Page 594 of End Game

He exhales a little longer than the breaths before it.

I know there are things I could say.

I could tell him he is loved.

He knows.

I could tell him he belongs here.

He knows that too.

I could tell him his parents are wrong, his aunt and uncle are wrong, that the people who removed him from their lives have confused conviction with righteousness.

None of those things would give him back Christmas.

They would not restore the family group chat or put him back in his Aunt's kitchen. They would not make his mother's beliefs hurt less simply because ours are different.

Sometimes words are useful.

Sometimes they are a demand disguised as comfort, requiring the grieving person to reassure everyone that the correct statement helped.

I don't want Micah to perform improvement for me.

So I hold him instead.

After a while, he takes another drag from his cigarette and says, “The chuul was bullshit.”

I smile. “You survived.”

“Barely.”

“That is generally the point.”

He makes a quiet sound against my chest that might be a laugh. “It grabbed Cami twice.”

“She kept standing next to it.”

“You put it there.”

“I put it in the water. She chose to remain within reach.”

Micah shifts enough to look at me. “You really can justify anything as a Dungeon Master.”

“I can explain almost anything. That isn't the same thing.”

“That sounds like justification.”

“It sounds like accuracy.”

His mouth opens again, but he says nothing.

Then he lets his head settle back against me.

The weight of him increases slightly as he stops holding quite so much of himself upright.

I tighten my arm without thinking about it.

Inside the house, Dex says something loud enough that we hear Cami tell him to shut the fuck up through the closed door.