cold state of love
Fandom: Over The Garden Wall
Summary: A sequel to about your funeral. Sara attempts to cope with Wirt's death until she sees a ghost on Halloween night. Wirt/Sara.
Characters: Sara, Wirt, Rhondi, Kathleen, Gregory
Genre: Romance/Angst
Rating: K+
Word Count: ~7000
Warnings: death
—
Sara had always thought that the idea that kids thought they were invincible was ridiculous. Everyone knew that anyone could die from disease, or get killed, or die in any number of ways.
Now, in a hospital room full of people, standing with her friends but feeling entirely alone, she got it. Kids knew they could die. But they didn't know.
Wirt had been declared officially dead fifteen minutes ago.
Kathleen was sobbing, tears pouring so hard down her face so hard that makeup was streaked all the way down to her neck. Her other friends were crying, too, in other ways, but Kathleen's grief was so loud and visible that Sara couldn't think about anything else. Sara rubbed her friend's back mechanically, aware that she wasn't crying but not really sure why.
The patter of footsteps forced her brain into motion. Rhondi, who had left to go ask the doctors and nurses more questions, was running up to them. "Guys," she said, relief apparent in her voice. "The doctors said that Greg's awake. He's gonna be okay."
A few of her friends gasped in relief. Kathleen started crying harder. Sara attempted to smile at the news, but suddenly pictured a motionless monitor and a crisp white sheet drawn up over a body and wanted to throw up instead. She covered her mouth and ran outside.
She didn't throw up, but sat on the cement sidewalk and swallowed tears until her eyes stung. Wirt's death felt too terrible, like nothing else had been real up to this moment. She rested her forehead on her knees. Unwillingly, hot tears trickled down her cold face.
The door clicked open behind her, and she glanced up before thinking to wipe her face.
Her friends were standing in the doorway. "Hi, guys," Sara said, her voice cracking.
Wordlessly, Rhondi came and sat down next to Sara and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. Kathleen sat down on her other side and smiled blearily at her through tears. Their other friends gathered tight around and sat together as the night air grew colder still.
—
The car ride home with her parents after the funeral was quiet. The silence was too long to break, and Sara wasn't sure that she could have said anything if she tried. She tried not to think about Greg, and she tried not to think about Greg's questions, and she really tried not to think about Wirt.
I'm not alone, I'm with Wirt. There's just two of him for some reason.
She was unsuccessful.
When they got home, Sara went inside and up the stairs without talking to her parents. There wasn't really anything to discuss- at least, not things she wanted to.
She shut the door with more force than necessary. Then she ripped off her jewelry and dropped it on her dresser. After a moment of debate, she wriggled out of her dress and slid on pajamas that had things like dogs on them- something that normally made her feel better but didn't this time. Immediately Sara felt ridiculous for thinking that it would. She flopped on her bed and stared at the ceiling, but didn't cry, because she had sworn to herself that she wouldn't cry after the funeral. In any case, she felt too worn and empty to work up tears.
The room was too quiet and Sara couldn't think of anything to fill it with.
How come this Wirt's in a box? And no one can see the other Wirt?
Sara sat up. Without allowing herself to think about it, she dropped to her knees beside the bed and pulled open the bottom drawer of her bedside table.
The mixtape was at the top of the drawer.
When her dad had come to pick her up from the hospital and she'd hugged her friends goodbye, she'd felt it bump against her side from inside her pocket. Up to then, she had entirely forgotten about it. Absently, she had taken it out of her pocket, and then Kathleen had seen it and said oh my gosh, the mixtape, and started crying again.
Sara had asked what's wrong and Kathleen had said it's all my fault and Sara had said what is and Kathleen had said everything which didn't really answer any of Sara's questions. Rhondi had finally told her that they had put the mixtape in her pocket. It had been from Wirt. He liked her, or he had.
All Sara could think to say was I don't even own a tape player.
She took the tape out carefully and turned it over in her hands. The handwriting was familiar now that she knew it was his- she'd sat next to Wirt in English, had watched him take frantic notes in that wobbly hand.
It was strange, to own something a dead person had made for you.
Swallowing, Sara placed it back in the drawer. There wasn't anything she could do about it now. Wirt was gone.
She forced herself to ignore the tiny what if in the back of her brain.
