Page 75 of A Summer to Save Us

Just like you.

That’s it. And, obviously, I’m crying now, even though I promised you I wouldn’t.

One of the unsorted memories flashes through my mind again, like a shower of stars.

“Don’t cry, Tucks, promise me that! Let me go like I let June go, with a scream far above the ground, straight into the sky.

” He stands at the precipice, and my burning heart just stops.

“Will you promise me that?” he whispers tremblingly in my mind, and of course, I nod. I would have promised him anything.

I have to close my eyes for a moment. Gently, I feel for the white swan on my other wrist and feel the soft paper like a caress.

I miss you, Riv.

I miss you so much. I tell everyone I’m fine, but that’s a lie. I act normal and do normal things. But you’re always with me—in every thought, in every breath. In every moment of life that you gave me. How can I carry on in this life without you?

For seconds, I just stand there and spread my arms. I won’t jump, but I need that feeling of freedom. That I can fly and take off whenever I want when the pain grows to be too much. I close my eyes.

Fall.

Dream.

And in my dream, you’re suddenly with me, wrapping your arms around me from behind and holding me as tightly as you did before you ran off. Tightly, like you would never let me go again.

“I wouldn’t do that,” I hear you say in a rough voice right next to my ear. “Because you can never take it back.”

I can almost feel you. And in this other reality, I wriggle out of your arms, and there you are—tall and broad-shouldered.

Your hair is chin-length, blond, and disheveled, and your eyes are as deep blue as a summer sky.

You look infinitely familiar. Even the sparkle in your eyes.

.. I can still see it. It’s a spark of life, a laugh, and that’s exactly what I still don’t understand to this day.

Because you lived as intensely as if you loved.

“Why?” I whisper the one word—the one question that has bothered me since the end of the summer. “Why? I don’t understand. First, you confess your love to me, and then you jump to your death. That’s...”

“Bizarre?”

I feel tears streaming down my cheeks.

“Oh, Kansas.” You look at me, concerned. “I wanted to make it easier for you, not harder. I wanted you to know how much I love you. I wanted you to know that you were never a project and that it wasn’t because of June.”

“Then why didn’t you jump off Lost Arrow Spire.

.. when you tied me up with the leash?” I sob.

“Why did you let me think I saved you, and then jumped anyway? That was cruel!” I raise my arms, wanting to beat your chest with my soft mittens, but you catch my hands and hold them tight, kissing the fabric of my gloves and warming my fingers up.

“What do you think, Tucks?”

“I don’t know!” I want to scream at you that I hate you for that, but of course, that would be a lie.

“I didn’t want you to see it. Because I loved you so much...”

The dream flickers. Loved . Past.

“Riv, I will never understand. Never.”

“Maybe it seemed easier to fly into nothingness than to fall into the black hole that always appeared before me. And maybe you were right—you can only save people who want to be saved.”

Your words resonate and float inside me. “Why didn’t you want to be saved?” I whisper.

“I don’t know. Maybe I truly was sick... I suddenly had this urge to run and jump.” You look at me so openly and honestly that my heart almost breaks in two. It wants to break again over that one question—or rather, over the fact that my love wasn’t enough to save you.

I look at you, and you let go of my hands, ruffling my hair tenderly—a touch that I miss so much. “You have to let me go now, Tucks. Do you understand?”

“I know.” I’m crying. Crying so hard. I need this explanation so much. This why. Again, the image flickers before my eyes like a broken neon tube. The dream fades.

“Hey... Don’t cry, baby, you promised.” You pull me to you by the collar of my down jacket.

“You know I can’t stand it when you cry like that.

Tucks, I want you to laugh. That’s why we did the whole trip in the first place.

It was never about me. I was never important.

” I feel your breath gently on my face, and I want to whisper, Yes, you were important to me, you were everything to me , but you’re already speaking.

“Maybe we don’t get an answer for every why in our life.

.. I have no idea. I only know one thing: you should be happy.

That’s all I wish for, Tucks... promise me that.

” You pause and look at me. “You know, in my life... I’ve done so many things wrong. ..”

I smile through my tears. “And so many things right,” I finish your sentence because I’m the only one left. And every question that’s inside me, I have to answer myself every day.

So often, I wonder what you felt on your last flight. What you thought about. If there was something you thought you could have fixed. I don’t wish for myself. I don’t wish for it for you. I hope so much that you felt free. As free as you always wanted to be.

I take a deep breath. I’m still standing there, arms outstretched, tears streaming down my cheeks.

For a moment, I want to jump and touch you in infinity, in the deep blue dream of eternal night.

I firmly believe that you’re there, making music with the stars.

And I believe in what you once told me—that a musician paints his picture in silence.

And if that is the case, your most honest song is playing inside me.

You wrote it during my silence. The song is about life—guilt, forgiveness, love, leaving, being abandoned.

About collapsing and getting back up again.

I lean forward a little, but in that moment, I only feel your hands on my shoulders in my mind and hear you whisper, Hey, Tucks! This is not your path .

I back away, breathing the fresh, cold air deep into my lungs.

Good girl. Now go!

It takes infinite effort, but I hurry back to the middle of Old Sheriff, where I really saw you for the first time in my life, your hair disheveled, looking like a fallen angel. And I feel your smile on my back. The smile that saved me.

That’s good, Tucks. That’s good .

I blink through my tears and see Arizona at the other end of the

bridge. She’s just standing there, waiting.

My heart warms.

I start running, untying the swan from my wrist and throwing it into the air with a loud scream.

Crane and swan. River and Tucks.

River .

I slow down.

I glance back one last time, and for a tiny moment, I see you sitting there on the platform in the light of memory.

I know that, whatever happens, a part of my heart will always belong to you—River McFarley, the boy on the bridge.

And so, your wish comes true because, for me, you will always be the boy from the river.

On every starry night, in every breath.

For me, you will always be River McFarley.

THE END