Page 26 of What Rough Beast

CLOSED

When you die

They wire

Your mouth shut.

Clicking your teeth together

Forever.

This was done to me,

Somehow

Some time.

The words that do come

Are only the

Necessary ones

Slipping past enamel

Just in time

Everything else stays in

If my mouth were

To fall open—

Jaw resting

On collarbone—

All that darkness

Would drown

Everyone.

So I’ll keep it.

“What are you doing?”

The voice is sharp and loud, right in my ear. I drop my phone for the second time and—I’m not ashamed to admit—scream like a girl.

“Jesus, Harding,” Quentin Wagner says. “Grow a pair or give back the ones you got.”

I gasp, sucking hard for air while my blood pounds in my ears. Quentin’s wheelchair puts him a few inches below eye level. I’m immediately questioning what the polite thing to do is: Keep looking down at him while we talk, or get out? But then I’d have to ask him to move, which also seems rude, so—

“Seriously, what are you doing here?”

“I . . .” My eyes slide off his when he looks at me, seeking distraction. I hear a door close, watch in the side mirror as Ava walks to her car, cradling one hand against her chest. She starts the engine and the brights flood my vision.

Quentin twists in his chair to see, the hard lines of his jaw brilliantly lit, the corded muscle of his arms well defined. Quentin graduated two years ahead of me, rolling across the stage he should’ve walked on, being driven home in the accessibility van that Friends of Bethington had done a GoFundMe for. I can still see Mom’s face in the glow of the laptop screen, asking Dad how much we could afford to give. Him telling her to pick a number—then double it.