Page 117 of Seven Days in June

And with that brief speech, which was tweeted and retweeted so relentlessly that bothCursedandEightfans began calling themselves #MisfitHive, the 2019 Litties were a wrap.

Epilogue

IT WAS MIDNIGHT ON JULY 4 IN BELLE FLEUR. GENEVIEVE MERCIER, LONG-LOSTchild of the bayou, sat gazing out the window of her aunt Da’s guest bedroom. It was velvety black outside, save for the occasional firecracker illuminating the sky, the prismatic colors reflecting off the lake just beyond the house.

The horizon was eternal, endless, complete. All that existed was the swampy lake and a dramatic sky. America was celebrating itself—and Eva was feeling brave.

So she picked up her phone.

Today, 12:47 AM

EVA:Hope this isn’t weird. Just checking in to see how you’re doing.

SHANE:Oh! Hi! I’m good!

EVA:Great! You are?

SHANE:No. I’m sad, but trying not to be. Been trying to stay busy. Running 8 miles a day. Researching clean eating, again.

EVA:Yeah? What are you eating?

SHANE:Well…I get choice paralysis at Whole Foods, and end up going to the bodega for dinner. Have you tried Entenmann’s Lemon Iced Cake? Fucking triumph of unnatural ingredients. Idk. I guess I’m flailing. I don’t really know how to mourn properly.

EVA:No one does. But maybe grief counseling could help?

SHANE:Maybe. But enough about me. Tell me about Belle Fleur. Everything.

EVA:It’s heaven. Hot, humid, haunted heaven. It’s such a vivid place. It’s like, people settled here three centuries ago, and no one left. Everyone’s related. The supermarket checkout lady asked me “who my people was,” and when I told her I was a Mercier, she listed, like, nine ways we were cousins. I feel like I’m HOME on this bayou full of short people who inherited generations of farms and fields and stories and terror and rage and brilliance and resilience and gumbo and culture. And everyone looks like me!

SHANE:Everyone looks like you? The fucking promised land.

EVA::)

SHANE:Eva, it sounds revelatory. Can we talk? I just wanna hear your voice.

EVA:I can’t talk to you yet.

SHANE:Okay. I understand. Reading your words was almost as good.

Two days later…

Shane collapsed on the grass in the middle of Washington Square Park after running his usual eight miles around Lower Manhattan. He was bathed in sweat, sticky, and pissed off. Running was supposed to make him feel good. And it did, while it was happening. But after, when his heart was thundering, his chest was burning, and his darkest, most buried thoughts were suddenly excavated, crystal clear and loud—there was only one thing he wanted to do. And he couldn’t. Shane couldn’t risk hurting her, so he had to find a way to fix himselfbyhimself.

He wanted to talk to her.

That was where Shane was—flat on his back, a mere six feet from a fleet of meditating Hare Krishnas—when he got a text from her.

A voice note. Just her voice.

“Shane? Hi. I said I couldn’t talk to you yet. And I can’t. I’m not ready to hear your voice, but I know you’re in pain. So it might help you to hear mine. I’m just gonna talk, okay? Um. Where do I start? So, I’m staying with my aunt Da. She found me on Facebook’s ‘Belle Fleur Creoles’ page after I posted that I was looking for a room to rent. Da is short for Ida. Two syllables takes too long down here. Also, she’s not really my aunt; she’s my grandma’s second husband’s niece, but no one keeps score. You’d love her, ’cause…”

Eyes shut, grinning, Shane folded his hands on his chest and drifted.

Later that day…

Today, 3:23 PM

SHANE:Wyd?

---