Page 117 of Between Hello and Goodbye

Except this time, I did.Thisgoodbye, I could control. Another task that needed to be handled.

The grief in me was like a volcano that had not yet erupted. Tectonic plates of pressurized strain that hadn’t yet slipped. Worse, when I looked at Faith there was a storm of anger and guilt and resentment that wasn’t fair to her but was there anyway. And it all boiled down to that one sentence. That one unrelenting fact.

I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there.

I wasn’t there because I’d been with her.

Her soft touch fell on my shoulder. “Asher? It’s time to leave for the marina.”

The day had come, but I was not going to put my brother in the ocean. Not today. I’d made a decision. Why was everyone in such a fucking hurry? Funerals and memorials only days after the fact? As if everyone were eager to be done being sad and get back to their lives.Theyhad that option. Some of us didn’t. I was going to keep Morgan a little longer.

But not Faith. I had to let her go.

I couldn’t bring Kal to Seattle, away from his home after he’d lost everything. He’d lost more than any of us. And Faith couldn’t be with me. Not here. She might try to make a go of it for my sake, but I couldn’t take her away from the life she loved and strand her in the wreckage of mine. She didn’t have to make that choice. I could do that for her, at least, when I’d failed everywhere else. I failed in my duty. Took my foot off the gas. Relinquished control. The alarm had gone off and I was across an ocean and hadn’t heard it.

They said there’s nothing I could have done, but I’ll never know.

Because I wasn’t there.

I looked up at Faith, her eyes were red and puffy from crying but still so beautiful and full of love for me. My vision blurred but I couldn’t cry or I’d fucking splinter in a million pieces. I reached up and touched her hand that was on my shoulder, feeling her skin for the last time, holding it.

Then I let go.