Under the Whispering Door

by T.J. Klune

I can’t grieve for myself.” Hugo shook his head slowly. “Of course you can. We do it all the time, regardless of if we’re alive or not, over the small things and the big things. Everyone is a little bit sad all the time.

“It’s going to be hard. When you leave.” Wallace swallowed thickly. “Why?” “Because you’re my friend,” Hugo said, as if it were the easiest thing in the world. No one had ever said that to Wallace before, and he was devastated by it. Here, at the end, he’d found a friend. “You…” He remembered what Nelson had told him. “Fit.” “Yeah,” Hugo said. “You fit. I didn’t expect that.”