“Everyone would have been better off. The world would have finally made sense.”
“You mean, the way Dean’s death made the world better? What did it feel like when you learned about what he did?”
I search my mind and heart for the feeling and find it buried deep in a place I never wanted to go again. I try to put it into words. “Like nothing in my life would be warm or sweet or happy again. Like everything would wash away forever, and get replaced by only shadows of memories instead of real ones.”
“Now I want you to think about me. How do you think it would have felt for me to find out that you . . . .” He clears his throat. “How would you have felt if I would have jumped off that bridge?”
My stomach starts churning and my heart starts beating off rhythm as my eyes fill with tears. My body feels depleted, like a hollow abyss with nothing to fill it. “Agonizing. Like all the worst pains I’ve ever felt hitting me all at once, breaking my body and mind and heart at the same time until there are only shards remaining.” It comes out a little more dramatic than I intend, but it’s the truth.
He gives me a pointed look. “I wouldn’t have been the same without you. My whole life would have been changed and defined by that one moment where you chose pain over life. I want to say I’d be okay. I wanna say that your death wouldn’t have haunted me forever, but it would have. You can’t love someone that much and expect to come out the other side the same person. It doesn’t work like that.” He leans in closer. “When you were on that bridge, I saw flashes of what my life would be without you, and it made me want to get on that bridge, too, made me want to do anything to stop you.” He bites his lip as tears film his eyes. “I know you can’t live for me or for anyone else. But at least live for you. Don’t live for your sister, or Dean, even. They’re gone. I’m sorry, I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but they are. They aren’t coming back.”
His words hit me like a truck. All the questions I’ve been asking, all the pain—is that what I’ve been doing? Living for her? “But it’s my fault she’s dead. And Dean,” I say, but the words don’t sound the same anymore. I’m not sure I believe them. It’s as if they’re coming from someone else’s mouth.
He shakes his head and moves to sit on the hospital bed with me. “It’s not your fault. It’s not mine that my brother killed himself, either. Watching you go through this, being with you . . . I know that now. I was a shell of a person before I met you. My brother haunted me, too. I never even realized how much I blamed myself until I saw you do the same thing. Then I wanted you to let go, too. I wanted you to be free, like I was starting to feel.” He reaches over and covers my hand with his. “You’re free, Ellery.”
“I’m not.” Am I? Is that all it takes?
“You are. Let them go. That’s all you need to do. They’re ready. If they were here, they would tell you the same thing. Search your heart for the answers.”
I squeeze his hand and weave my fingers through his. “It’s not that easy.”
“I know it’s not.” He lifts my hand to his lips and kisses it gently. “But I’ll be here for you as you go through this. You’re not alone.”
I unhook my fingers from his and wipe my tears away. “I really fucked up, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, you did,” he grins. I push him in the side and he chuckles a little, breaking the tension. “How about I read some of that book.”
“Really?”
“Yes, it’s our book.”
I let out a groan-laugh. “No, it’s not. It’s our anti-book.”
He arches an eyebrow, grabs the book, and turns to the first page, leaning back against the wall. Before he can utter a word, he closes it and jerks his head up like he just had a spontaneous idea. “We need an anti-movie, too.”
“Define the terms.”
He quirks his mouth to the side. “Corny lines, unrealistic plot.”
I search my mind for a movie with lines as corny as The Notebook. “I’ve got it.”
“Me too,” he says with a huge smile on his face. “Okay, we’ll say them at the same time.”
“Yeah, that’s not corny at all.”
“Shush. On the count of three. One, two, three—You’ve Got Mail,” he says at the same time as I say, “Jerry Maguire.”
“Oh, that’s a really good one.” He lowers his head to get it even with mine. “You complete me,” he says with a goofy grin on his face. I shove him, and he grabs my arms and pulls me into his chest and wraps me in his arms. Safe. “Say it.”
“No,” I say through a laugh, pushing on his chest.
He squeezes me and whispers in my ear, “Say it.”
“Come on, I would never be able to look at myself in the mirror again.”
He kisses my ear and blows gently into it. “Say it,” he whispers, causing me to shiver.
“No,” I whisper.
He moves to my neck and kisses me, whispering each time for me to say it.
I never do.
53
May 15