Chapter 30

30

“Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Blur,” the plainclothes detective said. She locked the screen of her tablet and tucked it into her almost-subtle tactical bag. “We’ll release the effects recovered from the scene to you once the case has wrapped.”

“Okay,” he croaked.

The scratch in his throat had come with the passenger occupying his flesh, making him perpetually hoarse. He lifted his hand in dismissal as she stepped out of his hospital room. His doctor, a Hispanic woman in her late fifties, entered a moment later. She had strong hands and a brusque but pleasant manner that reminded him of his late grandmother.

“I’d prefer not to release you yet,” she said. “The drugs are out of your system, but I’m concerned with the test results for your heart and kidneys. I’d also appreciate it if you’d speak with the psychiatrist instead of ignoring him.”

Andrew shrugged as grandly as he could with an IV taped to his arm, tucked into his raised bed as if he were a child. “No thanks.”

“Suit yourself,” she said with a frown.

“How’s Sam?”

“I can’t discuss another patient’s status with you,” she said for the seventeenth time.

“When will I get out?”

“We have you another three days for observation, at least.”

He grunted and closed his eyes. At some point later, she left, taking her vibrating human presence with her. Sam was ignoring his messages. He’d spoken to the detectives about his defensive killing of Mark Troth, Andrew knew via Riley, their strained go-between. According to the coroner’s report, Jane Troth had suffered a sudden stoppage of her heart at the height of her frenetic madness. He knew otherwise; Sam knew otherwise. That secret lay between them, in all its ugliness, festering. Sam’s rejection—of him, of what he’d become, of what he’d done, or all of those things—filled him with a sour, slow drip of misery. After Troth had stitched Andrew’s disarticulated portion of the inheritance to Eddie’s haunting remains, carried within him now, he was less sure than he’d ever been of the neatness of his humanity. Maybe Sam was right to pull away.

The hospital rippled on all sides with human struggle, little flames guttering and flickering outside his grasp. He had to keep a constant curious need to seek contact with those burning specks in check—curb the part of him that hungered for life, death. His ghoul petted the interior of his skull, soothing his mind. Sleep, or something like it, swallowed him. He tumbled through a blur of memories doubled at the seams, the dew-spangled lawn and the silk of Andrew’s hair knotted in his fist, the gross patch of drool spreading on his chest, watching the sun come up and thinking fierce as devotion this is mine forever until sleep sucked him under again

watching Eddie snore with a leaf stuck to the side of his neck and the cold damp grass soaking him as he fought to sit still, not shiver, not disturb the perfect moment of being that the pair of them occupied in sleep, in innocence, in dumb happiness

beer and foam spilled in an erotic embarrassing stream across the plane of Andrew’s chest into the band of his swim trunks, Eddie’s urge to put his mouth there and taste

Eddie stretching on the floating dock, the midday sun turning him into a bronze god of a boy with muscle from neck to ass to calves, untouchable and unbreakable, savage and timeless

the night before junior prom both of them dressed in their suits sharing stolen wine coolers alone and pretending, pretending without speaking, that they could be there together

“Hey,” Riley said.

Andrew jerked out of his communion with a confused snort, room spinning around him. His arm stung nauseously where he’d tugged at the IV. His roommate sat in the bedside chair, haggard, wearing glasses and sweats, same as the past two visits.

“Sorry,” Andrew said.

Riley gestured to his head and asked, “Has it gotten easier, the sharing?”

Andrew grappled with his desire to hide from that question. He’d known Eddie to the bone, or so he thought. But having Eddie’s memories inside of him was different. The tender awfulness of remembering himself through Eddie’s eyes, beautiful and cherished and wanted with raw confused intensity, with ownership, a sublimated tangled connection that Eddie had never spoken or unpacked, though it loomed so large—that understanding was an answer to the things about himself Del had made him confront, that he’d started figuring out with Halse, but it didn’t help. Having been loved wasn’t the same as being loved.

Eventually, he answered, “No, it hasn’t.”

“I’m sorry, Andrew,” Riley said.

“And Sam?”

Riley’s expression morphed through four versions of chagrin before he settled on an apologetic one and said, “The surgery saved the eye, but he isn’t getting his sight back in it. Too much damage. He’s dealing.”

Andrew nodded without asking for more; he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answer.

“He cares, dude, I swear he does care. He asked after you too,” Riley said.

“Let me handle his bills at least.”

“He’ll be pissed,” Riley warned approvingly.

“Let him be,” Andrew replied. “Can’t make things worse, can it?”

“Nah, and it’ll take away his excuse to keep working that second gig, which has been my end goal,” Riley said.

“Help me sort it,” he said, weakening as the conversation dragged on. The pain meds made him drowsy, knotted his stomach. “Give them my card or something.”

“Gotcha,” Riley said. “Glad you’re not fucking dead, okay?”

“You say that every time,” he grumbled, but the comfort mattered.

