Epilogue
ZOE
The last night of each of our trips was always the same: a round of drinks, recapping our favorite moments, and negotiating where we’d go on our next trip. Anna went for glitz: Napa, Aspen, Santorini. Holly was all about culture: Paris. I was the adventure seeker: Cabo, Montana.
We’d each write our idea onto a piece of paper and put them in a bowl, mix, and then ask our waiter or waitress to pull one out.
I often, over the years following that last trip to Santorini, wondered why I didn’t listen to my gut that last night in Aspen.
Anna had already had two of her ideas, I’d had two.
The next trip should have been Holly’s. When Anna’s suggestion of Santorini was the winning ticket, I’d had a moment of doubt, especially seeing the flash of disappointment on Holly’s face.
But Greece. I’d always wanted to go. And I knew Anna would organize something spectacular because it’s what Anna did.
That last night in Aspen, my slip of paper read “African safari.” Holly had suggested London.
How different would the last six years have been if we’d gone to London instead of Greece?
It was a risk forcing them to take this epic journey together after years of not talking to each other.
Holly’s stubbornness could have easily sent my plans down a dead end.
And Anna’s impulsiveness could have just as easily derailed the entire trip.
But I had a secret weapon: Me. They would both move mountains for me.
I asked so much of them. I kept so much hidden: my childhood battle with this disease, Ava, the guilt that nearly swallowed me whole before they found me in that hallway.
I’d told myself the secrets were to protect them, but really, I was protecting myself.
Afraid that if they knew how broken I’d been, how borrowed my time always was, they’d look at me differently. Treat me like glass.
What I couldn’t tell them in my letters—what I could only hope for—was how deeply I believed in their future together.
Holly, learning to loosen her grip on the life she thought she’d have and embrace the one she’s been given.
Jack and Quinn are her world, yes. But she’s allowed herself to have a world beyond them now.
To need something just for her. That’s no small thing for Holly.
And Anna. My beautiful, impulsive, secretly terrified Anna.
She spent so long performing the version of herself everyone expected—carefree, commitment-averse, too glamorous to need anything as ordinary as stability—that she almost believed it herself.
But I saw the way she looked at Leo when she thought no one was watching.
The way her whole body softened around him.
I never told her I knew. I was too sick by then, and I was afraid if I pushed, she’d push back harder. Anna’s always been better at running from love than toward it. So I planted seeds in my letters instead. Let her think she figured it out herself.
She did.
I think about that dream I described to them. The picnic with the green grass and the sailboats, Jack and Leo, the children running circles around them. Anna’s daughters. I believe in that dream the same way I believed our friendship could survive anything. It wasn’t a prediction. It was a prayer.
Leo will take care of her, and she’ll take care of him. He’s been carrying the weight of our family’s grief for so long. First Ava, then me. Anna will remind him that he’s allowed to be happy. That loving someone isn’t the same as losing them.
Holly will be there for both of them. The steady hand. The voice of reason disguised as someone who worries too much. And Anna and Jack will be there for Holly, reminding her to loosen her grip, and let her hair down from time to time.
So I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me that the first trip the two of them plan is an African safari. My original dream, the one that never got pulled from the bowl. It’s fitting, somehow, that they’re the ones who finally get to take it.
And though it’s an itinerary for two now, it will always be the three of us.
* * *
If you loved jetting around with Holly and Anna in The Wish List Trip, be sure to check out Kerry Lonsdale’s Everything We Found—a heart-pounding and suspenseful romance full of longing, heat and a second chance at love against the odds…
Get it here or keep reading for an exclusive extract!