She answers quickly with a yes. I tell myself it’s because she wants to be with us and not because she cares that fucking much about a man she just met.

But I know Tenny. She loves the newcomers. She’s always asking them questions about their old lives, desperate for some clue as to why she’s been here, stuck, for so long. It’s strange, she and Hawthorne are the only two people here in Styx who age. And damn I’m jealous that he had the honor of growing up with the girl I love.

But unfortunately, Hawthorne, Lennox, and I are old hat. We aren’t novel, we aren’t new. We don’t have exciting stories about the real world to dole out. We don’t have a single story she hasn’t heard.

She knows us inside and out. Up and down, in every possible way.

Except for the way I really want.

I want to know her body the way I know her heart. I want to feel her skin against mine, see her vulnerable for once in her damn life.

But instead of giving me the thing I wanted, she pushed me away.

We asked for more. She said no.

Maybe it was too much, to consider all three of us. Maybe we should have asked her to choose.

But I love the guys as much as I fucking love her. And why choose, when we all love her so damn much?

Instead, she wants us to save some fucking newbie.

“Where is he?” I ask, and then we’re following her from the house to the wet grass, to the man unconscious on the edge of the river.

I want to ask if it’s worth it. One look at him and it’s clear he’s struggling even to breathe. Wouldn’t it be easier to let his soul decide? Why intervene now?

Then I look at Ten. Poor, misguided Tennyson. The most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen, who can’t see herself the way her best friends do. If only she could. Tenny, who throws herself at any guy who will look at her to avoid rejection from the ones she loves.

The irony is, the moment she hears our confession of love, she still runs. Self-preservation is a motherfucker and it kills me to see what it does to the girl I’ve loved since I arrived in this godforsaken place.

“Never mind,” I say, pulling the guy into my arms. He’s big, but I’m bigger and stronger. “Where’s the doctor?”

Tennyson has a plan, and while there are no cars in Styx, there are a hell of a lot of riverboats and rafts. “Let’s take our boat and head south, toward the River Styx.”

Hawthorne smirks at Tennyson. “Is this what you meant when you said you wanted to see how much you could change your fortune in one day?”

“Maybe it is,” she says with a small smile. “One day can change everything, right?”

Before Hawthorne can answer, Lennox jumps in. “And this asshole is the change you’ve been waiting for?” Lennox’s voice is filled with more than a hint of irritation. “We’re not enough, but this stranger is?”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” she says, but then Eric is down again, in the grass and we’re reminded to keep moving.

Lennox and Hawthorne lead the way as we cross the grass to the established path and we walk down the dock to our small rig. Lennox lights a lantern when he steps into the boat and minutes later, I’ve placed this Eric guy on a bench, and am reaching for an oar. Modern conveniences like engines don’t exist down here--just one of the thousands of things I miss from life home.

Of course, life Earth-side had a hell of a lot of problems too.

“I can help,” Ten offers, but of course we brush her off. We’ve been steering this boat for years and Ten never paddles, not that she hasn’t offered. It’s just that -- not to be a chauvinistic ass -- we have brawn where Ten has beauty. We guys might as well put our strength to use every once in a while.

“Just make sure he doesn’t puke in the boat,” Lennox says. He tries to laugh it off, but I feel the tension. it’s thick enough to slice.

“Thanks, guys,” Ten says as the boat careens through the black waters. The oars slap the river’s surface and we maneuver around the reeds growing near the bank. Souls swish around us as they fade away, and the familiar hush of death fills the river. I can hardly remember what Earth sounded like anymore. Cars honking and kids at the park are distant memories. It’s true what they say. You never realize how sweet something is until it’s gone.

“Anything for you, Tenny,” Hawthorne says, and right now I’m grateful for the thick dark night. I don’t think I’d want to see Hawthorne’s face right now. I know the way he gets when he starts wishing for a life with Ten; a life he’s never going to have.

It fucking kills me, and I know it kills Lennox too. Why doesn’t it kill Ten? Has she built her walls so damn high to not see how devoted he is to her?

How devoted we all are?

We paddle for what feels like an hour. Sweat drips from my brow and that fucker Eric is still moaning about being in pain. He’s not the one rowing his ass down this river.

“To the right,” Ten directs. “See down there, the light?”

There is a lantern hanging on a tree branch and as we near, I ask how she knows this place.

“I’ve been here once before,” I tell him. I look over my shoulder again at Hawthorne and see that his jaw is clenched. “Remember when we came here, Haw?” she asks as we ease our boat against the dock of the witch doctor’s house.

“I remember.” He sets down his oar and reaches for the rope to tie the boat to the dock. “She had broken her arm,” he tells us. “When she fell from a corpus tree, and we asked all around for help.”

“And finally, we heard that there was a witch doctor down the river,” Ten offers. “We must’ve been nine or ten.”

Hawthorne turns to her, and I try not to be jealous of their long history, but it’s hard. It’s always been hard.

“You should never have been in that tree,” he tells her. “You were so stubborn.”

“I call it determined,” she says, wrapping her arms around herself. The night air is unusually cool, and I instinctively pull off my leather jacket and hand it to her. “Thanks, South,” she says. When she puts it on it reaches her knees. It looks like she isn’t wearing anything at all underneath the jacket.

I push the thought from my mind.

No point in dwelling on desires that will never come to pass.

I reach for Eric, forcing his arm over my shoulder, helping him stand. Hawthorne comes to the other side of me and props the guy up.

Together, we pull him from the boat as he weakly manages to put one foot in front of the other.

“Ohh, God,” he groans, his head dropping to his chest.

“Come on, buddy,” I say. “Stay alert.”

Tennyson’s eyes meet mine and it’s clear she’s scared.

Ten is never scared.

Lots of newcomers have a hard time transitioning. But usually, if a soul is struggling, it’s a clear indication that they don’t belong here. Why the hell does she care about this guy anyway?

“Do we trust this witch?” Lennox asks as we walk toward a decrepit house nestled in the trees. When our feet leave the dock and hit the ground, they squish in the marshy ground.

“Where else would we go?” Tennyson asks. And it’s a legitimate question. I was in the real world until I died at twenty-one. I have strong memories of hospitals and doctors’ visits. Things like that don’t exist here. Everyone who arrives is dead already. And most people, if they got really ill in Styx, their souls would relieve them of any agony before a doctor would be called.

“I just remember doctors after being sick for so long,” Lennox says. “So, I just get a little spooked out at the idea of seeing one again.” His words come out in a rush. Tennyson reaches for his hand, taking it in her own.

“From what you’ve told me about the doctors at the cancer center, they are going to be a lot different than this old witch. I promise.”

“A good different?” Lennox asks. It’s unusual seeing this confident guy need reassurance, but he does, and thank God he gets it from Tennyson. That’s the thing, why we must stick together, no matter what she might think right now. We need one another to work, to survive down here in Styx.

Otherwise, we’re all going to our final resting place alone.