—
Sara successfully ignored the tiny what if in the back of her brain for a year. Life, she discovered, went on, just in a weirder, sadder, way. She got used to the empty chairs in classrooms, and the awkward pauses in roll call, until they gradually went away. Sophomore year there was no hint that anything had been missing.
Halloween, though. She couldn't get into the spirit of Halloween so easily. It was too hard to forget that a year ago today, Wirt had died.
She tried a few times to assemble a makeshift costume, but after trying to draw a clown face on herself for the fifth time, she wiped it off the final time and called Rhondi to tell her that she wasn't going to make it to the Halloween party.
"That's cool," Rhondi said. Sara could hear her chewing gum through the phone. "You're missing out, though. Funderberker and his girlfriend are wearing matching costumes."
"That's awesome. What of?"
"Dunno. But they're gonna match. I'll take pictures for you." Rhondi paused, either to contemplate or blow a bubble. "Is this about Wirt?"
"Um..." Sara tried to decide if it was. "Kind of. Just kind of down about it all, y'know?"
Rhondi popped her bubblegum. "Yeah, I get it." She paused, then said abruptly, "remember how he did that thing where he would whisper poetry to himself but was convinced no one could hear him?"
Sara smiled. "Yeah, and he always sounded so serious about everything, like, he could stumble and it would be a whole soliloquy. To trip or not to trip, that is the question."
They laughed, and for a moment it didn't feel like they were remembering someone who was gone, just sharing a memory about a friend. But they fell silent, and the illusion faded. Rhondi said, "it's weird that he's gone, you know? I still can't really believe it. I keep expecting to turn the corner and there he'll be."
"Yeah," Sara said, and for a moment, she considered telling Rhondi about what Greg had said at the funeral. She'd never told anyone about what had happened. But her mom shouted indistinctly from downstairs about the phone, so she said instead, "my mom wants to use the phone. I'll see you around, Rhondi."
"Okay. Don't do anything stupid, Sara. Bye."
"Bye," Sara said and hung up the phone. After shouting down to her mom about the phone, she walked to her closet and pulled on her blue jacket. For a moment, she considered opening the bottom drawer of her bedside table and taking out the tape, but she walked out the door of her room and down the stairs. It was time to stop looking at that.
—
Instead of going to the party, Sara ended up taking a long walk around town. There wasn't a game tonight like last year, so she had plenty of time to kill. She wandered for several hours until the sky started to darken. Somehow, she ended up in front of a flower shop, and the blooms in the display case gave her an idea.
About thirty minutes later, her shoes were crunching on leaves coating the ground in The Eternal Garden Graveyard. Sara cradled a bouquet of forget-me-nots in the crook of her arm as she picked her way through the graves. She'd only been to the graveyard a few times, so it took her a while to find the grave. She finally did, though, near a large tree with bright red leaves.
"Hey, Wirt," she said to the gravestone. Other people had had the same idea as her, apparently- a wide assortment of flowers coated the grave. She found a spot and began to lay hers down- then she realized she could hear someone talking.
"It was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea, that a maiden there lived whom you may know by the name of Annabel Lee- and this maiden she lived with no other thought than to love and be loved by me..."
Sara frowned. That sounded vaguely familiar. Was it something she had had to read for English? She stood without putting the flowers down and scanned the graveyard, trying to figure out where the voice was coming from.
"...a love that was more than love, I and my Annabel Lee, with a love that the winged seraphs of heaven coveted her and me. And this was the reason that, long ago, in this kingdom by the sea, a wind blew out of a cloud by night chilling my Annabel Lee-"
It sounded like the speaker was moving away. Feeling curious, and slightly guilty for spying on a stranger in a graveyard, Sara began to follow the noise.
"-So that her high-born kinsman came and bore her away from me, to shut her up in a sepulchre in this kingdom by the sea. The angels, not half so happy in Heaven, went envying her and me- yes! that was the reason- as all men know, in this kingdom by the sea- that the wind came out of a cloud, chilling and killing my Annabel Lee."
She had read this, Sara realized, last year in English. It had been just before Halloween. Her skin prickled.
"But our love it was stronger by far than the love of those who were older than we- of many far wiser than we- and neither the angels in Heaven above, nor the demons down under the sea, can ever dissever my soul from the soul of the beautiful Annabel Lee..."
