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Do it for me.
I’ll see you in the next life brother. Until then, I love you. You are strong enough to do this. I promise. I’ve always believed in you.
Love,
Everett
There was a site listed just below his name. I wanted to follow it but as usual, he was right. We needed to talk, to breathe, to live in this moment even if it hurt.
Tomorrow we could see what he wanted to show us.
For now I had to remember how to fucking breathe. It had never felt like a hard task until I lost him. Now it’s a chore every damn day.
“I’m sorry, Lake. I should have been there for you more,” Shaye whispered, her voice breaking.
“I shouldn’t have let the distance form between us,” I countered. “But we’re here now, right?”
My eyes searched hers, begging those beautiful brown orbs to reassure me, to not let me face this alone anymore.
“We are,” she said. The way her forehead wrinkled and she shifted uncomfortably had alarm bells ringing in my head.
Something was off.
Another instance of my brother being a know it all. Now I was grateful for his words or I might never have seen it.
She was someone at the end of her rope, holding on by a thread.
At least I’d be here to catch her.
ChapterSix
Shaye
Dear Everett,
I just wanted to let you know that I forgive you. There was nothing to forgive, really. You did what you could to spend your life with me. Neither of us could have predicted that this was how it would end.
Even after a year, I see your ghost everywhere. Being back in Lockwood has been a constant reminder of the summers we spent together.
Lake looks great. Tired, a bit jaded, but he’s living. I wish I could say the same for myself. I’ve been planning to join you after this. This time with Lake was my last commitment that I couldn’t back out of.
Yet you seemed to know all along that I had this plan.
Now what am I supposed to do?
I can’t live without you, Ev. I tried and failed. It’s a bleak, terrible existence that I want no part of.
How do I break that to Lake?
How do I leave him in pain like I’ve been in knowing we’re mates?
The answer is… I can’t.
“What are you doing?” Lake asked gently. I closed the leather-bound journal that I had been writing in. It was the same one that I’d filled the pages with over the year that Everett had been gone.
My cheeks warmed, but I didn’t back away from the answer. I looked up at him, blinking away another round of tears.
I thought all my tears had dried up, but, apparently, being here broke that dam right open.