On the bedside table, his phone began to vibrate. The number on the display was foreign to him but had a local area code. He ignored the call. Police had taken his statement more than once and had informed him in person of the evidence unearthed at the crime scene—the shattered remains of Eddie’s phone in a spare bedroom storage chest, his hair and blood recovered from the barn. Nurses weren’t going to call his phone to get in touch. Nothing else much was worth his energy. His roommate pulled a book from his messenger bag and curled up in the visitor’s chair, despite it clearly being designed to prevent people from doing so. The end result was a contorted sprawl with one leg tucked through the arm gap, the other bent tight against his chest.

The phone rang again. And again. And again. As soon as Riley glanced at the table in consternation, his own phone pinged with texts, three in rapid succession, while Andrew’s lit up with messages. The group chat that remained active from their one celebratory drive had come to life with a text from Ethan:

<link>Vanderbilt Professors Implicated in Occult Murder, Slain in Self Defense

HEY WHAT THE FUCK

WHY Y’ALL NOT TELL US YOU ALMOST GOT ACTUALLY MURDERED

WHAT IS GODDAMN WRONG WITH YOU

“That’s not good,” Riley murmured. He tapped his screen. Andrew muted his phone. “The article has details leaked from police reports, it’s salacious as hell, and it names you. Eddie, too.”

Mom lit up the incoming call alert. He answered without preamble, “I guess the news got there.”

“Oh my god,” she said. Those three words held an operatic implication. “Andrew Thomas Blur, I can’t believe it, you’re okay?”

“I’m fine, Mom,” he said.

“You’re not fine,” she said. “And Eddie, my god. Oh my god.”

“I gotta go, I’m in the hospital,” he said—too tired for this. “Sorry, Mom.”

“Baby, don’t hang up on me, please,” she said.

Riley set his book facedown, split open, on his vacated seat. He left the room with his phone in hand, grimacing as he texted with manic energy. As Andrew listened to his mother cry on the other end of the line, he realized that neither of the cousins had told the group without asking him. The world where he was some sort of living ghoul, where he carried a curse that allowed him to murder with a thought, felt impossible juxtaposed against a sterile Nashville hospital room, a roommate doing homework during his visiting hours, and a sobbing parent.

Dislocation threw him so badly that he repeated, “Please, I swear I’ll call. I have to go.”

She let him hang up with an outpouring of relief and affection. Once he tapped the END CALL button, he squeezed his phone until it hurt his stitched wrists. At least he’d finished Eddie’s work. He’d solved their decade-long riddle, uncovered a generational legacy of violence and terror. That, and scattered remains, were all he had left. Riley knocked, slipping inside after a beat of silence. He thumped his forehead onto Andrew’s gown-clad shoulder as he heaved a sigh, then stood straight.

“You need to get some rest. I’ll come tomorrow. Also, I’m sure those calls are reporters, so turn your phone off,” he said.

Andrew did as he was told.

Riley continued to visit, but Sam never did. Three afternoons later Andrew allowed himself to be wheeled out of the hospital in the change of clothes Riley brought him and driven to Capitol in the Mazda, his stitches itching fiercely. The specter kept him from scratching at the knitting skin, though he tried with increasing frustration, trapped in the passenger seat of his own body. He could tell Riley felt the struggle. He avoided looking Andrew in the face, as if he were afraid of seeing a different person there. Given the shock of surviving the reprisal of all his worst dreams, he felt ungrateful for wishing that he’d died.

What now?he thought.

Andrew carried their mugs of coffee around the corner from the kitchen. Riley turned his laptop and pointed at the screen. The headline read, Local Graduate Student Sues for Misconduct.

“I never thought I’d be glad to read about West,” Riley said. “But given how Troth got outed as a spooky goddamn murderer, he’s taking the university to court over their handling of his and Troth’s research dispute. God bless that bastard, he deserves some recompense.”

“I’m going to go to Sam’s,” Andrew said.

Dumb consternation colored Riley’s tiny “Oh.”

“It’s been enough time,” Andrew said.

Riley sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I can’t stop you. I can tell you it hasn’t been enough time, and he’s not okay right now, and you’re half the reason he isn’t.”

“It wasn’t—I didn’t do anything to him,” Andrew said.

“He murdered a man with his hands after watching that dude’s wife slit your wrists, and then”—he gestured sidelong at the mess that was Andrew, encompassing the broken remainder of his haunting, feral and barely controlled and part of him—“the ghost shit happened. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Sam gives and gives all the time, and he doesn’t get much in return. Have some patience if he’s being selfish. He seems tough as nails, but he almost died.”

“So did I,” he said.

“Funny how different y’all feel about that.”

The specter lifted their hand to hold the mug for warmth. Color drained from Riley’s face. The other boy’s laptop suddenly merited his dedicated attention. Instead of saying but I miss him, Andrew bolted the hot coffee in three gulping swallows, grabbed the Supra’s key ring from the table, and left.

