Page 100 of The Last Thing You Said

My name is there, in heavy letters, all caps, slanted to the left.

Ben’s handwriting.

I think about his kiss on the side of the road, the look he gave me at the Full Loon, and again, my heart’s in my throat.

“Aren’t you going to open it?” Emily tugs on my hand.

“Oh, yes, of course.” I kneel down, pick up the package. It weighs almost nothing. The paper crinkles as I open it.

Our notebook. The Book of Quotes. And something else—an agate.

“An old notebook?” Emily asks, obviously disappointed. “And a rock?”

When I look at her, she is a watery blur.

I’m crying.

I open the cover, run my finger over the familiar letters.

“It was mine and Trixie’s,” I manage to tell her.

“Oh,” she says, like she understands, and I believe that she does. She sits down next to me, takes my hand, and squeezes it. “It’s okay, Lucy,” she says. “Crying will make you feel better.”

It does.

And when I’ve stopped crying, I look through the notebook, page by page, and soon I’m laughing, caught up in the memories.

Trixie, studying for a humanities exam: My head hurts like Aristotle when he was thinking.

Trixie, cleaning out her hamster Ethel’s cage: I can’t tell what’s shit and what’s raisins.

Me, one afternoon at the Full Loon: You can tell a lot about a person by the kind of pie they order. Mainly if they’re assholes or not.

One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood. —Seneca

My breath catches when I turn to the last of the filled-in pages.

The handwriting matches my name on the brown paper bag.

One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love. —Sophocles

And below it: Lulu, please forgive me. I love you. —Ben.

I touch the inky words, my heart racing. Ben found the notebook, wrote his love in the pages, and brought it back to me. I’m filled with a rush of lightness. Forgiveness.

I love him. No matter what.

It’s time to let him back in.

I need to break up with Simon tonight.

I call Simon when I get home from the resort.

“I’m sorry I was so out of it last night,” he says. “Can you do something tonight?”

“Yes. Can you come over here?”

“Let’s go out for pie,” he says. “I’m really going to miss that pie.”