She glances, just briefly, at all of us, and Gran makes a shooing motion at her. “Go. We’ll be here.”
Gran’s not even finished saying it before Mom has turned to walk down the hall with the doctor. I can see that her focus has completely shifted from us, and I don’t blame her. We’ve disappeared, and right now her world is my dad. I think of the two of them, of all their history together—thirty-six years’ worth—and how I felt about losing Trent after just a fraction of that. How it would feel to lose Colton now. I’m sure it’s different for her because of all that time, but it’s terrifying to realize how much of your world is wrapped around loving another person.
Ryan falls back into her seat, relieved, but not completely. “I can’t believe I laughed at him. I just . . . It happened so fast, I didn’t realize.”
Gran turns to her, her voice soft. “Come on now; that’s done and past, and you need to let that go.” She takes Ryan’s hand. “Let’s you and me take a walk.”
Ryan’s arm hangs limply from Gran’s hand, and she shakes her head and takes in another shuddery breath.
“Get up,” Gran says, with a little force behind it this time.
That gets my sister’s attention, and a tiny moment of understanding passes between the two of them, Ryan hearing the words she said to Gran so long ago echoed back at her. She swallows hard. Nods and then obeys. Gran turns her eyes on me and Colton. “You two’ll be all right here?”
“Yes,” I say, though I’m not sure it’s true.
“Good. We won’t be long.” And with that, she puts an arm around Ryan’s shoulder and steers her down the hall to the door, and out into the cloudy twilight.
I finally exhale.
Colton sits next to me. “That was scary, huh?” He rests his hand on my knee. “Sounds like your dad’s gonna be okay, though.”
“I wish there were a guarantee,” I say, looking over at him.
He presses his lips together. “There never is. For any of us. But that’s the way life is.”
We’re quiet a moment.
“You hungry?” Colton asks. “Thirsty? Want coffee or hot chocolate or something? I know how to find my way around a hospital.” He smiles, and I can’t believe how easy these little references to being sick come out, now that I know. Almost like he’s relieved to have his secret out in the open.
“Just a bottle of water maybe?” I say weakly.
“You got it.” Colton gets to his feet quickly, happy to be of service, but then he bends down in front of me, tilts my chin upward so I’m looking right at him and he’s looking right at me, and starts to say something, but then he just kisses me gently on the forehead. “Quinn, I . . . I’ll be right back.”
He turns and heads down another hallway, and I lean back into my chair, put my hands in the sweatshirt pockets, and close my eyes to take a minute and breathe. I try to wrap my mind around what happened to my dad, and what the doctor said, and the likelihood that everything will be okay. But all I see is Colton, there in the pale storm light, my hand on his bare chest, his lips on mine, the rain all around us like a dream.
I open my eyes, and the fluorescent hospital glow chases it all away.
A few minutes pass, and I fidget with something tucked deep in the corner of Colton’s pocket for a few seconds before I wonder what it is and pull it out. It’s a piece of paper, folded down into a small, tight square.
I start to unfold it without even thinking but stop dead when I recognize the tattered, cream-colored stationery. My heart drops right through the bottom of my chest. All my guilt and secrets come rushing back at me from the thing in my hands. Like punishment for what I’ve done. I don’t have to open the letter to know what it says. I wrote draft after draft, night after night, until I felt I’d gotten it exactly right. Until it said exactly what I wanted to say to the person who had Trent’s heart.
Nausea rolls through my stomach as I unfold it slowly, careful not to tear the once-thick paper that’s been worn down by more than just the storm. My eyes run over the words, over my handwriting, over the creases that aren’t mine, creases from being folded and unfolded, over and over again. The ones Colton must’ve made to fit it into his pocket. To carry it around with him.
I look down at the words, my words, so full of grief and sadness. The person who wrote that letter feels like a stranger. She was someone who was looking for a way to hold on to Trent. Someone who didn’t think she could love anyone else. Who didn’t know that the person she was writing to would be the one to prove her wrong.
“What’re you doing with that?”
Colton’s voice snaps my head up, and the look of shock on his face must mirror my own.
His eyes are glued to the letter in my hands.
“I . . .” I fumble to fold it back up, but he sets the two steaming cups of coffee on the floor and takes it from me before I can. His sudden intensity startles me.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean— It was in your pocket, and I thought maybe it was—”
“It’s not yours to read,” Colton says, and I don’t know what’s worse: his tone, or the awful irony of his words.
I look at him standing there, trying to fold it back into the small rectangle that was tucked down in his pocket for who knows how long, and I can’t do it anymore. Can’t stand that I’ve kept this secret for so long. Finally, I find the words. I say them carefully, so there’s no mistaking them.
“It is mine.”
His hands freeze in the air. He looks at me, confused.
“What?”
There’s a quaver in his voice that makes me not want to say what comes next, but I have to.
“It’s my letter.” I swallow hard, my mouth all of a sudden dry. “I wrote it.”
“You what?”