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Henry rested the journal against the box and carefully wiped off the dust with his sleeve.
He lifted his head. “I was your ghost, Cameron.”
“I’m fairly sure you were white. Possibly translucent.”
“It was the night before we were leaving for England. I needed to say goodbye to mum one more time. I’d put on her dressing gown so I could smell her.” Henry’s voice cracked and he paused. “My flashlight barely worked, kept flickering in and out. I was upset, sobbing. I didn’t want to leave. I wanted her to come back and change Dad’s mind.”
He rubbed Henry’s knee. The image of that night sharpened in Cameron’s mind. It could have been a silky dressing gown that looked like it floated . . . must have been.
“You’ve been haunting my dreams since I was thirteen?” Cameron murmured.
“You were in mine, too.”
“Me?”
“You were the boy who got away.” Henry smiled. “I had the bag you dropped. I called for you to wait, but you didn’t.”
“In my defense, I thought you’d murder me.”
A laugh. “I’m glad you didn’t turn back now.”
“You are?”
“It’s not like we could have become friends. I had a flight to Auckland at six the next morning.” Henry stared at the journal he gripped. “I took your bag to my room and emptied it. I read your journal. Your script about Carl whose bravery made him a superhero, who overcame the death of his mother, who had the guts to stand up to all the bullies in the yard. Who lived what he believed in.”
“It was my first script.”
“It felt like a message from my mum telling me to live my life to the fullest.” Henry’s Adam’s apple bobbed, and he passed Cameron the journal. “Carl became my role-model, Cameron.”
The journal felt heavy in his hands, weighted with his words, with the anguish of losing them, with the pride they’d helped Henry grow into Henry.
Cameron had written Carl because he wished to be him. He looked up at Henry’s open face, his intelligent eyes, proud jaw. Henry lived life with vibrancy.
He was who Cameron could have been.
Who Cameron wanted to be.
Cameron opened the cover and stared at the If Lost page.
Henry murmured, “You never wrote your name. Just your address. Every time I visited your house, something felt familiar, but I couldn’t place any memories there. Your address was triggering me.”
“You never sent it back.”
Henry rubbed a hand over his jaw. “I couldn’t.”
He’d thought it was a sign from his mum. Of course he couldn’t. Cameron nodded. “You took it with you to boarding school?”
“I can’t tell you how many times I read it.”
Warmth spread up Cameron’s chest to the neckline of Henry’s hoodie. He felt cocooned in it. His vision blurred. His crazy over-imagination had gifted Henry something he’d needed.
He read his scrawled writing, filled with crossed out words replaced by better ones. “It’s better than I remembered it.”
“It’s special.”
Cameron closed the journal and returned it to Henry. “You should keep it.”
Henry held it a long moment. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You, who always knows what to say?”
“Thank you.”
Henry set the journal atop the Oz books and slid the wicker box back under his bed.
They remained kneeling a foot apart. Cameron’s stomach tickled, as if an invisible link between them had been forged. His pulse jumped and he pulled the cords of his hood. “Speaking of scripts!” he blurted. “Did you read the one I sent you?”
Henry rose to his feet. “Yes, I did.”
Cameron scrambled upright too. “So? What do you think?”
The flicker crossing his face told Cameron everything.
“Never mind. I don’t want to know.”
“Cameron.”
“It’s fine. I told you it was a draft.”
“It’s not Carl. But it definitely has potential.”
The word cut deeply. Everyone knew potential was the go-to word when there was nothing positive to be said. A soft way of saying scrap everything, start over.
He blinked, eyes stinging. “Yep. Cool. What do you think about dinner?”
“We haven’t finished discussing this.”
“I can’t hear it.”
“How will you learn if you don’t listen?”
“I know you think it’s crap. I’ll throw it away. Try something else. Ditch the love scenes.”
“Don’t touch those.”
Cameron frowned. “What?”
“The sex was the best part.”
“The part I winged was the best part?”
“There’s passion there. If only the rest were written with the same wanton drive.”
His throat hurt. “The rest has drive.”
“Your main character doesn’t change, Cameron. Without that, the story has no point.”
“So my first script is better than the one I’ve been working on all year? Okay.” Cameron nodded. He didn’t know how to stop.
Maybe staying here was a bad idea, but he couldn’t leave tonight without looking like he couldn’t handle criticism. His voice came out gravelly. “Thanks for the”—he jerked a thumb toward the wall they’d share—“I’ll be out of your hair tomorrow.”
Henry cupped his waist and pulled him against his chest. He rubbed circles over his back, and pressed a soft kiss to his forehead.