And she knew this voice. But that was impossible. Sara walked faster.
"For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams of the beautiful Annabel Lee, and the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes of the beautiful Annabel Lee..."
He was so close.
"And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride, in her sepulchre there by the sea-"
Sara walked past another row of graves and saw him. She stopped where she stood, unable to breathe.
"In her tomb by the side of the sea,"Wirt finished, pacing impossibly back and forth in front of her. And she then remembered they hadn't read this in English class last year, but they had been told to find and read a poem to the class, and Wirt had read this, looking terrified as he recited the verses with quiet emotion that nobody had really expected from him. She had gone home and reread it, trying to recapture that moment but failing. But that all seemed far away and surreal as she stared at a boy who was supposed to have died a year ago today.
He paused, misstep, and idly scratched his head, which for some reason made Sara want to burst into tears. Instead, she breathed in sharply, which made him turn. He blinked in surprise as he saw her, then glanced over his shoulder as if trying to see what she was looking at. Sara suddenly realized that he was wearing what he had on Halloween. He looked exactly the same. Her eyes burned, and she suddenly felt like she might cry.
He had turned back around and was staring at her in apparent confusion. Then, slowly, his expression shifted into one of realization. "Sara?" Wirt tried, like he was afraid to hear if there was an answer.
"Wirt," she whispered, her hands shaking slightly.
He turned impossibly white. "I," he said, taking a step backwards- his footsteps made no sound.
Sara swallowed, "I can't-" she wiped her face, realizing she actually was crying. "You're here," she said, finally.
For a moment, they stood stock still. Then Wirt abruptly turned and ran.
This surprised Sara, so he got about a five second head start before she started sprinting after him. "Wait," she shouted, picking up speed. His stride was ridiculously long, but she chased him, petals floating off the bouquet in her hands as she ran. He finally came to a halt in front of the wall that surrounded the graveyard.
"Not again," he groaned, grabbing at his hair. His head tilted up to look at the tree growing close to the wall, and Sara suddenly remembered how he had run that night too. She dropped the flowers on the ground and stomped over, breathing hard from the run. He turned slightly and squeaked.
"Don't climb that tree," she said, stabbing him in the chest with her finger. "Don't do that ever again."
"I, well, that is-" he didn't get anything else out before Sara grabbed him and drew him into a tight hug. He froze.
"I missed you," Sara said, trying to blink away tears.
Wirt held still a moment, then awkwardly wrapped his arms around her. "Yeah," he whispered. "Me too."
He was so cold.
—
They sat and just talked for a long time after that. Somehow, they managed to talk about anything besides Wirt being dead. Like they were just catching up after a long year of not seeing each other. Then Sara remembered the flowers.
"Oh, I forgot," she said. She reached over and picked up the crumpled bouquet. "I got these for- well, you know- but you're here so you can take yourself, I guess."
Sara pushed them into his hands before he could object. He flinched when she pulled away, then frowned. "That's weird," he said. Wirt sat up to hold to his face and breathe in the scent, then leaned back. "That's really weird."
"What is?"
"Nothing," he said automatically. "I mean... Normally I can't. Hold stuff." He rearranged a blossom. "Or smell stuff."
Sara paused, feeling like she was encroaching on forbidden territory. "Well... Normally I can't see you... Maybe because it's Halloween?" A double meaning, she realized. Spirits moved on Halloween night, and it had been the night he had died. Which one made him more real?
"It's Halloween?" Wirt looked up quickly, flowers crunching in his hands.
He said with such apparent surprise that it surprised Sara as well. "Yeah," she said, taken aback. "Did you not know?"
He faltered. "I mean, I knew it was coming up, but... I guess I didn't realize how soon. That means it's been..."
The pause went on long enough for Sara to realize he was trying to remember. For some reason, this made Sara acutely aware she was talking to a dead boy. "A year," she supplied.
"Y-yeah," he said quickly. "Wow, that's. That's weird. I guess that explains why people have been hanging around so much." He glanced across the graveyard towards where his grave was. Sara looked away, the moment strained again.
After a moment, Wirt coughed in a way that would be obviously fake even if he wasn't dead. "You can ask questions about it, if you want. I don't mind."
It being death. Sara said, carefully, "do you remember it?"
