The Beauty That Remains: Chapter 18–Epilogue

Then Sasha started getting sicker, and Rohan went a little AWOL from the band because he refused to leave her side.

I look at my friends, who are riveted by the actual intervention part of the show and not paying much attention to me, and I try to control my breathing by myself.

I run toward Dante instead of the house, certain something else horrible has befallen someone I love, and afraid to face whatever truth might be inside alone.

When he pulls away, he doesn’t look sheepish the way every other boy would after a first kiss.

And even without the heat of the lights on my face and the ecstasy of a fifty or a hundred strangers screaming words I wrote from memory, I suddenly remember that the stage was the one place where I felt powerful.

Ironically, as soon as I don’t have a band, I’m able to type out a line of lyrics that I don’t hate.

I could call their single “Relatively Speaking” “inspired,” and because I’ve known her for years I could mention that Jo Rollins kills on the drums.

Since Logan was the one who ruined everything, I have a feeling he’ll like the chance to make amends, but Logan’s a real wild card.

I tug on one of his lapels, to put a little space back between us.

All the lights are off, and candles are everywhere. They glow from the tops of bookshelves and mantels...

If we lived anywhere else in the world besides Queens, there would probably be a fire pit or kindling or at least something akin to a bonfire.

A lot of people are crying, and some are even kissing the papers or looking at the sky before tossing them into the flames. It’s a little melodramatic for my taste, but I can get behind the sentiment.

But that's when I see a flash of green and blue unfurl in a way that makes me turn my head. I see a pair of brown hands holding up a sign that says YOU CAN DO IT, SHAY!

July fourth was your favorite holiday which makes sense, as extravagant as you were.

And he’s holding the steering wheel with both hands now, so tightly that his bronze skin had gone taut across the knuckles.

"Death lies on her like an untimely frost
Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.”

I look over at the wooded area on either side of the empty road. It looks so ominous in this light, and I know that this was what you saw when you broke through the guardrail.

I set the candle atop a small mountain of snow, and after a few tries, the flame catches. It flickers and moves a bit as small breezes try to blow it out, but we block the wind with our bodies and stare at it in a weird kind of reverence.

Considering that Undying Light is moving forward without me, I’m feeling pretty expendable at the moment.

He’s wearing his glasses, which he almost never wears, but I can still see his quiet, translucent eyes behind the lenses, shining like a shallow forest pond.

He squints almost imperceptibly, a ghost from his past touching the edges of his face. But the look is gone before I can even be sure that I saw anything.

Two little dark-haired girls are playing in the cul-de-sac, and they could have been you and me when we were little.

Undying Light has been climbing the Battle of the Bands leaderboard since they found Lo, so I’m wondering if the girl just had a backlog of a zillion songs.

A squeal of feedback peals through the whole club.

I can only hear a hint of UL’s first song—Rohan’s first strum of the guitar ringing out strong and loud, Logan laughing into the mike, Dante hitting the drum tentatively, once, twice, three times—as I look up at the darkening sky.