Page 38 of Drop Dead Gorgeous

Every legend gets it wrong. They imagine Death as a riddle, a drama, a dark stranger who comes for you alone beneath a moonlit sky. Most of the time, it is nothing so singular. It ispaperwork and waiting. It is watching—endless watching—until you know every line of a life and the exact moment it will break.

When Lavinia locks up for the night and walks home, I follow at a distance. Not to stalk, I tell myself. Or perhaps only to stalk a little. I tell myself I am guarding her from the occasional fool who mistakes darkness for opportunity. She walks with her head high, backpack slung over one shoulder, her hands free and unhurried. Even in the empty streets, she never checks behind her, never quickens her pace. I wonder if she senses me anyway, the way animals sense a storm long before the clouds arrive.

At her doorway, she turns and looks directly toward the dying streetlamp beneath which I stand. For one impossible second, I think she sees me.

Instead, she wipes the mist from her glasses, unlocks the door, and disappears inside.

I stay until the light in her apartment goes dark.

It is as close as I allow myself to come.

That night I lie on my back in the field behind the supermarket, counting the seconds between distant train horns. I force myself to remember every face from the meadow—the little boy flying his kite along the tree line, the old woman walking her terrier, the truck driver leaning against his cab to smoke while watching the clouds gather overhead. Every day, endings braid themselves quietly beneath beginnings, the way roots spread unseen beneath flowers that won't bloom until spring.

I think about telling her.

What would it cost?

At first she might laugh, right up until she saw my face. It would sound absurdly like a breakup—it's not you, it's me—except in my case it would be literally true, a cosmic joke wrapped around my own existence.

By dawn I have walked nearly the entire city. My legs ache pleasantly beneath me while the scent of fresh bread and fryer grease mingles with the promise of rain. I could leave. I could disappear before anyone noticed, vanish for a month, a year, another century.

But I don't want to go.

Not yet.

More than anything, I want to tell her goodbye.

More than that, I want her to ask me not to.

On the fourth morning, I finally decide.

The shop is dark except for a single light glowing somewhere in the back. I stand outside the locked door for nearly a full minute, rehearsing elaborate speeches that collapse under their own weight. Eventually, it occurs to me that this is not a bank robbery.

I do not need a plan.

The sign reads:

Closed for Lunch. Knock if Emergency!

I knock anyway.

“One sec!” she calls.

A moment later the door swings open.

Her hair is tousled, her cheek dusted with either pollen or watercolor paint. She blinks once when she sees me, and then relief settles across her face so quickly she probably doesn't realize I've seen it.

“You're alive,” she says, folding her arms. “The rumors were true.”

I have spent four days rehearsing this moment.

All I manage is a nod.

“Come in,” she says, stepping aside. “I’m eating leftover cake and pretending to do inventory. Want some? It's from a funeral, so it's probably haunted.”

I follow her inside.

The familiar warmth of Belladonna Blooms settles around me, rich with the scent of lilies, damp greenery, and fresh-cut stems. Someone has tied a tiny blue ribbon around the bell above the door. The little detail makes me smile more than it should.