed up early just to attend a stranger’s funeral.”
“Fair,” he conceded. “Sorry. I’m not usually this self-centered.”
“It’s fine. And it’s Ms. Gardiner’s funeral. I worked for her for a couple of weeks.”
“Couple of—” He blinked. Then blinked more, because the rain wasn’t letting up. “Ms. Gardiner? The bio prof? She’s dead?”
The stranger had no reply. Just crooked a finger at him. “Come down. Let’s get cocoa with a shot of Frangelico. Two shots.”
“I quit drinking.”
“Oh. Good for you. Straight cocoa it is, then.”
