“Carla will miss you.”
She starts rinsing out the dishes. “I’m going to go and see her. Let Adrian know I won’t be back.”
“That’s great.” I already said it, but my head doesn’t seem to be working properly.
“What about you?” She finally turns, but her expression is subdued. “Are you going to go back?”
I haven’t set foot in a bar since her attack.
Slowly, I shake my head. “I… don’t think so.”
Silence falls.
“This doesn’t have to change anything,” she whispers finally. “I like this, Jared.”
Slowly, I reach out my hand. She takes it without hesitation. “Will you come for a walk with me, Emmy Marsters?”
“Yes.” Her response is instant. “Where?”
There’s only one place I want to go right now. And I want her with me.
66
Emmy
The small, twinkling lights of my umbrella send our shadows bouncing over the rocky ground. Jared holds it over our heads, our hands still wrapped together.
“I haven’t been here since that day, you know.” I glance around at the graves. Jared holds my hand tightly, but it’s hard not to feel a slight nervousness as we walk through the empty cemetery.
His fingers tighten in silent reassurance. “I’ve been a few times. Not lately, though.”
Not since he’s been with me.
Guilt curls around my ribs as we approach Ben’s grave. There’s no headstone yet, but a cross shows his name, etched in an elegant calligraphic script.
The umbrella I buried in the ground still glows lightly in the darkness. Jared settles my new one down beside it, twisting it until the low light covers us before moving to my side.
He clears his throat. “I opened my letter, you know.”
He’s looking at the remains of the flowers I put together. The story of Emmy and Ben. “The night you were attacked. I found it in my pocket in the hospital, and I – I needed to hear his voice. So I opened it.”
My lips part, my thoughts jumping to my own letter. Still unopened.
“He wanted us to be happy, Em.” Jared shakes his head. “It’sallhe wanted.”
Blinking away moisture, I sniff. “That sounds like Ben.”
“I’m not explaining this well,” Jared says roughly. He clears his throat. “He thought… he had this idea, that you and I might end up together. And he gave me,us, his blessing.”
Oh.
His words linger in the air around us. They settle around my shoulders, like an embrace.
I want to be the guy you met on the way to your happy ever after.
Oh, Ben.
And something in my stomach leaps as I turn to search his expression. “And you? What do you think?”
