Page 55 of The Same Backward as Forward

Why hide, I thought, feeling like the sky was crashing down on me, like my body was folding in on itself until I couldn’t breathe,when you can run?

Toby Hawthorne excelled at running, and deep inside, Iknew, the way I knew his body and his scars and the way he smelled, that I wasn’t going to find him. Iknewthat he wasn’t coming back, knew it the way I knew how he felt through the darkness and what I looked like through his eyes.

I knew it the way Iknewthat we could have had something beautiful, if he’d let us.

I went back to Jackson’s, and I read the whole damn letter, cursing Tobias Hawthorne the Second with every breath, aching for him like my body might neverstopaching for him. He openedby begging me not to hate him—not for leaving, at least. If I was going to hate him, he wanted it to be for the right reasons.

You can tell me over and over again that I never would have struck the match. You can believe that. On good days, maybe I will, too. But three people are still dead because of me.

I breathed through the pain, the way he had, back when his world had been fire and I’d hated him with everything I had.

I breathed through the pain, knowing that I couldn’t hate him anymore, not even when I read the words:I can’t stay here. I can’t stay with you.

He could have. Hecouldhave stayed.

I couldn’t stop reading.

I don’t deserve to. I won’t go home, either. I won’t let my father pretend this away.

Most of the rest of the letter was spent warning me that his fatherwouldcome, that eventually, the billionaire with his many fixers would figure out that his son had survived. Toby didn’t want me in Rockaway Watch when that happened. He wanted me to leave, just like we’d planned.

But alone.

Change your name. Start anew. You love fairy tales, I know, but I can’t be your happily ever after. We can’t stay here in our little castle forever. You have to find a new castle. You have to move on. You have to live, for me.

He wasn’t playing fair—not when I’d told him about the promiseIhad made, not when he knew that I had to keep living and keep dancing and keep feeling, no matter what.

If you ever need anything, go to Jackson.

My jaw hardened when I read that part, because I was pretty damn sure it meant thathehad gone to Jackson on his way out. The next words confirmed it for me.

You know what the circle is worth. You know why. You know everything.

It was just like the boy who loved codes to use the vague descriptor—the circle. Let anyone who read this letter eventryto figure out what that meant. But it was the next sentence that stole my breath:

You might be the only person on this planet who knows the real me.

I knew that he loved puzzles and riddles and games and being a pain in my ass. I knew that he was the kind of person who, when you asked how his pain was, answeredirrelevant. He was an artist. He was brilliant. He washungry. He was gentle. And he never missed picking up on a damn thing, especially when it involved me. He played three-dimensional checkers and quoted poetry, and I wasn’t even sure he knew what a person could actually buy at a grocery store, other than bourbon and lemons. He loved palindromes.

He loved me.

I forced myself to read the last two lines of the letter:

Hate me, if you can, for all the reasons I deserve it. But don’t hate me for leaving while you sleep. I knew you wouldn’t let me go, and I cannot bear to say good-bye.

He’d signed itHarry.

There were no words for what I felt, reading that signature, thinking of him. My insides felt hollow, like a black hole. I couldn’t even remember how to breathe.

But suddenly, there were arms around me.Jackson.

“Youlethim go.” I pushed against the fisherman, hard, but he held tight to me. That crusty, cranky, gun-toting recluse held me until the dam inside me gave. I clung to him then—the closest thing I had in this world to a friend.

“Some people are like the ocean, little Hannah,” Jackson told me, his voice as gruff as ever. “You can’t let or not let them do a damn thing.”

“Like the ocean,” I repeated. I thought back to what he’d said about Death and made an educated guess. “A real bitch?”

“A force.”