The comfortable embrace of fall was working on the trees in the neighborhood, orange and red creeping in from the edges of leaves, a carpet of discarded foliage on lawns and porches. Time soldiered on without his agreement. The drive to the ranch house in the hills reminded him of childhood field trips. His revenant offered him a burst of twinned recognition and delight at the crisp breeze.

The WRX sat parked in the drive. Andrew carried himself and his passenger up the steps, listening with half an ear to the impression of missing–welcome–fun–irritation it offered at the sight of Sam’s place. He knocked on the frame of the storm door, then waited. Without much ado the main door opened. The sight of Halse standing barefoot, with bandages bright white against his tan face, settled and unsettled him at the same time.

Andrew broke the brittle silence: “I’m here.”

Sam said, “Fuck, shit,” and closed the door again.

“Halse,” he croaked. He banged on the frame again. “Sam, c’mere. Let me set this right.”

A muffled, “Go home.”

“Talk to me first.”

Seeing the bandages for a second time dropped his stomach to his toes. Sam flicked the storm door latch and pushed it open, forcing Andrew to step to the side. He stood in the frame with the door propped on one arm. Thin scabs ringed his wrists. He favored his right leg, another bandage peeking from under the hem of his basketball shorts. The bruises on his ribs matched Andrew’s. He said nothing, but his stare made demands.

Andrew said, pouring his conflict and longing into it, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t give me that,” Sam said. He sounded unbearably exhausted. “Not after what we had to do, both of us. Don’t be fucking sorry about it.”

The nip of fall skittered past in a gust of storm-tasting wind. Andrew stuffed his hands in his pockets and leaned against the wall to watch Sam sidelong. The specter scratched inside his skin, inches too big in all directions for his body to hold comfortably. For the briefest flicker, Sam’s attention cast around as if he saw the same smoky presence Riley did. His frown turned rock-solid.

Andrew asked, “Can you see it?”

“Yeah, at the corners,” he said. “So, that, be sorry for that if you’ve got to pick something. I didn’t want to join your cursed-haunted-bullshit club.”

They’d comingled blood, Andrew remembered in a vertiginous swoop of guilt. He hadn’t spoken the words or finished the ritual, but he’d done enough with his fingernails under the handcuffs, the desperate hook of connection he’d cast. “That was an accident.”

“I bet you say that to all the guys,” Sam said without much humor.

Andrew reached across the distance between them but hesitated halfway. Sam made no motion to close the gap. The limp flop of Andrew’s hand back to his thigh went unacknowledged, until he said, “What are we doing?”

The question loomed.

Sam said, “Nothing, at this minute. That all right with you?”

“No,” Andrew forced himself to admit.

“Give me some consideration, Blur. If you’re going to be married to a fucking ghost, I’m not going to be your affair,” Sam said. His jaw clenched, one visible eye blazing at the challenge. The dead man abiding in Andrew’s bones hissed, displeased, and it drew a violent shudder across Andrew’s own nerves. His response stalled out as he regained control of his flesh. Sam said, “The debt’s clear, between me and Ed, and the thing with you and me has nowhere to go. With due respect and all, fuck off for a while. You already got what you wanted from me.”

The door swooshed open, caught in the breeze when Sam shoved it free of his bracing arm. Andrew stood dumb on the porch as the main door slammed shut, lock turning with a clack. The haunt chittered sympathetic nothingness at him and took clumsy control to maneuver him to the car. He was miles from the house before he regained himself enough to skip the on-ramp and pursue the route in the opposite direction of Sam’s place, following the track of the hills toward the swollen-bellied sun on the horizon.

One time. He and Sam had managed one night together. His whole being remembered the stretch of his jaw and the grip of broad fingers on the base of his skull, thighs solid under his palms, sheets tangled around his knees. An abyssal gulf opened in him at the thought that he had wrecked the potential for that to happen again. The endless taunting text messages and the raw late nights, fistfights and firelight, the one bright savage thing he’d gained from all the loss since the turn of summer—nothing else kindled him to human, eager life. Sam Halse wasn’t going to be another almost. He’d made that mistake over and over in total ignorance for almost a decade, and he wasn’t going to do it again.

He whipped a U-turn, returning to the house on Capitol in the gloaming hours. His roommate sat on the couch where he’d left him, buried in homework, fanning himself with a book in languid flaps while he typed one-handed on the laptop at his side. Three crushed cans of High Life cluttered the coffee table alongside a discarded lighter and pair of sunglasses.

“I need your help,” Andrew said.

Riley dropped his book, bolting upright from his slouch. The leftovers of Eddie Fulton roiled, toneless and agitated and dead. Andrew swallowed against the lump in his throat, choking off the bitter curiosity about what he and the revenant could become together, as he waited for an answer.

Then Riley said, “Of course.”