Page 86 of In What World

“We do,” I tell him. “But we’re not the type of people who give up without trying.”

“You’re the one who taught us that,” Marlowe says.

There is no give to the silence that fills the auditorium. Anylingering shred of hope we have is squashed by his resolute stare.

“Please,” I try anyway, hating the way it comes out so small and sad. “If you hold too tightly to the pain of your past, you’ll miss out on all the amazing things waiting for you in the future.”

His eyes are filled with tears as he says, “I love you both more than you will ever know.”

“We love you just as much,” Marlowe says. She’s the one to go to him first, wrapping her arms around him.

I want to join, but they deserve this moment with each other. Though this stage was once mine, too, it hasn’t been in a very long time. It’s been theirs. And the image of Marlowe holding Dallas as he looks out to the empty house is a memento I know I can keep safe—like Dallas’s passcode, or Marlowe’s costume stealing, or my real feelings for her in high school. I am the keeper of the keys. The holder of the secrets. I protect the hidden truths of the WRHS stage.

“Go make your greatness known,” Dallas says.

This is it, then.

Our last goodbye with Dallas Winthrop. It’s not a death, but it sure feels close, and my body doesn’t know the difference anyway. How will we face a world without him? How can this ever be a sufficient ending?

It’s not. And it won’t be. But we can’t live his life for him. We have our own to live.

I look back one last time, but he’s still gazing out to the empty audience, waiting for something he will never reach.

“Goodbye, Dallas Winthrop,” I say.

“You are always with us,” Marlowe tells him.

We step into the Memory Machine one last time.

I grab Marlowe’s hand and squeeze. “Let’s go back to the life we left behind.”

33

Marlowe

Outside the MemoryMachine, my first steps feel like I’m getting off a moving escalator and I can’t remember how to walk on normal ground anymore. We’re here. We have to be. Everything seems sturdy again, fixed in place in the way my body understands.

The feeling is right, but the circumstances don’t seem to be. For one, my coffee isn’t sitting on the prop table. All the regular stage lights are on, something we almost never do, because they’re harsh and unforgiving and Dallas and I both agree no productive creativity can occur under such accusatory illumination.

TheSpring Awakeningset is here, but some pieces of it have been moved.

“Is this…not home?” I ask, my stomach already twisting into knots.

“It has to be,” Priscilla replies. “I specifically asked for the life we left behind.”

“We didn’t say an exact date,” I realize.

It was hard enough to leave our Dallas, knowing he chose his pain over his life. But if we can’t findourlife either, then I don’t know where we go from here. I don’t want to inhabit another Marlowe’s world. I want to live in my own.

At once, my phone begins to vibrate nonstop. Dozens of texts and calls pour in, the same way they do when I take my phone off airplane mode after a flight or a movie.

When Priscilla’s phone joins the chorus, the vibrations become our defibrillators, shocking us back to reality. We exchange a long glance, both of us waiting for the catch. But none comes.

Priscilla jumps, wrapping her legs around me as I squeeze her as tightly as I can manage.

“We did it,” I say, breathing in the sweet smell of her skin.

“Of course we did,” she replies. “It’s us.”