31
Dylan
N ow
My phone stays silent, an empty screen staring back at me, erasing any trace that the fight with Aaron ever happened. Maybe that’s for the best. As awful as it sounds, I’m relieved. Constantly holding everything in felt like standing on the edge of a cliff, waiting to fall. But now, being here, talking to Brooks, I finally feel like I’m on solid ground.
The salty harbor air caresses against my skin, lifting along my neck, weaving through my hair. I press my shoulders back, push my hands deeper into my pockets, and clench my fingers against the fabric. A useless attempt to keep my hands from shaking. Any minute now, my mother will show up—with Blake. I shift my weight from one foot to the other, restless, my pulse stuttering between panic and excitement. I’m officially meeting my little sister. Only the second time I’ll be seeing her, and yet it feels like I’ve been waiting for this moment forever.
I’m surprised my mother didn’t put up a fight when I asked to see her alone today. No prying, no guilt, just a simple yes. It’s a rare thing, and I’m letting myself appreciate it. This morning, I found myself back in front of the house, like muscle memory had pulled me back there. Blake wasn’t home. She had dance class. Maybe that was for the best—I wasn’t ready to step inside yet. So, I picked somewhere else to meet, somewhere that didn’t come with memories tucked into every corner. I may not know how to hold all this at once, but I do know one thing—right now, Blake is what matters.
A small, nondescript sedan rolls to a stop, its faded blue paint catching the afternoon light. It’s the kind of car you buy when reliability matters more than sentiment. I’d recognize that grip on the steering wheel anywhere—firm, precise, hands at ten and two. Unmistakable. My mother. Even before she stops out, before she moves to help Blake from the back seat, I know. It’s her.
Blake barely pauses before closing the door, and when her gaze lifts, it snags on mine. The resemblance to Beckett is undeniable—like someone copied and pasted his features onto a smaller frame, dark hair just as unruly, storm-colored eyes just as wide and sharp. It’s like looking at a crossroads between timelines, and I’m not sure which one she belongs to.
Mom’s fingers press lighting against the top of Blake’s shoulders, but she doesn’t react. Her focus is on me, her steps confident with an energy that’s almost electric. The anger towards my mother, the resentment—all the things I worried would take up space in this moment—shrink down to nothing. None of it matters. Not right now. Blake is a bridge between what I lost and what I still have, and I want to meet her in the middle.
“Hi, Blake,” I say, the words careful, like setting down something fragile.
The corners of her mouth lift, just barely, like she isn’t sure whether she’s allowed to let her excitement show. She exhales, shifting slightly, her gaze skimming the ground before meeting mine. “Hi, Dylan.” She blurts, as if she’s been holding it in for hours. “I knew who you were the other day when you came by the house.” A pause, then another breath. “I was too nervous to say anything.”
“You did?” I ask, though I’d already guessed as much from what Chloe told me.
She squints up at me, her curls brushing her cheeks. “I’ve seen pictures,” she begins, like she’s just let me in on the best secret in the world. “Of you and Beckett. There’s a whole box of them in the closet. Some are kind of old and crinkly, but I liked looking at them. Mom told me about you, too.” She nudges a pebble with her toe as she speaks, like the ground is part of the conversation. “I used to pretend when I was younger I had a big sister. Like, if I wished hard enough, maybe you’d just show up one day. And now you’re here.” She pauses, glancing up at me again. “It worked!”
Her words land somewhere deep, in a place I didn’t realize was still tender. I sink to one knee, meeting her eyes, hoping she can see everything I don’t know how to say yet. “Would a hug be okay?”
Her answer is immediate—she steps forward, arms looping around me like she’s done it a thousand times before and this isn’t only our second meeting, but it’s something we’ve always known how to do. She holds on tighter than I expect, her small fingers clutching the back of my shirt. I close my eyes, letting the moment settle, letting it stitch up something I thought would always stay broken. Tears gather at the edges of my vision, but they’re not from loss. They’re from the hope that maybe life isn’t too far gone to find my way back.
Blake and I spent the whole day together. We wandered, letting conversations take us wherever they wanted. Mini-golf was ridiculous. I was even worse than I thought, but Blake hyped me up like I was some kind of olympian.
It was a chaotic mess of me losing every ball and her laughing so hard she had to clutch her stomach. I let myself enjoy it. And honestly? It might have been the best game I ever played. There were moments I could almost pretend Beckett was right there, that I could turn my head and see him beside me. It’s strange, the way grief begins to shift without warning. I’ve been carrying it around like a heavy coat, something I can’t take off. But as I listen to her talk—about dancing, her friends, the future that stretches out ahead of her like an open road—it occurs to me that Beckett never really left. He’s still here, in her, in me, in all the places I forgot to look.
