109. Chapter 109
It was all for the money.
He doesn’t want you.
If she repeated Graham’s words and didn’t think too hard about Jase’s face or the voicemail she hadn’t listened to—couldn’t listen to, even if she wanted to, which she didn’t—the decision to leave was easy.
It was all for the money.
Clever Jason Young knew his sons wouldn’t survive cooped up in a car together for weeks for anything less than a fortune waiting at the finish line. And his clever sons knew exactly how much—and how little—to give her to keep Lindsey hanging on until the very last mile.
He doesn’t want you.
From the passenger seat, Lindsey used Helen’s phone to book a flight on the drive to the airport.
No bus stations and interminably long rides today.
Just a straight shot home. She paid extra for first class, because today was not the day to get stuck in the back of a plane in a middle seat, and PreCheck, because she needed to get through TSA fast.
They would just make it. No time to mill around the terminal hoping for Jase to come riding up on a chrome horse to stop her. No time to change her mind.
He doesn’t want you, she reminded herself every few seconds when the memory of tangling naked for hours last night stirred her skirt, or her thumb almost swiped her broken phone screen to try to access Jase’s message.
The ride out of Santa Cruz through the forests and hills of Northern California would’ve been beautiful on the bike.
She hated herself for the kinds of thoughts that never would’ve crossed her mind a few weeks ago. The woman who would be back in Ohio tonight was no longer the woman she was when she left, who didn’t know how much she didn’t know about falling in love with the wrong man.
Twenty minutes from the airport, according to the directions on Helen’s phone, Lindsey remembered the promise of a finale she’d forgotten about until now.
Somehow, she didn’t think watching his sons beat each other to a pulp in a storage unit was the ending he’d had in mind.
Even Jason, it seemed, couldn’t control everything.
Lindsey shifted in her seat, accidentally kicking the gilded box of Jason’s handwritten letters and remnants of broken seals. She picked it up and opened it, the wrinkled map to the storage unit on the top of the pile.
You’re going to want to quit, Jason had said with his dying breaths. Don’t.
She understood why Graham was pissed. All those miles, and for what? No other Polaroids or instructions, just a package Lindsey would never open. She closed the lid of the map box and lifted it to set it back on the floor.
An unopened envelope fell into her lap. She turned the box over and found a false bottom they’d missed. If there was ever any doubt about Jason’s intentions for Austin, the proof had been hidden inside. The envelope, sealed before his death, was addressed to Graham and Helen.
“You missed one,” Lindsey said, holding up the envelope.
Helen seemed reluctant to take it. “What is it?”
“An alternate ending, I guess.”
There was no letter addressed to Jase and Lindsey, which said more than any cryptic message from a ghost. She closed her eyes, hiding her tears behind the huge sunglasses she’d bought for the funeral, and begged Jason to release her.
At San Francisco International, Helen pulled up to the terminal and Lindsey fished her suitcase from the back of the station wagon.
She’d been living on the bare necessities that fit in the saddlebag of Jase’s bike for the past few days and felt suddenly encumbered by the clunky luggage she didn’t really need.
“Thanks for the ride,” Lindsey said.
“No problem.” Helen bit her lip. “I’m sorry, for everything.”
“Me too,” Lindsey said, surprised she meant it.
“Are you going to talk to him?”
“Jase?”
Helen nodded.
Lindsey looked behind her for a bike that wasn’t coming and shook her head. “What will you do now?”
“I guess I’ll have to give the car back to the assholes.”
Lindsey laughed at this side of Helen. In another life they might’ve been friends. Her smile faded, realizing that in this life, Helen’s love story wasn’t over—and she would get to see Jase at least one more time.
“I really am sorry,” Helen said. “I’m not usually such a bitch. I thought Graham was still in love with you.”
“He couldn’t love me,” Lindsey said. “There were always three of us in our relationship, I just didn’t know it.”
Helen leaned in for an unexpected hug. “Take care of yourself, okay?”
“You too.”
Jason’s final plea stopped Lindsey at the curb.
When things are at their worst, promise me you won’t give up.
She paused just long enough to close the book on the Young men forever.
I’m sorry, Jason, but they already gave up on me.