He's trying. He closed his eyes. (The beam and it's wood grain and burned into his mind already. Is it actually any difference, if he can see it exact and unchanging, with his eyes closed and open?) Locked his jaw and forced himself to swallow.

His fingers shifted but didn't form into a fist. "You should tell them--"

He says hello? He says wishes them well? He thinks of them at all? He watches each time they call or message, watching the phone flash on the floor less than a foot from him, their names lit up in electric red light, until it stops, without moving, without being moved?

That he can't hold on to the idea a single minute of them?

That he knows the truth would worry them too much to tell them?






It's Christmas. (It's Carlisle.)

His eyes still don't open. "--whatever sounds best."