He shrugged. "I don't really remember it happening. I remember seeing a kind of afterlife when I fell in the river- Greg saw it too- but after coming out of the river, the next thing I knew I was in the hospital, and I was dead. But I didn't realize that. I didn't until the funeral." He drew his knees to his chest.
Sara tried to decide whether it was better or worse to know you had died. "Is it bad? Being a ghost?" She asked.
"You get used to it," Wirt said, placing his chin in his hand. "It's mainly just different. Time is weird, now. I don't get tired or hungry anymore, which is nice, kind of? Kinda miss the feeling of it, though." He trailed off awkwardly, then added, "but I can do stuff like levitate and pass through walls. So that's neat." He scratched the back of his head and glanced away.
Sara smiled at him, then paused. He was fidgeting in a way that implied that something was on his mind, not that he was just slightly nervous like he usually was. "Wirt? Is everything... Okay?" It felt like a weird question to ask.
"Didyoueverlistentothemixtape?" Wirt blurted.
Sara blinked. "What?"
He took a deep breath and tried again. "Did you ever listen tothemixtape." The closer he got to the end of his sentence the more squashed together his words got, like he was trying to get the words out as fast as possible.
"The mixtape?" She clarified. Wirt nodded, looking like he wanted to sink into the earth. "No, I didn't."
"Oh." He attempted to keep his expression neutral and failed dramatically.
"Not that I didn't want to," Sara said quickly, "I just don't own a cassette player."
"Oh." Wirt said, looking both relieved and chagrined. "Right. Sorry. That makes sense."
"I'd still like to listen to it, though," she said. "Maybe-" she stopped, and stared at him.
"What?" He asked. Then he looked down and groaned. "Great." He was soaked in water that had come from nowhere. His skin was getting paler and his clothes were tearing, giving him the appearance you would expect of a wrathful ghost. "Sorry, this happens sometimes."
His mild irritation was somehow more alarming than if he had been frightened, like suddenly turning into a terrifying ghoul was an ordinary occurrence. Then she noticed something else. "Wirt," Sara said, trying not to freak out. "Your hands."
He looked down at his hands and jumped. They were fading away. "Oh no, what-" it spread up his arms and through his body. "Wait, wait, no-" he looked up one last panicked time at Sara, locking eyes with her. Then he disappeared completely. The bouquet of flowers in his lap hit the ground.
Sara stared. Then an idea occurred to her. She checked her watch. 12:01 AM. "Wirt?" She said, a little loudly. "If you're still here, I think it's because it's the morning, so it's not Halloween. So I can't see you." She paused. "Also, that means I pretty seriously broke curfew, geeze." She scooped up the flowers and walked- she was already out too late, so there wasn't too much point to running- back to his gravestone.
"I'm just gonna put this here," she said, with no idea if Wirt was still there or not. Finding the same spot she had last time, she laid them down amongst the other flowers.
"So, uh, yeah," she said, glancing around. It was hard to say bye to someone who wasn't there. "See you around," Sara finally said, even though she had no idea if she actually would see Wirt again.
She walked out of the graveyard, a cold breeze at her back.
—
"Mascot Sara!"
Sara generally did not get called Mascot Sara, but she looked up anyway when someone called her name on her walk home from school. She was surprised to see Greg running full tilt towards her with something in his hands.
"Hi, Greg," she said, stooping slightly to talk to him. "How was your Halloween?"
"Good," he said with a smile that seemed to make up most of his face. "I got something for you!" He held up a brown paper sack that had a great many drawings of cartoon characters decorating it. They were almost recognizable.
She took it from him. "Wow, thanks, Greg." It was remarkably heavy for such a small bag.
"It's from Wirt," he whispered loudly. Then he winked with effort.
"Oh," Sara said, looking around for Wirt automatically.
"I mean, part of it is," Greg added. "The candy's from me. Wirt doesn't get halloween candy." He paused, apparently made briefly sad by this realization. He brightened again quickly. "But I hope you like it! Me and Jason Funderberker are gonna go look for more frog friends, so, bye!"
And with that, he was gone. After a moment of confusion, Sara remembered that Jason Funderberker was also the name of Greg's frog. She had never quite understood that. Nevertheless, she tucked the bag under her arm and continued home, turning over what its contents could be in her mind.
