Or maybe he could. Maybe I could tell him.
I opened up my purse and dug around, then came up with the only paper in there—Finn’s crinkled letter. I opened the pages in my lap, smoothed out the creases as best I could, thinking about what I wanted to say back to him. I didn’t need to think about it long, though. When I took the pen from my purse and pressed the tip to the blank side of the first page, words came fast and I poured it all out.
I told Finn he’d been crazy to do what he did for me, and that I never would’ve let him give up everything for me to go to UTA if I’d known. I told him I was mad that he’d lied to do it but that I understood why, because he’d been protecting me our whole life. And now that I knew the truth, it was gonna stick with me for the rest of mine. But then I told him I was glad I knew what he’d done, because I wouldn’t have to wonder about all the whys anymore. He hadn’t enlisted for some reason none of us would ever understand. He’d done it for me. Because he thought it was the right thing to do. I told him I admired him for that and for everything he’d done and been, and that Rusty was right when he said that some people are just better than the rest of us.
Then I told him I found out Rusty was that way too. I told him how Rusty had stuck by me since the funeral, in spite of losing his best friend and knowing I’d been the reason. How he’d taken my Kyra Kelley idea and seen me through the desert and the pouring rain and more desert, all the way to the ocean. I told him about the rope swing and our tequila night (minus the kiss), and how I knew the joke about the Pala now. And I told him he’d be proud of Rusty for all of it. Especially what he’d done for me that morning.
I don’t know how long I sat there writing, but I covered his letter and the backs of the tickets with all my thank-yous and sorries and memories, all my sadness and gratitude and hope. And at the end, before I said my good-bye, I promised my brother I’d be as good as he had been and I’d make sure that what he’d done for me was worth it.
When I finished, I folded it up, matched my creases with his, and sat quiet a few moments, listening to the sound of the waves and breathing in the salt air. Writing a letter wasn’t gonna change or fix anything, I knew that. But it felt good to lay it all out there, all the things I’d felt and wanted to say but hadn’t been able to until now.
I stood and tucked the letter in my back pocket, not exactly sure what I wanted to do with it yet. The sun had melted the fog just down the beach, and patches of warm light spread out slow and golden over the sand like honey. I grabbed my boots and headed that way, following the waterline so I could walk in the wet sand and let the ocean roll over my bare feet, just like he’d said to do.
30
A few hours later, I’d walked the entire beach up and back, explored the area at the bottom of the stairs we’d come down the day before, and found that while there was a restaurant and some little vacation cottages, there was no pay phone anywhere. There were plenty of people around, pretty people who made me wonder if everyone came to eat breakfast on the beach dressed like movie stars. There were also the people who obviously came to enjoy the beach with their families, lugging kids and chairs and coolers along with them. But I hadn’t worked up the nerve to ask any of them if I could borrow their cell phone to call my aunt in Texas to bail out my friend who’d been arrested in the parking lot that morning.
Instead, I’d found a wooden picnic table on the sand and claimed it as my own, just in case I was gonna be stuck here for the rest of my life. I stretched out on the bench, eyes closed with my face to the sky, hoping that if I listened hard enough, the universe might take pity on me and whisper something again. It didn’t, of course. So after a little while, I stopped listening so hard and just kind of drifted with the sounds of the waves, in and out of the shade from the clouds that passed over the sun, and that way, I was almost able to convince myself that I was here under totally different circumstances. Like maybe a road trip with Lilah or a vacation somewhere tropical or—
“Worried sick, huh?”
I shot up. “Rusty?” It was. Standing right over me with one hand in his pocket and a smirk on his face. I didn’t think it was humanly possible to be that thankful to see anyone, but I was on my feet with my arms wrapped tight around him before he could say another word. There was so much I needed to tell him, I didn’t know where to begin. “Oh my god, I’m so, so sorry. For everything. I—and then you—I didn’t deserve what you did for me back there,” I said, finally getting it out.
Rusty carefully untangled himself from our one-sided hug and stepped a good pace back from me. “Well,” he said, digging the toe of his boot in the sand, “you didn’t really deserve to hear the things I told you either. Not the way they came out.” He looked down, and we were both quiet.
“Don’t,” I said after a moment. “Don’t feel bad about that. What you told me about Finn, it’s something I should know. Something that’s important for me to know. I just . . .” I took a deep breath and looked at Rusty, surprised at the sudden thickness in my throat. “It’s hard for me to understand how he could’ve done that, you know? How he could’ve just given up everything he wanted and . . .” I didn’t want to cry in front of Rusty again, didn’t want him to feel bad for me, so I sat down on the bench and looked out at the ocean. “Why would he do that?”
He sat next to me and let out a big breath as he watched the waves. “I didn’t understand when he first told me,” he said finally. “I thought he was crazy, thought he was being stupid, and I was pissed at him, and . . . even more pissed at you for it. For a long time.” I glanced over at him but didn’t say anything. It made perfect sense now, all the times he’d been a jerk or blown me off after Finn enlisted. I probably would’ve done the same thing to him if I thought Finn had thrown everything away and made the wrong decision because of him.