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laying it on a little thick, but that didn’t matter as much as getting Ben to agree to do something—anything—apart from heading home and wallowing in his sorrow.
    Wallowing is dangerous. Wallow too much and you can forget what it means to do anything else. Maybe that’s not so bad for some people, the ones who live in gated subdivisions with guards at the gate and snipers standing at the ready, but for people like us? People who go out into the world and bring back the facts of the matter, whatever those facts happen to be? Wallowing gets us killed. There’s no room for grief in this post-Rising world, where bodies are cremated as soon as they hit the ground to keep them from getting up and going for the people they used to love. There’s only room for moving on, putting the sadness behind us, and letting the world back in. It sucks, sure, but it’s the kind of suck that keeps people alive.
    â€œHeh,” said Ben, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. I beamed at him. His smile died instantly, replaced by something far more familiar: regret. “You know, my mama would have been happy to have you at the funeral.”
    I stopped beaming. “Ben, don’t.”
    â€œShe liked you. I know she always said she didn’t, but she didn’t mean it. She didn’t like what you represented, that was all. She knew you didn’t mean me any harm. Sometimes she even said you were a gift from God, since you gave me an excuse for good Christian charity.”
    â€œI don’t want to have this conversation.” Not in public: not where some asshole with a camera could come along and turn
us
into the news. Everyone in the business knew what our deal was. I’d talked about it on my blog more than once. That didn’t mean that some people wouldn’t be happy to come along and start muckraking, trying to prove that we had never even been friends; that everything about our relationship was a business arrangement, and not true, if platonic, love.
    Ben’s face fell. “Ash…”
    â€œMilkshakes. Come on. Milkshakes, and distance, and time. I’m sorry about your mother, we all are. We want you to take the time you need to get all the way better. We can cover for you for at least a week before anyone notices, if that’s what it takes. Mat says they can spoof your email address and handle all of the merch orders, if you want them to. We’re just waiting on your word. I’ll even talk about your mother with you, if that’s what you want me to do, but please, not here. Not on the street, not where we don’t know who’s listening. Please.” I gave him my best pleading look.
    I’m good at pleading. I’ve had a lot of practice at pleading. Pleading with his image over the Internet, trying to convince him to help me get the hell out of Ireland before I lost my mind. Pleading with the agents at border control on both sides—America to let me in, but not before I’d pled with Ireland to let me
out
. Our population was never the highest. After the Rising, when the Catholic majority really got to work grinding out the hellfire and brimstone, a lot of people chose to leave. Between that and the zombie sheep, it was no wonder the government started limiting immigration
out
of the country, while simultaneously opening the doors to anyone with Irish heritage who wanted to come home, live under a religious hegemony, and produce oodles of fat Irish babies. Fun for the whole family!
    And all of that had only been the warm-up to pleading with his mother not to contest our marriage, which had offended her all the way down to the marrow of her bones. Her youngest son had been the light of her life, the last piece she had of the good, clean world before the Rising. She’d been waiting for years for him to find a wife and start giving her grandchildren. Instead, he’d come home from an unannounced trip overseas with an Irish