Every little thing she shares, things she might not think twice about, feels like something I’ve been waiting to hear. I don’t care if it’s mundane, if it’s about the way she hates tomatoes or how she always loses her socks. It all matters. She matters. And with her here, things don’t feel so empty anymore.
Before she left, she held on a little longer than I expected, like she was afraid we’d slip away from each other the second she let go. I didn’t want the day to be over. Or let go of this feeling that things might be okay. I considered talking to Mom, but when the moment arrived, I let silence win. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe never. I don’t know.
She let it be, and I held onto it like a fragile truce. I’ll always remember what happened, but some conversations don’t need an audience. She seems changed—I hope it’s real. Blake doesn’t need to carry what I did. She gets to have the mom who tries, and I’m still figuring out how to make peace with that.
The cab eases to a stop outside The Drift, and I tell the driver to keep the meter running. My steps quicken as I head inside, straight to my room. The letter is right where I left it, waiting. As soon my fingers graze the envelope, my ribs tense, like a violin string drawn too tight. I let out a slow breath.
It’s time.
The cemetery gates blur past the windows, and before I know it, the drive is over before I have time to prepare. The driver eases the car to the side of the road without needing instruction. I pay him without looking back and step onto the grass. The sun is slanting low behind me, gilding the headstones with its final light. When I kneel beside Beckett’s name, I trace the ridges of the letters, as if the touch alone could bridge the space between us now. He’s not here, not really. But I can still feel him.
I used to think I had all the time in the world to say what mattered. But time is ruthless, slipping through cracks and closing doors before you even realize it’s happening. Now, all I have is this letter, Beckett’s words frozen in ink from a life that should have stretched so much further.
“Hey KitKat,” I murmur, my heart heavy as I speak. “I don’t know where you are, if you’re watching, if you even care. But I miss you. That much, I know.” I press my palm against the cool stone, my throat tightening. “You’d be rolling your eyes at me right now, telling me I should’ve come sooner. And yeah, you’d be right. I should have. But I wasn’t ready.” I swallow hard, staring down at the letter. “I think I am now. Or at least, I want to be. But before I can move forward, there’s something I have to say.”
The pressure behind my eyes builds, but I refuse to let it take over. “I’m sorry.” The words are bitter in my mouth, too little, too late. “I should have told you when it mattered, when you were standing right in front of me instead of buried under six feet of dirt. But I didn’t, and I hate myself for it.” My breath shudders. “You were brilliant, Beckett. You were everything. And I wasted time being angry when I should’ve just said I was proud of you. I’m still proud of you.”
I slam my eyes shut, but it does nothing to hold back the flood. The grief boils over, the self loathing twists deep, and then—then I’m crumbling, shaking, the tears tearing their way free.
“You were fearless. Or at least, that’s what it looked like from where I was standing. Every dream you had, you just reached for it and somehow, the universe made room for you. But me? I spent my whole life feeling like I had to ask permission just to exist. But when I found out you kept your scholarship from me, it was more than just a secret. It was proof that you saw it too—the gap between us, the way my world was so much smaller than yours.” Tilting my head back, I blink hard, willing the tears to ease. “That crushed me more than the secret ever could. You never really knew how much I wanted the world for you.”
Wind stirs the grass around me, dragging against the earth in a way that feels almost impatient. The sky bruises with the retreating sun, streaks of deep purple and orange stretching wide, the world feels too open, like it’s waiting for me to finish.
“I should have been there that night. I told myself I needed space, that there’d be time to fix things—but there wasn’t. Tomorrow never came for you.” I press my palm to my sternum, like I can keep my insides from spilling out. “And now, I’d give anything to go back, to find you by the fire, and tell you what mattered most.” My throat cinches around the words I’d give anything for him to actually hear. “I love you, Beckett.”
My lips press together as I smooth out his letter, the words settling into the space grief carved out a long time ago. For a second, he’s here—not in body, not even in voice, but in the rhythm of his handwriting. Each sentence sinks deeper than the last, pressing into me like footprints left in wet cement.
When I reach the end, my eyes catch on his signature. My thumb dragging over the slant of each letter, half expecting it to smear beneath my touch, to react in some way—to acknowledge me. But the ink stays. The silence stays. And for the first time, I let myself stay with it.