Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 109245 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109245 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Gage changed the subject to something far more important.
“So how does someone come back from the dead?” he asked, setting his fork down and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
Roz’s chair creaked again. “I was wondering when you’d circle back to that. You’ve been quiet since I told you about the funeral.”
“I’ve been grieving,” Gage said dryly.
Something rustled, probably Roz scratching his beard. “Look, if Elvis can fake his death and go live in peace somewhere in the Midwest, so can you.”
Gage almost snorted coffee out of his nose. “You think Elvis is living in the Midwest?”
“I’m serious! I saw online that an old lady saw him at some hole-in-the-wall diner in Baraboo, Wisconsin.”
Against his will, a startled laugh exploded out of him.
Gage hadn’t thought he’d be capable of laughing ever again.
Leave it to Roz.
“The Midwest is where people go to disappear?” Roz doubled down. “Places like…I dunno…fuck…Kalamazoo, or some shit. We get you a new name, identity, and move you somewhere with a fucked-up name. Timbuktu. Winnebago, or Nimrod, Minnesota. I swear, no one’ll find us.”
Gage was struggling to catch his breath from laughing.
“I’m not going to Timbuktu, or…what the heck did you say? Nimrod.”
“What about Mud Butte, South Dakota…that sound better?”
“Are these even real places?”
“Hell yeah, last night I googled, ‘cities where no one will look for me.’” Roz answered. “There’s tons of places.”
Gage shook his head. “I’m going home.”
The words surprised him with how solid they came out. No tremors or doubt.
Roz went quiet.
Outside noise—that most hearing people didn’t notice— filled the pause: The click of a mailbox closing, someone locking their car door with a quiet chirp, a sprinkler head ticking as it rotated and the rattling of a bicycle chain as someone coasted downhill.
“You sure that’s smart?” Roz asked. “Your folks… They buried you, G.”
“I know.” He cupped his coffee mug with both hands. “I broke their hearts. Burned down half of my dad’s ministry. Embarrassed them in front of everybody who’d ever trusted them.”
He exhaled, long and shaky.
“I can’t fix everything, but I can’t let them live the rest of their lives putting flowers on a grave I’m not in. I gotta tell them I’m alive. Even if they slam the door in my face and tell me to stay dead.”
A heavy hand landed on his shoulder.
“Then that’s what we’ll do,” Roz said simply. “You wanna go home, fine. But I’m not letting you go without me. Never again, G.”
White Ravens
Gage
Gage dropped the last of the dishes into Roz’s sink with a heavy clink, telling himself this was what normal sounded like now.
The slow, nerve-grating drip of a leaky faucet. A clock ticking too loudly on the wall. Sleet spattering the window. Roz cussing under his breath at the coffee grounds he’d spilled on the floor.
“Go to work,” Gage said, resting his hip against the counter.
“Damn, bro, you tellin’ me to get outta’ my own crib?”
“I need time to pray and meditate,” he said. “To get my head straight before I see them. You sitting here watching me breathe isn’t helping.”
Roz waited a beat, then sighed. “You sure?”
“I doubt anything’s changed in the last six months. It’s Thursday, so my mom’s volunteering at the hospital, and my dad’s in his office at church until four. They’ll both be sitting down for dinner at five. That’s when I’ll go.” He swallowed a lump of anxiety. “So go to work.”
Roz didn’t move.
“I’m not helpless. I don’t need a babysitter.”
“All right, all right,” Roz muttered.
He made a bunch of noise in his small bedroom, before he came back out and dropped a folded pile of clothes into Gage’s hands—a heavy cotton sweatshirt and threadbare denims.
“Thanks.”
“Thanks, hell. I want that hoodie back. It’s one of my favorites.”
Roz’s palm landed heavy on his shoulder and gave it a firm squeeze. “I’ll be back by five.”
The door opened, then closed, and silence crept in behind it.
Gage went to the window, opened the blinds, and dropped to his knees.
He turned his face toward the sky and let the sunlight warm his face.
“Father,” he whispered, head bowed. “It’s me again.”
He stayed there until time vanished.
It wasn’t until the lock turned in the front door that he realized how long he’d been on his knees.
He tried to stand and his legs screamed. His fingers had gone pins-and-needles, cramping from how tight he’d had them clasped together.
The door shut, and Roz’s boots clomped along the floor towards the kitchen. Gage smirked at the hiss of a beer can being opened and the refrigerator door slamming.
“Don’t tell me you haven’t moved for seven hours,” Roz called out.
He’d meditated far longer than that before.
Gage pushed himself upright, bracing his hands on his thighs.
“I blinked a few times.”
He walked the numbered steps back to the kitchen and sat gingerly at the table.
“You hungry?”
“Not really.”
His stomach churned as though something alive was twisting around in there. The last thing he wanted to do was feed it.