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my soul where my beating heart used to be. I looked at him, really looked at him, and understood the grief from losing my mother and I had completely consumed him. He was like the jagged edges of the whisky bottle he’d thrown moments before, unfixable. Even if eventually he figured out how to pick up all of the pieces of himself and glue them back together again, he’d still never be the same.
    “Why?” he sobbed, looking up to the ceiling. The torment and agony that echoed within that one word was enough to make me curl into a ball at his side as sadness washed over me. “Why did you have to take my little girl away from me, too? Wasn’t losing my wife the way I did enough?” It came out as one big slur of words, but I was able to make each one out.
    “Why?” he cried again. Cradling his head in his hands, he began rocking back and forth repeating the same word.
    My soul felt as if it were weeping with him. I’d been wrong in thinking that seeing my things packed up was the hardest part about being dead. The hardest part was seeing those you loved and those who loved you slowly dying from the inside out with sorrow you couldn’t take away, the hopelessness that you felt when you couldn’t console them, when you couldn’t speak to them.
    My death had been the final pebble to bounce across the already cracked windowpane of my father’s soul. It had been the thing that shattered him completely. It was then that I thought of my mother. I shoved away all of the guilt and remorse I felt for the way my father was in this moment and placed all of the blame on her. If she hadn’t taken her own life and simply just dealt with being a Link like all of the others I’d come across in the last month, then none of this would have happened. I’d still be alive and my father, even though he wasn’t really there for me a lot while I had been alive, wouldn’t be so broken now.
    With anger fueling through me, I stood and gazed down at him. “I’m going to come back to you…” I whispered just before I left him in search of Jet once more.
     
    It wasn’t sunset, this I knew, but it didn’t mean I couldn’t hope for Jet to be here at our little slice of the ocean, waiting for me. Disappointment spiraled through me once I saw the empty, sandy shore. Jet wasn’t here. I stomped my foot in frustration and let out a muffled scream. When was I going to get my chance to tell him everything that I had learned? When was I going to be able to have him take me to the Purgatory Portal?
    I thought of my father and the way that I’d left him, and then I thought of my empty bedroom. Another thought pushed its way through to the surface of my mind: How long was my mother’s sentence in Purgatory? The fear that what I wanted to accomplish wouldn’t be possible if she crossed over plummeted me. I felt as if time were running out.
    As I stared out at the waves rising up and crashing toward the shore, my mind wandered, and I wondered if something could have happened to Jet. Was he an old enough Reaper to be found a replacement? This was one thing I had never discussed with him. Exactly how long had he been a Reaper?
    As I let my mind continue to wander, becoming more engrossed in my thoughts and worries, I felt the air behind me shift. I spun and there was Jet, staring at me in the same unabashed way he used to when I was still alive.
    “Finally,” he said, his lips twisting up into his coy little smirk I loved so much.
    My panic lessened and I felt the weight from my heavy thoughts evaporate. “I’m so glad to see you!”
    Jet sauntered toward me, the shimmer in his eyes letting me know he felt the same way. As soon as he was within my reach, I pulled him into me and pressed my lips to his.
    “Each time I see you, my greeting is better than the last… Maybe I should stay away more often,” he muttered.
    I chuckled. The way he spoke reminded me of the old Jet—the Jet I’d first met when I was alive, the Jet I had known when