—
The contents of the bag were a truly ludicrous amount of candy, a note written in red crayon, and a battered cassette player that had PROPERTY OF WIRT penned on the back in a familiar shaky hand. Sara took a deep breath and opened the note first.
DEAR SARA
i am giving you this -casette- -kas- cassette player so you can listen to the -tae- tape. if you don't want to that's fine, i just wanted to give you the -opton- option. you can do watever whatever you want with the player.
WIRT
p.s. sorry about the spelling and handwriting. greg is writing for me.
Sara folded the note carefully back up again and put it aside. She couldn't quite process the contents. Then she picked up the cassette player and stared at it. Just an ordinary cassette player.
Before she could lose her nerve, she turned and pulled open the drawer that contained the mixtape and picked it up. She slid on the headphones, popped in the tape, and pressed play.
Nothing happened. She stared in bewilderment at the cassette player, wondering if she had somehow broke it. Then Wirt cleared his throat.
She jumped and glanced around the room before she realized the noise had come from the headphones. The noise continued for a moment, then another pause. Then a voice spoke, so quiet it felt like someone was whispering in her ears. "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"
It was poetry. He had recorded himself speaking poetry. She laid slowly down on the floor and listened, the empty place in her chest that she thought she had filled aching again. The mixtape went on, an assortment of whispered words, hits from the radio years ago, and occasionally the strains of a clarinet that sounded more love lorn than she thought possible for a clarinet. It was the most ridiculous, most Wirtish thing she had ever heard.
As the mixtape crackled to a halt, Sara wiped tears from her eyes and played it again.
—
She listened to the mixtape off and on for a year, until she knew the whole thing by heart. Part of Sara was aware that it was stupid to listen to it obsessively, that there wasn't really a way the feelings presented in the tape could ever come to fruition. She still didn't stop listening. She searched for the poems in the school library, and found some of them, but others she couldn't no matter how she searched. So she waited for Halloween, turned down another invitation to a Halloween party and instead went to the graveyard with the cassette player in her hands.
She was a little surprised to find Wirt sitting on his grave, chin rested in hands contemplatively. He glanced up when she walked closer, then straightened when he saw the cassette player. "Hi, Sara," he said, clearly trying to be nonchalant and failing.
"Hey," she said in response, watching him step gingerly off the grave. "How was your year?"
He shrugged. "All right. Did you, um, listen to the..." He trailed off.
"Yeah," she said, smiling slightly. "I really liked it."
He stared her in apparent surprise. "You did?" She nodded. "Wow, um," he rubbed the back of his head. "Thanks," he said finally, clasping his hands behind his back and smiling awkwardly at her as he did so.
"I didn't know you played clarinet. You're pretty good."
He nodded. "Yeah, I do- did. Thanks." He tugged at his collar.
Sara realized that probably they shouldn't dwell on this."I really liked the third poem," She said, lifting the cassette player slightly. "The one about the sunset, and the clouds. But I couldn't find it anywhere. Who wrote it?"
"The sliver of sunset?" Wirt asked, with eyes even rounder than before.
"Yeah!"
"Uh," he fidgeted a little. "I wrote it."
"Really?" Sara said, her surprise apparent in her voice. "That's awesome. It's really good. I didn't know you wrote poetry, either."
Wirt mumbled something under his breath that Sara couldn't quite understand. He cleared his throat and tried again. "I was thinking-" his voice cracked. "I was thinking about you when I wrote it," he said firmly, then immediately turned bright red all the way up to his ears.
Sara flushed as well. "Wow, um, thanks." She paused slightly, turning the words of the poem over in her brain.
Wirt looked like he wanted to disappear, and knowing him, he could probably do just that. "Sorry, that was really creepy. I'm probably weirding you out-"
"You're not weirding me out," she said firmly.
He paused, mid gesticulation, and gawked at her. "Really?"
"Really." She smiled.
—
"So have you tried talking to anyone else?"
Wirt blinked and glanced over to Sara. They were laying on the ground in the graveyard. "You mean, tonight?"
"Yeah," Sara said. It had suddenly struck her as odd that he seemed to have only talked to her. "Like, your parents or something."
"I don't think that's a good idea," he said. A frown touched his jaw as he looked away.
