He put his hands out. “Selena, I—”

“You want to know what death is! I’ll tell you what it is—death is the living forgetting you! What you smell like and look like, what your voice sounds like, how you laugh! Even if there is an afterlife, my death is going to be you going on without me until you can’t remember what color my eyes are or how long my hair is—”

It turned out she was the one who went Luchas.

Suddenly, her vision went all white and she had no control over the way she lunged for the nearest lamp, yanked it off its side table, and hurled it across the room at the bank of windows, throwing the thing so hard its silk shade went flying and hit the chandelier hanging in the middle of the ceiling.

Cue the shattering. Everything broke, glass splintering into shimmers that went everywhere, such that Trez had to lift his arm to protect his eyes.

She burst into tears. “I don’t want you to go on without me.”

As her soul split in half, he jumped up and came over. When he tried to hug her, she flailed at him, beat him with her fists.

“You’re going to find someone else,” she moaned. “You’re going to fall in love with someone else and she’s going to be able to give you young and hold you when you have daymares and make you dinner.” The tears came so hard and heavy, she couldn’t take a breath. “And she’s going to be better than me because she’s going to . . .” Selena collapsed against him. “. . . she’s going to be lucky enough to be alive.”

Trez held her to his heart and stroked her back.

There it was. The truth was out. The evil she had been trying to package and pretty-bow up revealed because she had wanted to be a female of worth instead of the pathetic, clingy curse she actually was.

And yet, he was still with her. Standing soul-to-soul, flesh-to-flesh, undaunted, utterly determined to love her through it all.

Eventually, she became aware of the beat of his heart.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

So steady and strong.

Taking a shuddering breath, she eased back. As he brushed under her eyes with his thumbs, she said hoarsely, “Wow, that went well, huh?”

SIXTY

As Selena spoke up, Trez broke out a laugh. And she smiled.

They were both total hot messes, her face swollen and beet red from the screaming and the crying, his forearm bleeding from the glass that had hit him, their bodies shaky as they stood together.

“Did you practice all that?” he asked, brushing her hair back.

“Oh, yeah. For, like, hours.”

He led her over to the bed and sat them both down—before they fell over onto the broken glass that littered the carpet. “And in your head, how did it go?”

Selena leaned to the side for the Kleenex box next to the alarm clock. She offered him a tissue, and then took one for herself.

After they’d both blown their noses, she took another deep breath. “It went so well. You were touched at my magnanimity. Humbled by the purity of my love. And when I got teary, it was all Sleepless in Seattle dewy—not like this.”

As she indicated her face, he tilted her to him and kissed her. “You’re even more beautiful to me than ever.”

She rolled her eyes. “Come on, get real. I just told you I want you to be celibate for the rest of your life.”

“And nothing could possibly make me happier.”

“Trez, be real. That is a total bitch move on my part.”

“Do you think I’d be any different?” He shrugged. “Man, if I were to die? I wouldn’t want you to look at another male—forget being naked with him.” He couldn’t hide the recoil of disgust as he tried that nightmare on for size. “Oh, shit, nope. No way. Uh-huh.”

“Really?”

“Straight one hundred. Serious.”

As she looked down at the rug, the most beautiful smile hit her face.

Man, it felt good to be on the same page.

But then her expression faded.

They were quiet for an awfully long time. And he had a feeling he knew where she’d gone in her head.

“Life can be very long,” she said. As if she were imagining the time he had before him—and how things could change.

“Yes, it can.” He felt as though they had lived three lifetimes in the last two nights. “But my memory is stronger than time. When it comes to you, my memory will be the immortal part of me.”

“If it does come to pass.” She cleared her throat. “If you do find someone, I want you to know . . . I would never hold that against you. I love you too much to blame you for that.”

“Not going to happen.”

Selena snapped free another tissue, but she didn’t use it. She just folded the fragile square in half. And then halved it again. And a third time.

“I don’t want you frozen in a cemetery of your own making,” she said finally. “That’s I guess the point I’m trying to make. My big fear about being trapped in my body forever? Locked in? I fear that for you in your grief, too. Yes, sure, there is a part of me that wants you to duck your head and let the years pass you by, but an even bigger part of me doesn’t want that kind of prison for you. I guess . . . what I’m trying to say is that if you ever feel bad, you know, at some point, because something happens and you think it’s funny or you do eat a meal you enjoy or . . . if there’s a movie you want to see or you’re happy about a present somebody gives you, just please know I love you in that moment. Maybe you could even pretend that they’re gifts from me from the other side.” She smiled sadly. “A kiss from me to you.”

Oh, shit, now he felt like losing it again.

“Can you promise me that, Trez? That you’ll let the good things in even after I’m gone?” She ran her fingers down his face. “Even if those things happen because there’s another female by your side? The only thing worse than me dying is both of us going away, in spite of the fact that that big strong heart of yours continues to beat in your chest.”

He closed his eyes. “I don’t want to think about this.”

“Neither do I.”

In the silence that followed, he was once again confronted by the reality that there was nothing to fight, no one to scream at, nobody he could stab with a dagger to stop any of this.

“You want to go down to Doc Jane’s now?” he said.

“I’d rather you answer the question.”

Trez gathered up her hands in his own. “If it will give you peace of mind, then yes, fine. I promise that . . .” Okay, he couldn’t actually say it. “I’ll keep going.”

Relief loosened up her face, her shoulders, her entire body. “Thank you. That really helps. You won’t ever know how much that really helps me right now.”

He kissed her softly, and then got up and went into the closet. He had no clue what he put on himself, but he covered up the naughty bits and even remembered to put on deodorant. When he came out, his stomach felt like it had been dredged.

“You ready to go to the clinic?”

She glanced around the room as if searching for something. Or maybe she just wanted to put off the inevitable a little longer.

“I’m so sorry about your window,” she blurted.

“That’s okay. The shutter is still in place, so that’ll cut the breeze and the cold.”

“And the lamp.”

“Like I care.”

She nodded and stood up. She was wearing black skinny jeans and a loose white blouse—and he was struck by how good she looked in normal clothes, not all that Chosen formality. And it was funny, her language was loosening up too, becoming more vernacular.

Goddamn, he thought. . . . he would really love to have had children with her.

The trip down to the clinic felt endless, and Selena wasn’t sure whether that was a bad or a good thing. On the one hand, she was ready to have the news just so she could deal with whatever it was. On the other, she would have been content to live in the no-know zone a little longer.

Trez held her hand all the way to the training center, not letting her go even when he put the various passcodes in or when they had to go one after the other through the supply closet. Walking down the corridor to Doc Jane’s, she thought about all the doors they could have entered instead of the one they were destined for.