Page 104 of The Last Thing You Said

I’m so grateful for her.

I finish my coffee and take a shower. I need to move. I need to move forward.

I walk into town even though the rain has started. My clothes are damp by the time I reach the cemetery.

“Hey, Trix,” I say as I sink down onto the bench at her grave.

I fill her in on the rodeo, the grounding, the fire. How Hannah and Guthrie are dating now.

“You should see how cute they are,” I tell her. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen Guthrie so happy. And I wish you’d gotten a chance to know Hannah.”

I tell her about Simon and what happened in South Dakota. I tell her what Ben wrote in the Book of Quotes and what he heard me say at the Full Loon.

“I haven’t seen him, though. And I’m nervous.” I laugh. “Isn’t that crazy? Your brother told me he loved me, after all this time, and I’m scared to see him, like it’s some elaborate joke.”

I stand and pull out the crinkly bag of candy I brought for her, translucent green, tied with a dark green ribbon, filled with all of her favorites.

“I love you,” I say. “I miss you. Every day. You have no idea how much. You were always there for me, cheering me on. I saw the impossible in every situation, but you knew better. You knew what I had inside of me. I know it now, too.”

I place the bag on top of the tombstone.

“Bye, Trix. Sleep well.”

The rain has stopped for now, but the humidity hangs heavy in the air. As I turn to leave the cemetery, my phone buzzes with another text.

Can we talk? I’m at the park.

It’s what I’ve been waiting for all morning. Ben. I hurry down the hill toward Sullivan Street Park. I’m still on Main Street when my phone buzzes again: I’ll wait.

The park is open but nearly empty—a couple of kids on the playground equipment and their parents in the gazebo, and only a few people on the damp beach. Gray, threatening clouds fill the sky.

I see Ben sitting on the sand, his arms around his knees. I stand at the top of the hill for a moment to catch my breath and look out over the lake. The float just outside the swimming area, where we sunned ourselves one year ago today, is empty.

Ben and Clay didn’t find Trixie that day. The divers did, hours later.

I’ve replayed every scenario in my head a million times—if she hadn’t raced Clayton, if Ben hadn’t stayed on the float with me, if we’d gone to play mini-golf instead, maybe she’d still be alive.

I know this kind of thinking isn’t logical. I know that it’s not my fault, or Clayton’s, or Ben’s.

Trixie would have died. If not that day, another. Her heart would have given up on her eventually, and no one knew it.

I close my eyes and breathe in the pungent smell of algae and rain. I open them again and walk down the hill.

When I reach the sand, I notice a tall tower of large rocks behind Ben, as tall as me, one stone balanced on top of another. My chest tightens, and I know Ben made it, and that he made it for Trixie. I’m filled with a rush of emotions. Grief and sadness and relief and missing her so much. And more than anything, love for Ben, who misses her, too.

57 · Ben

The chance that she won’t come tears me up. I’m tired, and my muscles ache from lifting the heavy rocks. I sink down into the sand, damp from the rain, and wait.

And then, after what seems like hours, she is there, standing on the beach behind me.

But she’s looking past me, to the inuksuk for Trixie, and even from a distance, I can see tears in her eyes. She stands perfectly still on the beach, except even from here, I can see that she’s shivering.

Finally, she looks at me. “I got your messages,” she says.

I don’t think, I just move.

In three strides, I’m where she is, and I take her in my arms.