Page 107 of The False Flat

My name was at the top, followed by a comma. I fanned the pages. The journal was completely empty, several pages having been ripped out at the beginning, leaving little jagged paper triangles in the crease of the book. Brandon’s diary wasn’t a diary, at least not anymore. It was a note to me. I flipped back to the first page and read the four lines.

Sister,

YOU WILL BE OKAY. I WANT YOU TO BE OKAY. IT’S OKAY TO BE OKAY.

I love you,

Brandon

I touched the letters, each one written in all caps by a fifteen-year-old boy who was wiser than his years and who loved his sister, a little girl who had flopped across his legs and cried about how nothing was okay and never would be again.

I was on a proverbial cliff made up of my past and all the decisions I’d made along the way. I’d spent my life afraid to jump, scared to live without Brandon, like being happy would be betraying him somehow. But all this time, I’d been betraying him by not living.

I held my breath, then let it go.

For the first time in a very, very long time, I was ready to tell someone else I loved him. I was ready to jump, and I prayed I would fly.

CHAPTER 42

“I LOVE YOU” OVER A TRIO OF SCOOPS, MINUS THE THREE SCOOPS, MINUS THE “I LOVE YOU”

I think we should take some time apart.

I tried not to let the words become bigger than they were, but I hadn’t seen Grant since he’d dropped me off after the ride four days ago. We hadn’t spoken. Now, work was suffering—I’d called a client by the wrong name earlier in the day.

I needed to see him, so I’d texted, asking him to dinner on Wednesday night because I couldn’t let another day pass without putting myself out there. All the way.

He’d told me to pick the place, but he requested Thursday night instead, which worked just as well for me, except for how excruciating it was to suddenly know what to say and be forced to wait.

But Wednesday had slowly faded to Thursday, and tonight, if all went according to plan, life would be as close to perfect as it could get.

I’d taken special pains with my appearance, a black sheath, elevated by a simple strand of exactly fifty-eight pearls and matching bracelet with twenty-three. I’d reserved a table at Old Hickory Steakhouse inside the Opryland Hotel, a Nashville resort with indoor gardens and waterfalls. Locals went there to have dinner, walk around the tall, glass-ceilinged atrium, eat waterside, or ride in the Delta Riverboat along the indoor river. It was a Nashville must-see, and I had never been. I wouldn’t tell Grant about the room I’d reserved with the internal atrium view until after dinner, after me and my eighty-one sea jewels had told him I loved him.

This evening as I’d spritzed on my special-occasion perfume, a subtle floral scent, I’d practiced in front of the mirror, trying different combinations of the three words to accentuate.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

Three words, Grant. I. Love. You.

Definitely not that last one.

My skin vibrated with the thought of speaking the words, however I ended up saying them.

“Hi.” I bit my lower lip, almost shy at seeing Grant again, at my front door, after what had felt like months.

“Hi.” His smile was as big as mine, and his navy suit made his eyes pierce even more deeply into me.

I wanted to run to him, wrap my hand around his royal blue tie and use it to pull him to me, but seeing him also knotted my stomach.

“I’ve missed you,” I managed as we headed down the sidewalk to my car. I told him I’d drive because I needed to focus on the road so I wouldn’t self-destruct in the passenger seat.

His smile faded slightly, not a lot, but I noticed, which only made me more nervous, and determined at the same time. But I didn’t want to tell him I loved him while we were in the car. Then, I didn’t want to do it while we parked and near-silently walked into the hotel, padding across the carpeted halls like friends instead of people in a committed relationship, then onto the concrete pathways where there were too many people to have an I-love-you declaration.

I decided to wait until we were settled across the table from each other, beside a waterfall, surrounded by real, live foliage, with comforting, rich smells wafting up from the plates in front of us.