Page 28

But I know that it means the opposite. You weren’t chosen, Leona. He didn’t have a choice. He had to take you on.

And I know that certainty is not actually what anyone wants. I have been certain, my whole life, that I would die young. You might think it would be better to know, because you could make sure to cram all the living you needed to do into that short period of time, but life isn’t actually like that. Living your whole life waiting for the buzzer to countdown means living in a state of perpetual gloom. The happiest points of my life have always been when I could forget the future, or when I could convince myself that maybe I had a chance of living, that maybe the diagnosis was wrong, that maybe it wouldn’t affect me the way it affected my mother, or that maybe… maybe… they’d find a cure.

The best points in time in my life have been when I could have possibilities.

And that’s what people don’t understand. Life is better when it isn’t all decided and shut down and done already. Knowing who you’re going to marry when you’re thirteen is a horrible thing. I’m so sorry, Leona.

I used to tell myself that I did you a favor, that now you could go off and explore all your possibilities and you could find someone else, someone besides Damian.

Believe me, I am well aware of Damian’s shortcomings. I know him very well now. I’ve spent almost half of my life with him, so I know that he has his faults. However, overall, he’s a good man. He has been good to me when he didn’t have to be good to me. He has never made me take the full blame for anything that happened. He has always shared the burden with me.

When I did it, I knew this about him. And I suppose I’d always wanted him. I suppose, watching him love you, all those years… I suppose I wanted someone to love me that way. I suppose I kept hoping that maybe he would, that maybe it was just the way he was, not the way he was with you.

But there’s a hole in him, Leo, and it wants to be filled by you, and I think you know that and he knows that, too.

Anyway, I guess I know I didn’t do you a favor at all, because you did not move on. You gave up and stopped trying. I want to give what I am writing to you and have you stand over my deathbed and I want to give the two of you my blessing or something, but…

Maybe I can’t do that.

Maybe, now, in this point of my life, when I am in so much pain and everything is so difficult, maybe I still need him right now. Maybe I’ll just wait, and you can have him when I’m dead.

If so, I’ll never get to speak to you again.

You or him, Leo.

All my talk of possibilities, and I know he’s a sure thing. So, maybe it’s easier to pick him.

CHAPTER EIGHT

IT WENT ON, but I stopped reading it there.

I couldn’t handle it. I tossed it aside and it fluttered closed, landing on the other side of my bed in my old bedroom. It was bound together with a clip at the top, typed pages that went on and on, and when I read them, I could hear her voice, hear her speaking, and I remembered what it was like to listen to her talk.

Still Opal, I guess.

I hated her.

I wished like hell she’d reached out to me before the end.

Damn it.

My eyes stung, and I refused to cry over this woman.

I got off the bed and breathed, in and out, calming myself. I looked around the room, and my gaze got stuck on the alarm clock sitting out on my dresser, and I remembered that I’d agreed to meet Vincent this evening.

He said he would text me the address of his cabin, and I went to check my phone, and sure enough, he had.

I had hours yet until I needed to go. The funeral ended before noon. Impulsively, I texted him, Any chance you’d want to hang out a little early?

I put the phone away, thinking he was probably still out at the celebration of life, and he wouldn’t see it for a while.

But my phone beeped and he had texted back, Would love that. I’m here now, actually. Come over any time. I want to drink and don’t want to do it alone.

Oh, that sounded amazing. Give me twenty minutes, I texted back.

I had changed out of my funeral clothes into jeans and a t-shirt. I surveyed myself in the mirror, wondering if I should change again, but deciding against it. It was Vincent. He was practically family. I’d known him forever.

I grabbed my purse and left my room.