GEORGE

Last night I went over to Sage's house. I didn't call first, I just showed up. I knew her mom was working the night shift, cleaning office buildings. I knew we'd have the house to ourselves. Sage was watching "Friends" and eating potato chips, which she tried to hide when I walked in.

She looked nervous, just like she had been all week. That's kind of why I went to her house, to be honest. She's been avoiding me. I tried to get her to hang out on Wednesday after school, but she said she was busy. Then again on Thursday.

Yeah, Sage is never that busy. Something's up.

So I showed up at her house, and I said to her, "Come with me. Let's get out of here."

She said she couldn't go anywhere, that she had homework. It was so clearly a lie. I mean, there were exactly NO books open anywhere in the living room. And I think maybe she had been crying.

Then I caught her eyeing the phone, and I said, "Are you waiting for a call?"

She was like, "No, of course not," but she said it so fast that it sounded more like "yes" to me.

So I said it again, "Come on, Sage. Just for a while."

She finally agreed, and she got in my car. I didn't tell her where we were going, but she probably figured it out when we pulled up to the street behind the high school.

"We can't," she said. "It's not our night."

But I just said, "I won't tell the others if you don't."

I had the conch shell in my backpack. I tried to take her hand, but she only held mine for like a second before she pulled it away. We didn't talk as we broke in through the emergency gym exit, or once we were down in the boiler room. We didn't talk the whole way down to the doors.

I took out my conch shell, and took her hand again, and we ended up on my beach—the Hawaiian beach I've been to a dozen times now. I led her over to my favorite spot, this little secluded bit of sand, and we sat down just in time to see the sun start to dip into the water. A pod of dolphins broke through the water then, their dorsal fins slicing through the waves.

She looked kind of closed off, and I thought maybe she was mad because I'd clearly been here before. I'd obviously been sneaking down without telling the others.

And she said, "How many times have you been here?"

So I just admitted the truth: "A bunch." She nodded, but she still wasn't looking at me. "Are you mad?" I asked. But she said no.

We just sat in silence for a while.

"I need to tell you something," I finally said.

"Please don't," she said, and she started to stand up, but I grabbed her hand and pulled her back down. I cleared my throat and waited until she was listening.

"We should leave together," I finally said. "You and me. In the spring, when school's over. We can get out of here, go wherever we want."

She started shaking her head, but I just squeezed her hand harder.

"If we stay, this thing is gonna kill us. It's changing us already. Can't you see that? It's making us..."

She finally turned her head toward me and looked me in the eye. I think it was the first time she had looked at me in over a week.

"Making us what?" she asked.

"Bad," I said. "It's making us bad people."

But she just laughed at me, and it was so sad, the look in her eyes. "Maybe we are bad people," she said.

I leaned forward then and tried to kiss her. I know it was dumb. I know she doesn't feel that way, but I guess I just figured, if we could just try it once, maybe she would see. Maybe she would feel it too.

Her lips barely touched mine before she pushed me back. A tear sprang into her eye then, and she told me she needed to get back home.

She stood up, but I couldn't move. Finally, I just said it—I just blurted it out, which was probably stupid, but I couldn't help it. "Is it John?" I asked her.

She froze. She didn't say a word, wouldn't even look at me.

"He doesn't love you," I said. "He never will."

She swallowed hard. Like, I could see her neck clenching with tension. And she said, "Take me back."

So I stood up, and I took her back. I drove her home.

She got out of my car and slammed the door.

I hate John.

I hate him so fucking much.

**

My dearest friends, thank you so much for reading Across the River Styx up to this point!

I'll be honest with you. My original intention was to make this a novella—just some free content to help promote the publication of Yesterworld and Everworld. But, well, you may have noticed that there's only 10 of you reading it! LOL.

It's partly my fault. I've been really busy and I haven't promoted it.

But now that it's just—well, the 11 of us here, I might as well tell you guys something that I haven't announced yet. I've signed with a literary agent, and she's going to be representing my new books once the Down World trilogy is published. This is probably my last book for Wattpad.

I have LOVED writing books on this site, and I cannot tell you how much it has meant to me that you guys have been here since the beginning.

I'm not disappearing, btw. I'll still be around promoting the heck out of the second two books in the trilogy, and I CANNOT WAIT to actually do more in-person book signings and events. I'll keep you posted on what's coming up, but you can always follow me on Instagram (@RebeccaPhelpsWriter) or TikTok (@RebeccaPhelpsAuthor) in the meantime.

Will I ever finish this prequel? Um... never say never.

XO,

Rebecca