Total pages in book: 55
Estimated words: 52976 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 265(@200wpm)___ 212(@250wpm)___ 177(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52976 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 265(@200wpm)___ 212(@250wpm)___ 177(@300wpm)
“Dude, tell them to stop!”
“I can’t!” I growl. “Ugh, this fucking hurts …”
“Wait.” All of the frustration in West’s face goes away. “Is this … Is this me? Am I hurting you?”
“N-Not intentionally …”
“By hanging onto the part of your soul I’ve got?” Westley’s eyes change. “Griff, you never said I was—”
“I think the dead are trying to take me. Maybe they want the other half of my soul, since they know you’ve got the other. I don’t know. Right now, I’m just trying to stop whatever Zeus’s anus is doing to us right now, and it—” I try to meet his eyes again, but it’s so fucking bright and my stomach is inside-out. “—it hurts.”
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this??”
“Because I want you to have your happy ending, too!” I shout at Westley through the pain. “You deserve everything you didn’t accomplish in your short life! You deserve everlasting happiness, just like any of us, and I don’t care at what cost!”
“Griffin …! Damn it, Griff, not at this cost!”
I didn’t think the light could get any brighter, but at once I’m proven wrong as it flashes with intention and unknowable power. There’s no mistaking it: the light is forcibly prying the piece of soul out of Westley in tug-of-war fashion—and I am feeling each and every tug.
One tug is especially excruciating.
I shriek out in pure agony.
“Okay!” exclaims Westley, panicked. “Okay, okay, okay! I … I give in! Zeus! Satan! Whosever vagina we are careening down right now! I don’t want my Griff in pain!” West is in front of me at once, his hands cradling my cheeks. I look into his eyes. I see surrender in them. “I’m not worth it. I … I can’t let you do this to yourself anymore. I didn’t realize it was hurting you like this.”
“I just … wanted you to … be happy, too …!”
“Don’t you worry about me. I’ll find my happiness somehow. Whether it’s just sticking by your side, or all alone while you move on with your life with Byron. I … I’m giving your soul back. Effective immediately.”
“W-Westley!!” The screaming of our friends and family puncture the light. The noise from the chapel is coming back. Our connection is breaking. “What will happen to you?? Where will you go when you let go??”
“I … I don’t know. Don’t worry about it, bro.”
“West, please don’t go—!”
“Fuck, Griff, not gonna lie, this hurts like hell.”
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I can’t control it …”
“Like, seriously, I had an obstructed bowel once in high school, got sent to the emergency room ‘cause I couldn’t take a shit, and even that didn’t hurt like this does—oh, fuuuck me—!” He grimaces in torment, lets out a guttural scream, then cries, “Take it! The soul! I love you, Griffin, take your fucking soul!”
I’m not even sure I do anything.
Maybe it’s part of Byron’s dads’ clever magic.
But instantly, I feel something as soft and warm as the satisfying embrace of a cushy fleece blanket on a cold winter night wrapping itself around me.
Cradling me.
Saving me.
And then West lets go of my face.
I fly back from the light as if attached by a bungee cord. West similarly springs away from me, swallowed down the pit of light, farther and farther away.
Farther.
Farther.
Gone.
Instantly, the tunnel of light vanishes like a closing mouth, satisfied with its meal and all but licking its lips. I’m back on the stage of the chapel as if none of that happened at all, still kneeling with Byron by my side.
I catch my breath, eyes wide, staring at where the tunnel just was, as if I might still catch a glimpse of West somewhere out there.
But I see nothing. No light. No Westley. Nothing but the stunned faces of all of our wedding guests.
Where once there was screaming and shouting and confusion, now there is just a ringing silence. Everyone in the room is staring at me. My parents. My aunt. My friends from Pixelomenon. Byron’s friends and family. His coworkers from Spooky Beans and the theater off 7th Street. Even Mrs. Shaheen, who I haven’t seen once today, stands in the back of the room with a hand held to her chest, aghast, unspilled tears clinging to the tops of her weathered cheeks.
Byron’s dads stand at the front, Douglas and Mort, the eccentric pair of them catching their breath as well. What did they do? A magic spell? Some kind of freaky dance? A ritual?
I’ll never know. I saw none of it.
All I know is that I’m no longer shivering. I’m no longer seeing or hearing ghosts. I feel whole again.
That can only mean I have my soul back.
All of it.
And I’m not sure how I feel about that fact.
“Babe?” Byron extends a hand to me. “Griffin? Are you okay?”
After a moment of collecting myself—I’m pretty sure my hair is a mess, my bowtie came undone again, and I broke out in a seriously clothes-drenching sweat—I rise from off the floor with Byron’s help. My emotions have been torn into shreds. It’s as if West leapt inside of me one last time, then fled too soon, and I’m not sure who I am exactly in this moment. I’m reeling from West’s thoughts and fears. His excitement about finding Nina. His confusion. His happiness and pain.