“Oh, my God,” I whispered.
Wyatt’s voice came gently, like he was trying not to startle me. “The camp in Texas. The wilderness one. The summer before eighth grade.”
I couldn’t look up.
If I looked up, I would fall apart.
“How—” My voice cracked. “How did you?—”
“When you told me your mom …” His jaw tightened. “When you said she got rid of pictures. Like she was trying to erase him because she couldn’t hold the grief …”
Tears slid down my cheeks and I didn’t wipe them away.
Wyatt continued, voice rougher now. “I remembered that photo. I remembered the day they took it. I remembered how proud Jonesy was that he’d made it through the rope course without crying. He kept talking about it for two days.”
A strangled sound left my throat.
“I called the camp,” Wyatt said. “I told them who I was. Told them who you were. I didn’t know if they’d have anything, but … they still had archives. They emailed me a digital copy.” His eyes held mine finally, and they were so full it made my chest ache. “I had it printed. Framed. I wanted you to have him.”
My hands shook around the frame.
The image of Jonesy—alive, laughing, real—hit something in me that had been starved for years.
Because it wasn’t just that my mother had gotten rid of the pictures.
It was that grief had stolen the evidence. The proof that he’d existed outside my memory. Proof that he’d been more than a story people got quiet about.
And here he was.
Right here in my hands.
I pressed my thumb to the glass over his face like I could touch him through time.
“Oh,” I whispered, and my chest cracked open. “Wyatt …”
His voice was barely audible. “I’m sorry it took me this long to give it back to you.”
I stared at the photo, tears falling silently onto the frame.
The restaurant blurred around me—candlelight, clinking glass, soft music—none of it mattered. Only that I was holding my brother again in a way I hadn’t known I needed until this exact second.
I swallowed hard and forced myself to lift my eyes to Wyatt.
He looked like he was bracing for rejection.
Like giving me something precious had made him vulnerable.
And that—God, that did something to me.
I reached across the table, still holding the frame in one hand, and placed my free hand over his.
His fingers were warm. Rough. Real.
“Thank you,” I managed, voice breaking. “Thank you for … seeing me. For remembering. For doing this.”
He squeezed my hand once, tight.
“You don’t have to say anything,” he said quietly. “I just—I needed you to have it.”
