Page 20 of How to Survive Your Own Death

She did. She saw Bones just minutes before she died. “I need you to say it.”

The cowl moved gently with a breeze that she could not feel. His skeletal hands flexed. “Yes. Once a message is delivered, it cannot be undone. She will die soon. When she does, you need to touch her. Brief contact on the hand will suffice.”

Geri slumped onto the nearest chair, tossing the phone on the table. “This is too much.”

“It is no more than you can bear, Geraldine Melnyk.”

“You’re real.” She covered her face with her hands. “You’re really real.”

“I have told you this.”

“I really died and you brought me back and now I owe you. I didn’t ask for any of this.”

“You did not want to die.”

She looked up at him, fully aware that she appeared unhinged talking to herself. Without the earbuds, she couldn’t even pretend to be talking on the phone. “You don’t know that. Probably, yeah, I might have jumped on that, but we’ll never know because you didn’t ask me. You just did this to me on a whim, as far as I can figure.”

“It was not a whim,” he said, his voice bleak and offering no further explanation to his motivation. “Would you have preferred to die while I wasted time ascertaining your wishes?”

He kept playing that tired old card and it was pissing her off. In a mocking tone, she said, “Oh, pardon me, hate to be a bother, but you seem to be bleeding to death and I could fix that but you’d be burdened with something far more sinister than the typical medical debt. Did I mention I’m the grim reaper? And I talk like an old-timey movie star for some reason?” She covered her mouth in feigned surprise. “Wow, that wasn’t difficult at all.”

“I do not speak in such a manner.”

“Ya do, and of course I wanted you to ask. Sweet fucking marigolds, ask. Why are men?”

Bones shifted under the table and put her head on Geri’s knee and gave her such a mournful look that said she totally got her.

“I am not a man,” Bazel said.

That was too much. He—if anthropomorphic personifications of a natural process in the cycle of life had a gender—completely missed the point.

“I refuse,” she said. “I won’t be your hands or your instrument or whatever fancy term you cook up to make you feel better.”

Bazel said nothing, his cloak floating in the breeze only he could feel.

They stared at each other in a battle of wills. She wasn’t wrong to be upset. She wouldn’t back down. She might have been dying, but she still had the right to decide her fate.

Fuck. She really wanted a slice of lemon poundcake. No, she wasn’t eating her emotions. Be quiet.

She stood up and Bazel looked positively triumphant, for a pile of bones. “I’m not dealing with your nonsense right now. I’m getting cake.”

“Is cake nice?” he asked, gliding alongside her. Honestly, it was disturbing.

“It’s cake. Of course it’s nice.”

“I’ve never had any. My culinary experience is limited, actually. There’s no point in eating. That is not how my kind derives sustenance. I confess I’ve always been curious. You mortals take so much pleasure from consuming food that it must be more than mere survival.”

“You cannot be serious right now,” Geri muttered.

Two baristas were behind the counter, the one who saw Bones and another with a mop and bucket. “The sink leaks. You can’t empty the bucket into a leaky sink.”

“It’s too heavy to carry to the back.”

“Just get this cleaned up,” the barista said. She plastered on a forced smile as Geri arrived at the counter. “Back so soon?”

“I decided I need a slice of lemon poundcake,” Geri said.

“Good call.”