Page 99 of Ebbing Tides

He unfolded it, and his eyes moved, scanning the written words, until he found what he was looking for. Then he turned the page to me, tapping his finger on the part he intended for me to read.

It was written in sloppy black handwriting, the chicken scratch barely legible. But I could read it enough.

“… the thing is—and I've told her this—I don't want her to be married to my memory forever. If something happens to me, I want her to move on. I want her to find someone whowill actually be there for my kids. I want her to finally find the man she's always deserved, and you and I both know that's not me. I fucking love her, and for some reason, she loves me, but I am not in a million years who she deserves. He's out there somewhere, and I want her to find him once I'm gone …”

With my heart hammering an out-of-sync tune, I looked up to meet Charlie's gaze. He cleared his throat as he took the letter and folded it up, tucking it safely back into its envelope.

“You'rehim,” he said after a few moments of silence, his voice gruff. “You do know that, right?”

I started to shake my head slowly. “I-I don't—”

“Don't do that, man,” he cut me off. “You don't have to deny shit with me. And I'm not even trying to tell you what to do right now. But I wanted you to see this because Luke would've wanted me to show you.”

With a hard swallow, I answered with a curt nod.

“I should put this away,” he said, beginning to turn with the letter raised. But then he stopped. “Youdolove her … right?”

“How could you tell?” I replied.

He sighed, never lifting his eyes from the letter in his hand. “Because you look at her the same way she looks at you.”

Hope ignited in my chest as my heart took off thumping at the speed of light, yet I could only grunt in response.

“She loved my brother,” he went on, almost as if speaking to himself. “To a fault, she loved him.Sofucking much. But there was … aninnocenceto her love for him, I guess. Like she didn't know better. And it was never meant to last forever—I always knew that.”

As he spoke, I thought about Laura. Oh, how I loved her. How I loved everything we had been, even when we weren't anything at all. But I understood what he was saying. I understood the innocence of a young love that didn't know better, a love that would never let go, even when it should.

“But the way Melanie looks at you …” He sighed, a bit forlorn. “She'swiser. She knows better now. She knows that love is making the choice to watch someone die, to eventually say goodbye … and she wants to do it anyway. Because you're worth it.”

He glanced up at me, his eyes stricken with sadness. “Issheworth it?”

Charlie didn't wait for me to reply as he walked away, heading back down the hall. I turned, my eyes pinned to Luke's grinning image, frozen within the confines of the picture frame.

Then, before Charlie could return, I left his cottage on the hill.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The kids were in the basement by the time I got back to Sid's house. I found my friend with my dog in the living room, both watching something on TV.

My sister was nowhere to be seen.

Perfect.

“Hey, how did it go?” he asked, absent-mindedly running his palm over Lido's head.

I dropped onto the couch beside them. “How did what go?”

“The shit at the funeral home.”

“Grace didn't tell you?”

He sniffed a chuckle and said, “I wanna hear Max's version.”

I bit my lip, keeping my focus on the TV ahead. Some show I didn't recognize was playing. I'd never cared much about TV. Maybe because I never had much time to watch it. Maybe because I'd never been allowed to watch it as a kid. Books. Books were always my thing.

I wondered how Melanie felt about books. Wondered what her favorite was. If maybe she lovedDraculaas much as me.

“I'm not going to the funeral,” I blurted out. “That's my version. I'm not going.”