“Isn't it?” Ambrose could think of nothing worse than losing his friends.
“I don't think so. Death is easy. Living is the hard part. Remember that little girl over in Clairemont County who was kidnapped about ten years ago when her family was camping?” Bailey asked, his eyes narrowed on Ambrose's face. “Fern's parents and my parents volunteered with the search. They thought she might have fallen in the creek or just wandered off. But there were enough other campers there that weekend that there was also the possibility that someone had just taken her. By the fourth day, my mom said the mother of the little girl was praying that they would find the child's body. She wasn't praying they would discover her alive. She was praying that her baby had died quickly and accidentally, because the alternative was a lot more terrible. Can you imagine knowing your child was somewhere suffering horribly and you couldn't do anything about it?”
Ambrose stared at Bailey, turmoil in his eyes.
“You feel guilty because you lived and they died.” Bailey tipped his head toward the four headstones. “Maybe Beans and Jesse and Grant and Paulie are looking down on you shaking their heads, saying 'Poor Brosey. Why did he have to stay?'“
“Mr. Hildy told me the lucky ones are the ones who don't come back,” Ambrose remembered, his eyes on the graves of his friends. “But I don't think the guys are looking down on me from some heavenly paradise. They're dead. Gone. And I'm here. Period.”
“I think deep down you don't really believe that,” Bailey said quietly.
“Why me, Bailey?” Ambrose shot back, his voice too loud for the sober setting.
“Why not you, Ambrose?” Bailey bit back immediately, making Ambrose start as if Bailey had convicted him of a crime. “Why me? Why am I in a flipping wheelchair?”
“And why Paulie and Grant? Why Jesse and Beans? Why do terrible things happen to such good people?” Ambrose asked.
“Because terrible things happen to everyone, Brosey. We're all just so caught up in our own crap that we don't see the shit everyone else is wading through.”
Ambrose had no answer for that and Bailey seemed content to let him wrangle with his thoughts for a time. But eventually, Bailey spoke again, unable to sit in silence for too long.
“You like Fern, don't you, Brosey?” Bailey's gaze was apprehensive, his voice grave.
“Yeah. I like Fern.” Ambrose nodded absently, his thoughts still on his friends.
“Why?” Bailey demanded immediately.
“Why what?” Ambrose was confused by Bailey's tone.
“Why do you like Fern?”
Ambrose sputtered a little, not sure what Bailey was getting at, and a little pissed that Bailey thought he was entitled to have it spelled out.
Bailey jumped in. “It's just that she isn't really the kind of girl you used to go for. She and I were talking the other day. She seems to think she's not good enough for you . . . that you are tolerating her because, in her words, 'she's thrown herself at you.' I can't quite imagine Fern throwing herself at anyone. She's always been pretty shy when it comes to guys.”
Ambrose thought of the night of the fireworks when she'd kissed his eyelids, his neck, his mouth and slid her hands beneath his shirt. She hadn't been shy then, but he thought he'd keep that to himself.
Bailey continued: “I think that's why Fern has always liked to read so much. Books allow you to be whoever you want to be, to escape yourself for a while. You know how Fern loves to read those romance novels?”
Ambrose nodded and smiled, remembering how embarrassed Fern had been when he’d read a passage from her book out loud. He wondered briefly if the romance novels were what made Fern so passionate and responsive. Just thinking about her made him long for her, and he tamped down the desire immediately.
“Do you know she writes them too?”
Ambrose jerked his head around to meet Bailey's smirk. “Really?”
“Yep. I think she must be on her sixth novel. She's been sending her books out to publishers since she was sixteen. So far, she hasn't gotten a deal, but she will eventually. They're actually pretty good. A little sappy and sweet for my taste, but that's Fern. She writes under a fake name. Her parents don't even know.”
“A fake name? What is it?”
“Nah. You'll have to get that info from her. She's going to kill me for telling you about the books.”
Ambrose nodded, his attention riveted on exactly how he was going to coax little Fern to tell him all her secrets. The desire for her rose again, and he almost groaned out loud.
“I've always liked to read. But I prefer a little different kind of book. Romance is just torture for me, you know?” Bailey added.
Ambrose nodded, his mind on the fireworks, the way it felt to lay next to Fern as light exploded above them, her sweetness, the smell of her skin and the soft sweep of her hair. He understood torture.