"Why not?" Sara propped herself up on her elbow. "I mean, they're your parents. They probably really want to see you. You don't have to hang out with just me." She felt briefly selfish as she said this, like she had been taking time from him.
Wirt bit his lip. "Well, it's just..." He paused, sorting through his words. Finally, he said in a hushed voice, "when my dad died, things were really bad for my mom. Like, bad enough that I could see it, and I was just a kid. She didn't deal with it really, and I think it could have gotten really bad until she met Greg's dad. And she's just been dealing it better with it this time?" He shrugged anxiously. "Like, not like she's ignoring it, but I don't wanna mess with it, in case it gets bad again." He dropped his hands on his stomach, staring up at the sky. "I dunno. Maybe it's better this way."
Sara frowned, trying to decipher the hidden meaning to this. "What's better?"
"Well..." He grimaced slightly. "My mom never told me what my dad died of, but I'm pretty sure it was hereditary, because she was always super paranoid about me getting sick. And I always thought that if I had died the same way my dad had, it would have really messed her up, so-"
"Oh my gosh, Wirt," Sara said. "No. Don't say stuff like that." She reached out and grabbed his hand impulsively, feeling the bony knuckles under his paper thin skin. He started slightly, and Sara realized he'd been doing that the whole time she'd been there any time she had reached out at him, like he was afraid that her hand would pass through. But he nodded, then lay still, staring at their intertwined fingers.
They stayed like that for a while, hands laced together. Finally, Sara said, "it's almost twelve."
Wirt nodded, pulling his hand away reluctantly. "I can kind of feel it." He sat up, and he looked dimmer, somehow. Sara stood up and offered him her hand. He took it and she pulled him to his feet- he weighed nothing at all.
When he had settled on the ground, it had already started. She tried to smile. "See you next year, Wirt."
"Yeah," he said, quietly. "See you." And then he was gone.
—
"Like, we're not trying to tell you what to do," Rhondi said, "but this is getting kinda weird."
"Super weird," Kathleen added.
Sara was starting to wonder if this conference call was an intervention. "It's just a Halloween party, you guys. We can hang out other times." She spun the phone cord around her finger.
"Yeah, but it's our senior year," Kathleen said. "And you don't ever go to parties, and you've missed the Halloween party the last two years."
"We're just starting to get kind of worried," Rhondi said.
Sara blinked. "Worried? What about?"
"Rhondi," Kathleen said.
"Did you guys plan this conversation?" Sara demanded.
Rhondi said "yes," the same time Kathleen said "no." Kathleen groaned. "Rhondi!"
"Look, just tell me what you're worried about," Sara said. "It's probably not a big deal."
There was a momentary pause, like they were each waiting for other to speak. Then finally, Kathleen said, "we're just kind of worried you're holding onto the Wirt thing."
This stung. "The Wirt thing?" Sara repeated. "You mean the Wirt dying thing?"
"Sara, come on," Rhonda said. "You know she doesn't mean it like that." Sara refused to respond, and Rhondi continued after a too long pause. "Wirt dying was really, really awful. Like, it was probably the worst thing that's happened in this town for a really long time. But it happened three years ago. We're all going off to college next year. You can't spend every Halloween in a graveyard."
Sara sat up. "Graveyard? Who said anything about a graveyard?"
"Rhondi," Kathleen hissed again. Sara had a feeling Rhondi was going off script. Not that Sara intended to stick to a script.
Awkwardly, Rhondi said, "Jason Funderberker saw you go in two years ago. He didn't think anything of it, but he saw you again this year, and it didn't seem like you left. And he's worried, too! So he told us."
Sara shifted forward, angling the phone in the crook of her neck as she tried to think of a good way to respond to this. Her friends were talking about her behind her back, because she wasn't acting the way they thought she should after someone had died.
But technically, they were right. Wirt was gone, and for them he was gone forever. They had no way of knowing what she was doing at the graveyard at night. But it didn't feel right to let go of someone who was still there.
"We're really sorry, Sara," Kathleen pleaded, breaking her train of thought. "We're just worried about you."
Sara sighed and massaged her scalp. "It's okay," she said. "I get it. Maybe... Maybe I haven't been dealing with this the way I should." After a moment, she added, "I'll come to the party."
"Really?" Kathleen said.
"Yeah," Sara said. She suddenly just wanted this whole conversation to be over. "I gotta go, though. See you tomorrow, guys."
