Excerpt: Heartsong

It was pretty clear Sim wasn’t gonna make it through this on his own, so I did the only thing I could think of. I went to see Selena.

She teared up when she saw me. “How is he?”

“’Bout the same as you’d expect for a guy who’s lost his whole world. I just took him for a haircut.”

She covered her mouth with her hand. “No.”

“He couldn’t just leave it like that.”

“No. I guess not.” She stepped back from the door. “Please, come in.”

Her place was a little bit smaller than mine, but not too much. She’d lived there close on five years, and she had it decorated real nice. Little bits of art and fancy cloth and stuff. Selena always was good at making a place comfortable.

“I got a big favour to ask you,” I said.

I think she knew what I was gonna ask before I said it. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. I mean, I hate to ask you, but you’ve been there and I haven’t and I wanna help him but I don’t wanna say the wrong thing. So could you, um, go talk to him about it?”

She was real quiet. Then: “Are you sure he’d want to talk to me?”

“Hell, Selena, he’d talk to you all day and all night if you’d let him.

“But about this?”

“About anything. Listen, I know you two’ve had some problems in the past, but you’re still friends, right?”

She wouldn’t look at me. “All right. I’ll go see him. I can’t make any promises, though.”

Well, that was just gonna have to do. “Thank you,” I said. “I really appreciate it. I know Sim’s gonna feel the same way.”

She flinched, like I’d poked her with something hot. “I hope so.”