A word, maybe two.
Written and erased again, yet the traces are still there. Like a memory you can’t erase, no matter how hard you try.
The letters are faint, ghostly. ‘...at you l…’
What is this? Another one of Lilly’s dreams? But why did she erase it again? Feverishly I search for pieces to complete the sentence. Find edges that might fit, put them together. Piece by piece, word by word.
‘…at you love him.’
Whom do you love? Who did Lilly mean? A man? No, there was no man in Lilly’s life.
My gaze darts over the pieces.
There.
Bright lines.
It’s an eight. The eighth item on her list, which I always thought only had seven.
Where’s the last piece?
That could be it… yeah, that looks good.
I fit the pieces of paper together and reveal Lilly’s eighth wish.
8. Tell Brian that you love him.
She wrote it down but erased it again. Maybe this wish wasn’t meant for my eyes, but now it’s here—and it breaks my heart.Because while I know exactly who Brian is, I didn’t know he was one of Camee’s dreams.
Chapter Forty-Five
NYLA
‘Come on,’ I implore my phone, but the screen stays black.
Damn it. I hurl the phone onto the bed and pace up and down my room.
It’s been twenty-two hours since I last saw Jaden in the hospital park. One thousand three hundred and twenty minutes in which I’ve hoped he’d think about my words and get in touch.
But he hasn’t.
No call. No message. Nothing.
I’ve long since run out of tears, but the sadness inside me doesn’t dry up. On the contrary, it keeps growing.
‘Hey, where were you?’ June’s cheerful voice carries through the closed door. Who is she talking to?
‘You’ll never believe this…,’ I hear Autumn reply, who nobody in the flat-share saw last night.
‘Does it have something to do with your patient’s dad?’ June asks excitedly.
‘Maybe.’ Autumn sounds dreamy. ‘I’ve got to go, we’ll talk later.’
‘We definitely should, I’ve got news too,’ June says.
Fabric rustles; they’re probably hugging right now. I reach for my phone. Still no message from Jaden. He’s probably gotten rid of Lilly’s bucket list for good and left Halifax.
Damn it, I shouldn’t have let him go, shouldn’t have trusted that he’d come to his senses on his own.
