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Damn it if she hadn’t told me exactly what I needed to hear.
Dexter said goodbye, and just when I thought I’d seen all sides of him, he cried.
He knew it, too. She wouldn’t be here much longer.
Greg Senior walked us out, saying he’d call if anything.
I couldn’t help but think maybe my tragedies were, in fact, tragedies. But that we were all experiencing our own little tragedies every day.
Noa
I wokeon the day of Tim’s service while everyone else was still asleep. It was the best time for me to go for a run. I hadn’t gone in so long, and my body needed it. It was better to work through my emotions physically. It was probably why I was crying all the time. The buildup with no release was taking its toll on me. Sex was…sex was phenomenal. But nothing helped me like a nice long run.
I dug through my bags quietly, finding my clothes. After I brushed my teeth and changed, I jogged lightly down the steps and opened the door. It was cold, but my body would warm up. I stretched a little and then took off. Slowly at first, getting my legs ready. My lungs already started burning, but the first mile was always a little tough until I found my rhythm. The second mile was easier, and by the third, I was good to go. It was blissful.
Everything I felt, everything I worried about, hit the pavement with my feet. By the fourth mile, I was heading back to the house. I slowed down; something about the park I was running past looked familiar. It hit me that this was the park Dexter had brought me to years ago. I smiled wistfully and walked toward the swings.
I remembered the fierce independence I was adamant to display at every opportunity. Secretly, I loved that Dexter wanted to be my boyfriend and carry my books. It was the fear, always the fear, driving me to mock the absurdity of it. Someone like him wanting someone like me? Absolutely senseless.
I sat on the swing and looked at the sun as it began to rise.
“You were always better at being alone,” someone said from beside me.
I hadn’t heard anyone approach, so when I saw the old man sitting in the swing next to me, I was a little jumpy about it.
“Don’t worry, Noa. I’m but an old man.”
What the fuck…
“You only look like an old man,” I said. I couldn’t understand it, but something about him seemed so powerful and otherworldly. Ethereal.
His wrinkles were too deep when he smiled, like he smiled often, and his bright eyes looked at me with knowledge. The way I imagined a baker looked at his bread or an artist at their work.
“Smart girl.” He held on to the chains of the swing.
It was strange to see him sitting there, like a child. But I shrugged it off, more concerned with what he wanted.
“I want nothing from you. I want to talk. We’ve not had the pleasure of meeting. I understand Dexter told you a little about me.”
I hadn’t thought about what Dexter told me since he said it. When he talked about the Angel of Death, or the Grim Reaper, I’d brushed it off and changed the subject.
Life works that way, though—it eventually forces you to face a truth you hadn’t been ready to.
“I didn’t really think much of it,” I said. “Until now. So, you’re the Grim Reaper?” I asked, accepting that if Dexter was crazy, I was certifiable as well.
“That name is terrible. While I’m called many names, I answer only to one. I am the Angel of Death. And you are Noa Cruz—previously Annabelle, except I brought you back.”
My heart stuttered. “I didn’t die.”
“But you did. As did Dexter. Four souls, one moment. It was perfect. Opportune. Greg asked to be spared, as well as Annabelle. Your soul, the person you were before, she is gone. Yes, in the end, you’re the same. You still have Noa’s memories and your identity is the same, but I’m sure you felt a change when you woke in the hospital. And Dexter was charged with finding you and loving you.”
I listened to this man’s story and I knew he believed it. That frightened me. Molly’s sincere connection between the four of us flashed through my mind. These conversations ran along the same train of thought—that Dexter and I weren’t who we thought we were the entire time.
“Wait. So, you’re telling me that Dexter and I are soulmates?” I held back a chuckle, waiting to hear the rest of this insanity.
“I’m going to tell you what I told him when he tried to leave you, years ago. Your life, without him? You will be an aimless woman, forever searching and never finding. You know this. You felt it while he was gone. It’s a pity that you two can’t ever simplybe.” The old man shook his head as he looked up at the sky. “You let the world get in the way. Be with him. He is yours and you are his. It is fated.”
There was the pressure that I hated. The kind that made me want to run.
