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“Quinn would have loved New York,” Declan slashes through my thoughts, her comment taking me off guard. We haven’t talked much about her brother, or Brenna, since last summer. Only small things in passing on the phone or through texts.
“Yeah?” is the only response I can think to give her.
She nods, and though I’m not facing her, I catch the movement in my periphery. “I think, maybe, subconsciously, it’s why I haven’t explored as much as I would have liked to. It’sweird being somewhere new without him. He used to talk about wanting to travel the world, but he never got to see anywhere past California, and it just… I don’t know… It makes me feel guilty, I guess.”
Emotions knot in my chest, rising to the surface.
Brenna used to dream of the same. Once, on this very roof. Arms spread wide; eyes bright in a way they never were anymore.“It feels like I’m on top of the world up here! Imagine standing on a rooftop in every city across the globe. Wouldn’t that be amazing? I bet it all looks the same at night, no matter where you are.”
I clear my throat. “I know the feeling.” Grief, it numbs with time. But it still comes back for you in the moments you least expect it to. Here, on the rooftop with Declan, for one. Feeling the loss of the life Brenna missed out on just as she’s feeling the same for her brother.
She rolls her head along the back of her chair to face me, and her ocean eyes meet mine. Stray pieces of pink hair float around her face, the rest pulled up in a knot at the crown of her head. It strikes me all over again, how fucking gorgeous she is. Her beauty rivals every goddamn standard.
“How so?” she questions.
I rub a palm against my chest and decide to tread forward with raw honesty. “Last summer. Holding myself back while trying to keep promises that weren’t mine to make in the first place. Not going for what I wanted—the fuckingsecondI knew I wanted it.”
Her gaze searches mine, looking for answers I haven’t yet verbalized.
You, Little D. I’m talking about you.
“It wasn’t the easiest lesson to learn,” I continue, thinking of our downfall last summer. The accident with Williams and Parker. But more specifically, the way I lost my shit and took itout on her. She’s long since forgiven me, but I’m not sure I’ve forgiven myself. Going back to therapy has taken me a long way, though. A session a week to figure out why the past still had a hold on me, and then to pry the fingers of that grip off me one at a time until I could no longer feel its grasp. “But I’m grateful I did learn that lesson. And the takeaway? What kind of lives would we be living if we held ourselves back for the sake of the loved ones we’ve lost? We can’t do that. They wouldn’t want that for us. If anything, we have to live bigger, louder, because they weren’t able to.”
Her eyes gloss over. She shakes her head in an attempt to clear the emotions away, but they linger, a sad smile creeping over her lips. “I know you’re right. We can’t. I wasn’t even trying to, really, but I…” she trails off with a shrug.
“I get it. Trust me. But we’re the ones that hold the choice to do something different—besomething different.” I sound like a goddamn wannabe spiritual guru, but the words hold true regardless. It doesn’t matter what happens to us, the shit life throws at us, we always have the choice to stand back up and strive for better.
“I’ve only ever told Addy this before, but I…” She takes a deep breath, steeling herself. “I was the one who asked Quinn to take his seatbelt off, so he could help me fish out the pencil that rolled underneath my dad’s seat. And I know it’s not my fault, what happened, but it’s hard not to feel like it was sometimes, too. Like I’m living a life that was taken away from him. One that could have been saved if I hadn’t…”
I give her a swift shake of my head. “You can’t think like that; you can’t blame yourself for how it might’ve happened. Honestly, fuck the wholeeverything happens for a reasonline of bullshit, because sometimes fucked up things happen to good people for no good goddamn reason at all. But I do believe some things will happen regardless. That there’s not much we cando to change the hands of fate. Those outcomes are out of our hands.”
She nods. “I wasn’t wearing my seatbelt either, and the doctors said it might have been what saved my life. It’s messed up how nothing makes sense like that. But I think that’s where the guilt comes in.”
She’s talked about her accident before, but I hate the visual of it. Brenna’s terrified, agonized features replaced by a younger Declan’s. It makes my stomach turn, churning violently.
A chill rocks through me, but I refocus on her words.
“I’m going to tell you something I haven’t told many as well,” I say.
Her brows lift, blue eyes dipping into mine and holding me within their grasp. She makes it so goddamn easy to tell her the things I usually hold tight to the vest. She makes mewantto.
“I was pissed at Brenna the night she passed,” I admit. The words feel like a weight being lifted off my chest. My parents know, my brothers, too, but it feels different, more significant, letting her in on one of my darkest secrets.
Her stare widens, ocean eyes glistening and shining with an emotion just out of reach. Pity? Empathy? Understanding? Something tells me it’s all three.
A car passes on the road below, tires splashing through water reeling me from the thought.
“It was because of that anger that Brenna ended up in the car,” I go on. “I was the one who slammed her door shut, willing her to drive away. And it will never matter that I realized my mistake, immediately turning on my heels to open the door and pull her out of the car, because I realized my mistake a moment too late.”
Our brains pick and choose what stays with you. I can’t make out her face in that moment, or the words we shouted at each other, or what was happening at that party. But I remember thesound of that lock—the mechanical click of it. The visual of it pulling down into the door. The engine turning over, and the sound of her tires grinding against gravel as they peeled away.
They’re burned onto my brain. Seared into my psyche. A tragic reminder that the choices we make can have severe repercussions.
“I can’t—God, I can’t imagine how that must have made you feel. I’m so sorry, Jude. And I know those words never help ease the things we’ve been through, but I am sorry. You didn’t deserve to lose her like that. It’s unfair.” She shakes her head, tension pulling tight at her features.
I clear my throat. “Sometimes I wonder if it was God’s plan all along. Her stubbornness, the fights, the stretches of time we went without talking to each other. On the one hand, I was pissed for losing that time—why, when she was going to be taken from me anyway? But on the other, if things had been good, and we had loved each other like we had in all the years prior—her death would have broken me in a way I’m not sure I could’ve come back from. And sometimes, I’m certain it’s the only thing that saved me.”
A knot forms in my chest. Inches into my throat.