"See you, Sara," Rhondi said. She sounded relieved.
"Bye! See you at the party!" Kathleen practically shouted. The two hung up. Sara listened to the tone before hanging up. For a moment, she sat cross legged on her bed, exhausted by the exchange. Then she rolled off the bed onto her knees and slid open her bedside table's bottom drawer. The cassette player and tape were inside.
She sat and she stared at the cassette player. Then she slid the drawer close. The emptiness in her chest throbbed again.
—
Sara couldn't think of anything all Halloween but Wirt waiting in a graveyard alone. She shouldn't have said she would come. But then maybe she should have. She chewed her pencil and made nonsense doodles instead of taking notes in history.
Absently, she glanced up at the board, only to see someone had drawn a ghost in the corner- the white sheet variety. For a moment, she was annoyed. Then she had an idea.
At home, Sara found an old white sheet and cut two eyeholes in it. She called Kathleen and told her she might be a little late, but she was coming. And she was bringing someone. Then she headed to the graveyard.
As he had been last year, Wirt was waiting there for her. He blinked at the sheet in her arm and her attire- a jauntily askew witch's hat and purple robes. "What-"
"I'm going to a Halloween party," she told him, "and so are you." She knocked his hat off his head and draped the sheet over him.
"What?" He squawked and pulled at the sheet, only to get impossibly tangled in it. "That's a terrible idea. They'll know it's me, and everyone will freak out, and no one will have a good time ever-"
"Don't worry so much," Sara said. She rearranged the sheet so the eyeholes were centered over his eyes. "No one will know it's you if you don't want them to. Okay?"
Wirt went still as she smoothed the sheet down. Sara could see him thinking it through, and for a moment she was terrified he would refuse.
Then he said, "okay."
—
They went to the party with Sara leading Wirt by the hand, partially because she was afraid he would bolt if he didn't. Before they rang the doorbell, Sara paused to smile reassuringly at him. She couldn't really see expressions through the sheet, but the way his eyes crinkled told her he might be smiling back. She rang the doorbell.
Kathleen opened it. "Sara! Hi!" She sounded genuinely surprised that Sara had come. Then she saw Wirt. "Ooh, and the friend! Who's this?"
Sara realized they hadn't covered this part. "Kathleen, this is, um, Walter. My..." She grasped for a word. "Boyfriend."
Kathleen gasped loudly. "No. Way. You had a boyfriend and didn't tell me?"
Wirt was apparently too stunned into silence to offer anything to the conversation, so Sara said, "yeah, well, he's from- out of town and... It's a long story." She was starting to think that this could have been a mistake.
"Well, it's very nice to meet you, Walter." Kathleen winked at him.
"Uh, nice to meet you too," Wirt managed. He straightened his sheet again.
"Well, I won't hold you up," Kathleen said. "Come in! Food's in the kitchen." To Sara, she whispered, "I'm telling everyone."
Sara only smiled and followed her inside. Immediately, Kathleen began leading Wirt around and introducing him to everyone- or rather reintroducing him to everyone. Sara let him talk to others and instead drifted around the party, a cup of punch in hand.
Rhondi came up to her later that night. "Your boyfriend's pretty cool," she told her. "Is it serious?"
Sara took a sip of punch so she could think. "I dunno," she said. "I mean, I've liked him for a long time, but I'm not sure it'll work out in any long term way."
"I get it," Rhondi said.
"You usually do get it," Sara said.
Rhondi smiled. "Sorry about that fight. Still friends?"
"Yeah," Sara said. "Always." She clinked cups with Rhondi. "I'm gonna go find Wi- Walter." Absently, she checked her watch, and blinked at the time. "How is it already eleven?"
"Time gets faster as you get older, I guess," Rhondi said. "Hey, Funderberker!" She waved at someone across the room and ran off, leaving Sara to search for Wirt.
She had to ask several odd people and look in several odd places, but eventually found Wirt outside sitting on the back porch alone. Sara frowned."Hey," she said, coming to sit next to him. "Something the matter?"
"I don't think this was a good idea," Wirt said. He was bunched up under the sheet, and it crumpled on top of him in a deep frown.
