“He what.” She sits up straight now, concern etching itself deeper into her expression.
I shake my head. “We kissed, out on the water, and it was so . . . and I . . .” My voice hitches, and another sob drops my chin to my chest.
Ryan’s voice goes gentle again. “We talked about this already, about how it’s okay to feel—”
“It’s not,” I say, looking up to meet her eyes.
“Quinn, it is. You have to believe me on this. You and Trent—”
“It’s not that!”
The edge in my voice surprises us both, and she’s silent as she looks at me, taking in my puffy eyes and trembling chin.
“Then . . . what is it?” she asks slowly. Like she’s afraid to know the answer.
I swallow over the tears that are thick in my throat, and over my own fear of what she’ll think. “I did something awful,” I whisper. I look down, away from my sister’s eyes, at my hands twisting in my lap. “Something I should never have done, and now . . .”
My palm comes to my mouth to hold back the rising sob, and the words I know I need to say out loud.
I can feel my sister’s eyes on me, but I don’t meet them. “What? Just tell me. Whatever it is.”
I hesitate for a tiny moment, and then I do what she says.
I tell her everything, beginning with the letter I wrote. I tell her about the days I waited for an answer, and the nights I searched for him. I tell her about Shelby’s blog, and how I finally found him. About how I never meant to meet him, but once I did, I wanted to know him. And how now that I know him, the last thing I want to do is hurt him. And then I tell her about our kiss tonight. The way it felt, and what he said after, about holding back and being sorry. And finally, when I’ve told her everything and there are no words left for what I’ve done, I look at my sister.
She is quiet for a very long time after I finish. I sit on her bed, surrounded by tissues, puffy eyed and waiting for her to tell me that it’s going to be okay, or that he’ll understand, or that it’s not as bad as it seems, but she doesn’t. She takes a deep breath. Looks at me like she’s sorry for what she’s about to say.
“You have to tell him.”
“I know,” I say, and the acknowledgment sets off a fresh wave of tears in me, but Ryan doesn’t hold back.
“Not just because he deserves to know the truth,” she says. “You need to tell him because it’s the only chance you have for anything between the two of you to be real, if that’s what you want.”
She looks at me now, eyes serious. “But first you have to actually decide what you want. You’re halfway there, I think, but . . .”
She pauses, presses her lips together, and then says something else I already know, deep down in a place that’s hidden away.
“If you want to open yourself up to Colton, you have to let go of Trent first. Let him be a part of who you are—your first love, your memories, your past. But let him go. You have to,” she says softly, “so that you can be here now.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“And you would accept the seasons of your heart just as you have always accepted that seasons pass over your fields.
“And you would watch with serenity through the winter of your grief.”
—Kahlil Gibran
I FINISH TYING my shoelaces and stand up. Look at my reflection in the mirror. Breathe. And then I let my eyes wander over the pictures of me and Trent. I follow them, all along the edge of the mirror, to the sunflower he gave me, hanging pale and dry next to them. I take one more deep breath, and then I reach out and cradle it in my hands, as gently as I can.
I glance down at the picture I cut out from Ryan’s magazine. The heart, washed up on the shore of an empty beach, encased in glass. I look at it and think about what Colton said about all his ships in their bottles—how he didn’t want to build them anymore if they were never going to see the ocean—and I understand.
I feel the same way.
I slip out the front door as quietly as I can, because I need to do this alone. My legs carry me down the steps and over the dirt, and I start to breathe again. My heart starts to work again.
I feel my feet hit the ground, one in front of the other, until I get to the end of the driveway. And then I stop. Breathe. And I begin again, down the road I’ve been avoiding for so long. The road that was the beginning of us, to the place I thought was the end of me.
It’s been so long since I’ve run this way that it looks unfamiliar at first. The trees are fuller, the grape vines thicker. But I know this road. I know its rolling hills, and I know its turns. I know the stretch where the sunflowers grew wild in the field and along the fence.
Where they still do.
They’re brilliant against the summer sky, swaying gently in the breeze. I stop to listen, and I can almost hear his voice.
“Hey! Wait!”
I close my eyes, and I can see him there, smiling, holding a sunflower in his hand. But then another memory pushes its way in. The splintered fence, swirling lights, petals and blood spread over the ground.
I open my eyes and I’m back here, now, where the ground shows no scars, and the fence has been mended, and the sunflowers grow tall and beautiful all around it.
I fix my eyes on the field of gold as I take the dried flower I am holding and raise my hand above my head. I watch the tall stalks bend and sway when I roll the papery petals between my fingers and release each tiny piece into the breeze. All our firsts, and our lasts, and everything in between. They swirl and dance on the invisible currents, and then one by one, they disappear to a place they will always be a part of.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX