Page 174 of Devils' Day Party
Barron's nude drawing of me in the art studio.
An image of me on my knees in the grass beside the gas station parking lot, head in my hands.
An underwater view of a lake, a rope wrapped around the ankle of a man whose face I can’t see.
Fuck.
“Anything interesting?” Calix asks, and I shake my head, clutching the sketchbook to my chest and closing my eyes.
“Art is always interesting,” I whisper, opening my eyes as Raz hops out of the car and he and Sonja start fist bumping and cackling and acting like assholes together. Calix watches me carefully, reaching out his hand to take one of mine.
If Barron remembers even little things, then …
“I know we're just getting started,” Calix begins, his voice hesitant, strained with an unfamiliar hesitancy. I open my eyes to look at him, finding his raven-dark gaze locked on my face. “But, if I can be good to you this year, if I can earn this …”
“I'll get lost with you,” I tell him, choking on the words and trying my best not to cry. I've been crying a lot since I escaped the Devils' Day time loop. But not sad tears. No fucking way. Happy tears only. Pearl is still alive; April is alive; Luke is alive. Everyone I love is okay. How could I dare to be sad now, when I've been given the world? “Always.”
“How …” Calix starts, tilting his head slightly as he tries to figure me out. “You knew what I was going to say?”
“Maybe,” I start, exhaling sharply and looking him straight in the face. “But not all of it. Keep going.”
“I …” he starts, and then grits his teeth, shaking his head briefly. “Never mind.”
Calix climbs out, and I purse my lips, surprised when he comes around to open the door for me. Don't rush things, Karma, I tell myself. I don't have to recreate every moment I had during the loop, not all at once.
“Good morning,” Luke says, putting her arms around me and giving me a hug once I've climbed out into the cool fall air. Red, orange, and yellow leaves swirl around us, a leftover tingle of Devils' Day magic in the breeze that kisses our hair and teases it around our faces. “I still can't believe you're here with … them,” she grinds out, forcing a smile as she pulls back. But then, she doesn't know what happened inside the mouth of the Devils' Den.
Only the boys know.
The boys.
My boys.
“I still can't believe you've been banging Sonja for a year,” I retort, and Luke rolls her eyes, glancing back at her red-headed lover and then sighing dramatically.
“Okay, fine, good point. I suppose I should just be happy that you're not mad at me.” She sounds surprised when she says that, like she's mulling over the very idea. I just lean forward and kiss her cheek, moving around her to say hi to April.
“I may very well die if I don't get this kid out of me,” she groans, leaning back against Luke's car, her brunette hair unbraided and dancing in the breeze. “Fucking crotch goblin.”
“Have you heard from Thad?” Luke asks as April stands up straight and takes her proffered arm. The three of us head toward the front steps together, the Knight Crew following behind us.
Erina Cheney frowns when she sees me, but she doesn't say anything. She's clearly unstable, and it isn't my job to ‘fix’ her, but I also don't have to add to her problems. Pearl's, either. I wave when I see her, smiling as she pauses and then, hesitantly, waves back.
Eventually, I'll talk to Calix about her baby, but it's a complicated issue and not entirely my business. But I'll do what I can. That's all any of us can ever do, but if we all try, then it's enough. It's more than enough.
“Thad is flying in next week,” April says with a private little smile. Luke and I both recognize that look, exchanging grins of our own. “He's going to stay here until the baby comes, no matter what his parents say.”
“Fuck his parents,” Luke declares as we pause near her locker. I glance back to see Calix, Barron, Raz, and Sonja standing near the front entrance. They're acting casual, like this is any other day, but every now again, a pair of eyes flicks toward us. Watching. Waiting. This is a new normal for us; it's going to take some adjustment. “We're moving to New Orleans together at the end of the year and starting our own family.”
“I'd like that,” April says, rubbing her belly and then sighing as she looks up at us. “Just … if you guys are bringing them”—she gestures in the Knight Crew's direction with a tilt of her head—“then we're going to need a big house. Huge.”
