“This is my whole life,” he says with a shrug. “I’m used to it.”
“Hey, lovebirds!” Trey calls out from beside a tiny hut built of bricks and beams, a shelter of some sort—for people who want or need to spend the night up here, maybe? “Come sign the wall!”
The building looks bigger on the inside, but not by much.
Nearly every inch of it is covered in black Sharpie.
Silas hands me the marker when he’s done. It takes a minute to find the perfect spot, but I know it as soon as I see it: a blank spot just beneath a little window that peeks out over the sprawling view.
Halfway through signing my last name, I feel Thorn behind me, the heat radiating from his body welcome to say the least.
I offer him the Sharpie, but he waves it away.
“Great minds think alike,” he says, then points to a signature about two inches to the right.
AUGUST THORN, it reads in uneven capital letters, the sort that look nothing like the practiced handwriting from the journal he gave me. It’s dated nineteen years ago: he wasn’t even a teenager yet.
On instinct, my gaze lands on the name just below Thorn’s, in a neat architectural slant:DAYTON THORN.
“Your dad?” I ask, knowing the answer before the question is even past my lips.
“My dad,” he echoes, shoving his hands in his pockets. “He loved it up here.”
His words hang between us, suspended in the air.
When I finally say something—“I bet he loved it so much because he got to do itwith you”—Thorn’s face changes into an expression I’ve never seen on him.
“Yeah,” he says, brows knitting tightly together in a way that looks like he’s trying to keep himself from breaking.
He swallows, takes a deep breath, and his shadows change into something more like peace.
“Yeah,” he says again. “I think you might be right.”
38THORN
The trip down the mountain is almost always just as hard, if not harder, than the climb.
The top is only halfway!a sign boasts at the summit, as if it can help prepare the inexperienced hiker for what comes next, all while neglecting to mention that at that point—if you haven’t paced yourself already—it’s too late. Your legs will be toast, and your next week will be misery.
Fortunately, the people in my care have a guide who’s done this climb hundreds of times, if not more than a thousand.
Today is the lightest I’ve felt in years.
Sadie’s words at the top unlocked something for me: something I hadn’t realized I needed to hear until the precise moment she said it.
It isn’t just thisplacethat was special for Dad.
It was being herewith me.
With that revelation, it hit me that it doesn’t matter where I choose to spend my time—my memories of us together won’t fade just because I’m not here in this specific location, hiking in circles until the day I start to haunt them as a ghost.
I only wish I hadn’t said no to Sky Ranger.
That’s not something I need to think about right now, though. Right now is for cheeseburgers and milkshakes and fries, and trying not to look as surprised or relieved as I feel that Matteo did, in fact, keep Zoe and Emma safely in one place.
“This is thebestcheeseburger I haveevereaten in myentire life,” Trey says around a mouthful of meat.
“This coffee is the worst, though.” Silas makes a face, and everyone laughs.
