The Way It Ends Marnie Vinge Copyright © 2020 by Marnie Vinge All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Created with Vellum For all the women who have made questionable choices for a man. I hope you didn’t end up in a cult. Contents Part I 1. IONE 2. BIRDIE 3. IONE 4. IONE 5. VANESSA 6. IONE 7. IONE 8. VANESSA 9. IONE 10. IONE 11. BIRDIE 12. IONE 13. IONE 14. VANESSA 15. IONE 16. IONE 17. VANESSA 18. IONE 19. IONE Part II 20. BIRDIE 21. VANESSA 22. IONE 23. BIRDIE 24. BIRDIE 25. IONE 26. VANESSA 27. IONE 28. BIRDIE 29. BIRDIE 30. VANESSA 31. BIRDIE 32. BIRDIE Part III 33. VANESSA 34. VANESSA 35. IONE 36. BIRDIE 37. VANESSA 38. IONE 39. VANESSA 40. VANESSA 41. BIRDIE 42. IONE 43. VANESSA 44. VANESSA Part IV 45. IONE 46. BIRDIE 47. IONE 48. IONE 49. IONE 50. IONE Afterword Also by Marnie Vinge Part One IONE IONE My nails cascade like falling dominoes on the table. One-two-three-four, mine count in fourths of a second. Two-hundred and forty times a minute. At least a quarter of an hour passes this way. Wes is now well beyond the qualification for fashionably late. He’s late enough that if he were anyone else, I’d call for my tab and go. But this is important. And it’s him, not anyone else. The realization that I’m putting my evening on hold for a man sits like an unwanted guest next to me. I force a smile for the waiter. He smiles back, re-serving the gesture as gingerly as a brittle-boned tennis player. My irritation begins to blossom into full-fledged anger. The kind that’s impossible to bury in a grin. It seeps out at the edges and I think he notices. He continues to look my way awkwardly as if to say, I’ve been stood up before, too. Sucks, huh? I look away and still my nervous hands by clasping them together under the table in my lap. I steeple them outward, like they’re praying. They soon feel fidgety and I allow them to return to their previous activity. I glance at the clock on my phone and sigh. Five more minutes and I’m calling it. I called Wes when I got back home from Norway. Gone for a year working on my next book, a follow up to my first non-fiction endeavor: A Portrait of the American Death. This second volume chronicles the ways in which the rest of the world grieves. My first book met with some critical acclaim. I got featured in a magazine and did several podcasts. That elusive morning talk show hot seat eluded me, though. Death wasn’t something people wanted to ruminate on over coffee. I’d found in my research that people mostly didn’t want to ruminate on it at all; however, it was something that followed all of us constantly. A bloodhound tracking wounded fugitives. In the end, we’d all be treed. Wes and I broke up the month that I left for Oslo. I told him I needed to focus on my work—a chintzy cover for the fact that I’d have rather died than let him get close enough to peel back yet another layer in the multitude of coatings over my innermost self. I was like a wood-paneled bathroom, wall-papered over once, twice, then painted, wallpapered again, and painted once more. Wes was the new homeowner who had noticed a piece of wallpaper beginning to peel. Before he could mix up a chemical solution to get back to that first layer of tacky wood paneling with the names of former owners carved into it, I short circuited the breakers of our relationship, sparked a fire, and ran him out in a cloud of smoke. Better that than let him see me at my worst. Still, now that the adventure is over—the trip that I so closely guarded as my own—the only person I want to tell the story to is Wes. I want to tell him about the man I met in a hospice center in Brevik who told me the story of how he lost the love of his life. How he chose the army over the woman that should have been his wife. How he was a coward and she married his brother. How when he told me this story, I thought of myself and I thought of Wes. And how now, I want nothing more than to be with him. It’s time to smoke out the creepy crawly things that live between my ears, chorusing mantras from the past and live for now. I remind myself of this when my watch reaches a benchmark that puts Wes twenty minutes behind schedule. This isn’t a power play—this is the kind of late that means he doesn’t want to come at all. It’s then I look up and see him. His hair is longer, a mess of dark blonde that could use a haircut. He takes off a pair of glasses—readers—and sticks them in his blazer pocket. It was just before I left that he had to start wearing them. It’s an indication he’s been looking at his phone. His faded jeans seem to be tailored specifically for him, and they hug the muscles in his thighs. I’m suddenly aware of my lingering attraction to him and briefly a thought like a mosquito buzzes in my mind: This is a mistake. He spots me and walks over. I stand from the table, and my hip bumps the corner and shakes the silverware and my empty drink glass. Ice clatters in the vessel. Wes reaches down to steady it and laughs. Nervously, I reciprocate. We look at each other. Our hands almost touch as they still the table. “Ione, I—” he starts with my name. Hearing him say it is a balm on wind-beaten skin. I stop him short, though. “No need to apologize,” I tell him it’s fine that he was late. He produces an excuse that dings a distant bell of recognition and
