Page 23 of One Last Touch

“My mother.”

“You’ve seen her?”

“I don’t know.”

Sage clasped my face between his hands, his brown-green eyes serious as they searched my expression. “When did you see her, Georgina?”

“Before I saw Edward.”

Sage swore and I giggled again, the sound turning into a whimper. I was delirious, feverish. None of this was real. I tugged Sage’s hand and when he turned to face me I pulled hard, sending him stumbling closer to me. I relinquished his hand and cupped my own around his jaw. Nothing made sense, like the rule book had been thrown out of the window.

“None of this is real,” I told him quietly, looking deeply into his eyes and searching for the calm he usually brought out in me, and then I kissed him.

I’d expected his mouth to be warm, but it wasn’t. In fact, I could barely feel the pressure of his lips on mine. It wasn’t enough—I needed to feel.

“Georgina,” he groaned and pushed me away gently as I reached for him. “Stop. It is real. This is real.”

“No.” I shook my head for emphasis. “None of this makes sense. I’ve lost my mind. Why else would I see things that aren’t real?”

“Look at me,” he murmured, turning my chin when I neglected to do so. “Do you think you could make this up? That I’m not real?”

I considered him before sighing. “My imagination is good, but not good enough to dream up you.”

A broad grin split his mouth and I felt dizzy with want until it faded. “This is real.”

“But she’s dead.”

“Your mother is dead,” he confirmed.

“Then how could I see her? Why did she glow? Why do you glow?” A terrible feeling had begun slinking through my gut. How quiet he was when he walked, how tired he’d been lately, how neither the plumber nor the officers had greeted him or Ms Weathers.

“Georgina…”

“Tell me.” My lips felt numb, had they even moved? I couldn’t be sure, so I repeated myself. “Tell me.”

Sage stood, his long legs unfolding gracefully as his hands clasped behind his head and he paced up and down before dropping them and looking me square in the eye. “I’m dead, Georgina.”

I was shaking my head before he’d even finished speaking as my gut roiled. “No.”

“I died the same night as Edward, the same night as Angie, the same night as… him.”

“No.” I stood and walked towards him on wobbly legs. “Sage, why are you saying this? You’re not dead. You’re not. You’re—You’re right here.”

“Georgina—”

“No. Stop lying to me. Just fucking stop.”

“I’m not lying and I think deep down, you know that.”

My breaths came quicker as the sky rumbled ominously above us, the moon shining down on him and highlighting the otherworldliness of that glow as I fell to the earth once more and pressed my hands to the cold ground. This was what he’d been hiding? Him and Ms Weathers both?

“Is it because I kissed you? Is that why you’re saying this?”

“No! Of course not.” Sage dropped to his knees and his face was tight with a mixture of pain and frustration. “I cannot feel for you, Georgina, it would lead to nothing but heartbreak. Do you understand? I am dead. I am gone. You are alive.”

Tears spilled from my eyes and I tasted them on my tongue as a wind I didn’t feel began to rustle the branches of the tree I sat beneath. “But you’re not gone,” I pleaded. “You’re here, you’re right here.”

“I’m fading.”

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