Page 77 of After All The Wreckage

He shook his head and opened his eyes. After peering down the hall, he lowered his voice. “But it reminds me. Something weird happened last night when the vision came to me again. Something I’ve never had happen before.”

Dread filled me.

“What happened?” Rory prompted.

“The vision… It… I guess I’d say it flickered. Like one moment it was the same as I saw before with Dunn getting shot and falling. Just like the night before, Demi was in it. But one time she was falling with him… and the next, it was like she was across the room and it was just him falling. And then it was right back to them falling together.”

I found it hard to breathe. What the hell did it mean? His visions never faltered. They always expanded, adding details and dimensions, but they never differed from how they started. It was Rory who expressed the inkling of hope I was feeling.

“Maybe this means we’ve already started to change what happens.”

Monte’s gaze flew from me to her and back. “Do you think?”

I nodded, and he looked so relieved, so full of optimism, that it was almost painful. Because what if we couldn’t change it? What if Demi and Dunn still fell in a pile of blood? Was a shred of hope better than being prepared for the worst? I didn’t know.

Ivy came back into the room, and we let the conversation drop. Instead, we talked about Scooby and the gang while we ate.

“What show do you like?” Ivy asked Rory.

“Veronica Mars,” she said without a single second of hesitation, and I couldn’t help but smile.

“Please tell me you’ve watched at least a few different shows in the last decade.”

She scoffed. “Yes. But you can’t dislodge a cult classic from its place at the top of the pyramid. Besides, how would you even know how awesome it is or isn’t? Because last I’d checked, you’d never watched more than the single movie you took Shay and me to.”

“Things change,” I tossed back.

“Wait.” Her eyes widened. “You actually watched it?”

I shrugged. “Someone I know gave me the first three seasons on DVD.”

“Gage Palmer! You watched and didn’t even tell me?” The look of incredulity on her face was priceless. “I have so many things to discuss with you! Have you seen the last season too?”

I hadn’t watched the series until after we’d moved into the apartment. When we’d been boxing up the basement at the Victorian, I’d found the collection among the other piles of DVDs. I’d almost tossed it into the donation pile with the rest, but something had stopped me.

Maybe it was the note stuck to it telling me I couldn’t deprive myself of the greatest show on earth in Rory’s tiny print, or maybe it was the memory of a girl screaming into the lightning on my bike. Either way, I’d wondered what would make someone as fierce as she’d been go head over heels for a show.

So, I’d watched it late at night when I’d been unable to wind down after closing the bar. I wouldn’t go as far as Rory and say it was the best show on earth, but it was addictive. Like popcorn and Reese’s Pieces. Like her.

“Yes, I even watched the last season. I almost wished I hadn’t,” I told her because it had been painful in ways I hadn’t liked. I’d wondered what Rory thought about the final damage the writers had given her heroine. Wondered how many people were living through wreckage and loss like me and my siblings—and Rory herself.

“Can I watch it?” Ivy asked.

“No.” I shook my head. “It’s a grown-up show.”

Ivy pouted. “I’m going to be fouwa.”

“Four’s a pretty cool number,” Rory told her. “One of my favorites.”

I looked up at her in surprise because four had always been my favorite as well. It had been my jersey number on the high school basketball team. “It is?”

She flushed in a decidedly un-Rory-like way and looked down at her plate, and I realized she’d picked that number because of me. Mixed emotions flew through me again.

I wanted to know what else of mine had left a lasting mark on her, and yet it was also a reminder of the difference in our ages. How young she’d been when she’d first looked at me with a tween crush. In our twenties, the gap seemed to have closed, but we were still five years apart. She was finishing college, and I was basically a dad with a business to run. Our lives were still miles apart.

But the thought of letting her drift out of my life felt wrong. More wrong than even the ending of her favorite show had been. Rory had always wanted to be Veronica, but it was the last thing I wanted for her because who would want someone they cared about—someone they loved—to go through life with the kind of wounds that forced you to keep a wall between you and everyone else around you? To pretend to be fine when really you were crumbling? A marshmallow melting in an open flame.

I didn’t want that for anyone in my life.