"Why not? Everyone likes you." She tried to think of a concrete reason for this sudden melancholy. "Are you just uncomfortable? I'm sorry if you're not having a good time." Sara realized she hadn't even considered that Wirt had seemed even more anxious than usual at parties than normal back when he had gone to parties.
"No, it's just..." He sighed and rested his chin in his hands. "Everyone's different, and I'm not. I mean, obviously I am, but not in a normal way."
Sara stared at him, and became conscious that this was true. Everyone was going to grow older still, and Wirt would forever be a freshman in high school, just on the precipice of change. "I'm sorry," she said. "We can go, if you want."
He nodded, an odd gesture when viewed through a sheet. "Don't forget your jacket."
—
After Sara said her goodbyes, they walked back to the graveyard. The hour grew closer and closer to twelve as they stopped under the entrance of the graveyard. "So," Sara said, sticking her hands in her pockets. "That was nice. Thanks for coming."
Wirt took off the sheet and handed it over to her. "Yeah," he said timelessly. "Thanks for inviting me." He slid his hat back on his head. It drooped slightly at the top.
They stared at the ground, or the trees, or anything but each other. Finally, Wirt said, "Am I your boyfriend?"
A question Sara had yet to truly put to herself. "I think you would have been," she said carefully, "if you were alive."
He swallowed. "But I'm not."
"No," she said. She looked away and tried not to let what ifs play out in her mind, something she had never been good at.
"Sara-" Wirt said, slowly, hesitantly.
"I'm going to college next year," she blurted.
He stared at her, pupils completely black. No light was reflected in them, she realized. "College?"
"It's out of state," she said miserably. "You could, I don't know, maybe visit me-"
"I can't," he said. "I can't leave town."
She lifted her head, unable to think of a response to this. "What?"
"I tried once, when Greg went to go visit his grandparents," Wirt babbled. "But I couldn't leave town. The river, it was like a barrier. So I just told him I didn't want to, but I just couldn't." His words burbled as he spoke, like it was a struggle to get them out.
"Wirt-"
"And everything just keeps changing, but I don't change with it. I can't even remember what year it is, I keep thinking it's the year I died, but nothing makes sense anymore, and you're going to college-" he broke off, words drowning in his throat. Sara reached for him, but he turned away and staggered into the graveyard before falling to the ground.
"Are you okay?" Sara asked uselessly, rushing to his side. She grabbed at his shoulder and flinched away at the feel of cold wet skin under her fingers. He curled away from her touch, body shaking slightly.
"Wirt," she said. "Wirt, I'm really sorry." He didn't answer. Desperately, she continued. "I'm sorry that I dragged it out like this, that it hurt you. And I'm sorry that I have to go, and I'm sorry that you died." Her voice gave way. "But I have to go. And I have to let you go."
He sobbed, and Sara realized he was crying. Eyes flooding, she grabbed him and pulled him into a hug, desperately wishing she could fix this. His shoulders shook as she buried her face into her neck.
Slowly, though, Wirt calmed, and lay still in her arms. Finally, he managed, "I'm sorry for this."
"Don't be," she said, smoothing dripping water off his face. It didn't even dampen her clothing, and irrationally, she wished it would.
Sara held him for as long as she could. But she could feel the hour draw near. "Wirt," she said.
"I know," he said. He wiped his face and sat up, eyes red.
She tried to memorize his face, then gave up. She didn't want to remember him dead anyway. "I'm gonna miss you," she said.
Wirt nodded. "Me too." His mouth was crumpled together.
This was the last time, Sara thought. This was the last time she would see him like this, or ever. She swallowed. Then she said, "close your eyes."
His forehead creased, but he did as she said. Gently, Sara took his face into her hands. Then she leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. And for that moment, there was nothing sad or final about what was happening, she was just kissing a boy she'd had a crush on since middle school.
When she pulled away, his eyes were open, staring at her with a slightly slack jawed expression. She almost laughed, but his body was fading at the corners, sliding away with the time. So she swallowed, and said, "goodbye, Wirt."
Wirt smiled, slowly. He might have been crying, but it was hard to tell from the water trickling down his face. "Goodbye, Sara."
Then, he leaned forward. Sara closed her eyes.
There was only a whisper of a chill on her lips as Wirt vanished into the night air. Sara breathed in the cold air deep, alone but not alone in a dark graveyard as the emptiness in her chest slowly filled.