Page 86 of Aftertaste

He’d felt it for months, maybe from the first time he laid eyes on her, but it was new now. Tremendous.

“No.” He shook his head.

“No?”

“No. I don’t love you, Maura. Not just love.” Her face was a question and the answers flowed out of him, things he didn’t have the words for, feelings like flavors. “It’s more. So much more.” He was staring at the floor now, afraid to look at her. “I adore you. I worship you. I like everything about you. Every single thing. Even the things you hate. Even the ones that scare you. You drive me crazy; not just spring fever raging-hormone teenage boy crazy, but out of my mind, conquer the world, run away with me crazy. You make me want things. You make me try. You make me happy—like stupid happy. Like I can’t imagine happiness without you. You make me feel alive. And I can’t imagine living, Maura, not without you. You’re my coffee. My wine. My—”

“Sugar?” She smiled indulgently at him, but he shook his head, hard.

“Salt.” He looked up at her, daring, nodding, finding what he meant. “You bring out the best of everything—the sweet, the sour, the bitter. You’re the reason to savor things. You’re the first seasoning, and the last. You’re the sea. You’re the stars. Life is built on salt, and I—I want to build mine with you.”

“Say it again,” Maura whispered, and he thought for a moment she was teasing, but her eyes were glassy, wet.

“I love you like salt.”

She blinked, and a tear streaked her face.

“I love you, too. Like that.” God, the way she looked at him. “Like salt.” She moved close, her breath against his face. “A circle of you keeps the bad stuff away.”

He wrapped his arms around her, fingers looped behind her back. A ring of salt.

She pulled him closer, down into the sheets.

“Make salt to me.”

IT WAS WINE,decanting in a glass. Breathing slowly, opening, releasing, transforming; growing full, and bodied, and smooth; their edges blurring, every sip softer, deeper, more complex and intense, dark fruit and terroir, tasting of all the places they had been, the barrels they’d aged in.

HE KEPT WAITINGfor her to vanish, for her eyes to empty, so brief he could almost convince himself he’d imagined it. But she didn’t; she stayed. She stayed the whole time.

It was he who disappeared instead, tasting something.

Maura squeezed his hand and there it was, in the back of his throat.Sweet grainy chocolate peanut.The edible haunting he kept on swallowing.

A craving—her sister’s—reaching for Maura, unwilling to let go.

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THE SCARS ONmy wrists were still pink when you strolled into my tent and claimed you could taste the Dead. That if you cooked their food, they’d come back.

Did I believe you, Stan? Wouldyouhave believed you?

But then you did taste it. The one thing that could’ve changed my mind. That Reese’s was a message in a crimped paper cup:I’m still here, Maura. Don’t you care?

I was terrified. Too freaked out to think clearly. I couldn’t mess with Death again. Couldn’t afford more mistakes. And you seemed clueless and reckless and determined to play with fire. So I warned you to stop. I scared you away.

Only, once you left, I read your cards. They said you were the real thing. And that we weren’t through yet. I started thinking I’d been hasty. That there might be something to what you were doing, bringing spiritshereinstead of goingthereto find them. That maybe you could help me. That your food could help Everleigh. But by the time I swallowed my pride and rushed out to find you, you were gone.

I spent weeks tracking you down.

I posted on Missed Connections. Cold-called hundreds of numbers. And then on Instagram, this influencer posted something strange—food and ghosts.A restaurant. I barely let myself believe, but there I was, messaging her for your address.

I took the train to Hell’s Kitchen, thinking how to explain things without seeming totally unhinged. But when I got there, there was red tape everywhere. A Notice of Closure from the Health Department. And you, sitting on the stoop, staring at your phone. Sobbing.

I left that night to give you space, only now that I knew where you lived, I couldn’t stay away. I kept coming back, looking for an opening. I followed you to Frankie’s funeral. To the candlelight vigil. To the grocery store.

It wasn’t pretty; I stalked you.

It’s like that old Snickers ad. You’re not yourself when you’re Hungry? They have no idea.

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