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“Good. I’m glad we’ve been able to find a way to move forward,” I said with a smile. My chest tightened at his words. I was their escape as much as they were mine. That was exactly why we worked so well.
“Breakfast!” Micah called out and we hurried to finish before pulling on fresh clothes. Now that I was clean, my stomach was screaming in protest.
Micah and Lake were in the dining area, a fire roaring in the firepit and the camp stove set on a rickety table nearby. Mia was chowing down at her dog bowl while they worked.
When Micah saw me he made me a plate, coming over with a heaping serving of eggs and bacon.
“Thank you,” I said, tipping my head up for a kiss which he didn’t hesitate to give me.
“Wake up, Riven, we need to listen to this message!” Lake called out, giving me a wink. I could see his anxiety through it and scooted over so he could sit next to me.
“What’s wrong?”
“I just have a strange feeling. I want to get this one over with.”
ChapterTwenty-Eight
Shaye
Everett didn’t say a word as he panned the video over the campground, giving us a silent tour.
Lake’s leg shook up and down anxiously as we waited for him to say something.
Finally, Everett stopped at the edge of the river.
“You know, we spent so many summers on the lake that I didn’t even know this river existed for the longest time. The day after I got my diagnosis I came out here, trying to wrap my mind around everything. I screamed into these woods and went through all the stages: anger, pain, sadness, defeat. That was the darkest time of the whole diagnosis. I had to work through it alone to accept it.”
He took a deep, shaking breath.
“I knew it would be easier if I didn’t fight this every step of the way. Maybe then I’d be able to focus on the people that were important to me. Shaye, Lake, my parents… you all mean everything to me.”
“You meant everything to me, too,” I told him even though he wasn’t here to see me.
“As my death draws closer, I found myself coming back here. I explored these woods and came back to this campground. The second time I walked through here it spoke to me. No, not in the ‘I’m nearing death hallucination’ sort of way.” He chuckled darkly.
Everett was always one who loved our humor.
“No, it was as if this place was calling out to me, telling me that it was significant. That night, I stayed up for hours creating this camp in my game, and the next day I told my dad about it. I expected him to not know what I was talking about, but he knew right away, a smile going across his face. You know how dad gets when he’s nostalgic.”
“Not anymore. Everett’s death changed him,” Lake said quietly. I slipped my hand in his. His dad was a gentle man, kind, but he was stoic now.
“He told me how his parents used to take him and his siblings out here during the summer. They’d rent the whole thing out. He showed me pictures of what this place used to look like.”
“I bet it was amazing,” Riven said quickly before Ev continued on screen.
“Maybe it was the desperation of my own demise, but I couldn’t help but put everything I had into the game and to this idea. I wanted to see it like that again. Sadly, things progressed faster than I thought they would. The treatments didn’t slow anything down.”
My heart hurt for Everett. As much pain as his death caused me, he had to suffer all the way ‘til the end. He had to leave this earth knowing that we would never get to have the future that we talked about, that he’d never get to hug any of us again.
He deserved so much better.
“That night, I sat both of my parents down while Lake was gone. We went over everything I wanted to leave behind, from the game to the letters, and finally to this place. You see, the moment that I found Shaye as a teenager and worked my first job, I took out life insurance. I paid into it religiously, and when I couldn’t keep working, Dad paid for me. We weren’t an official pack, Shaye, so I couldn’t leave it to you, and I didn’t want to leave it to one of you and not the other. So, I left it to them instead.”
“Why is he telling us this?” Lake asked. I already knew that they had enough to pay for the funeral, but they never mentioned anything outside of that. “I just don’t get where he’s going with this.”
“Just listen,” I said gently.
“Dad tracked down the owners of this place, and it was an older man. He ran it in his prime but lost his pack and no longer cared about maintaining it. Dad sat down over a cup of tea, and he told him about me and my idea for this place. They talked for hours. Then, dad asked if he could buy it from him. The old man said he’d sell under one condition—that someday, this place be turned into what it used to be, a place for gathering, a legacy, even if it’s not for his own family, but for ours.”
