Maybe there was still a chance she would.
“Thanks.” Merrick side-hugged his sister and moved to the stairs. He paused at the bottom step. “Hey, Amaya Hope?”
“Yes, Merrick Noah?”
“I’m sorry. For everything.”
She held up a hand. “I can see where this is going, and let me stop you right there, big brother.” She plopped back onto the couch and pulled a blanket over her legs. “You messed up, but you don’t get to take the blame for my illness. You don’t get to own something that belongs to me. That’s stealing.” She winked. Her eyes sparkled, but a sadness remained. A memory of something that pained her.
He saw past her walls now. Had learned to look beyond. “You okay?”
“I’m trying to be.” She shrugged. “Some days are better than others.”
“I’m here if you need me.”
“I know.” She gazed out the window, closing her eyes as she rested her head on her bent knees. As much energy as she tried to exert, Amaya was tired. If they let her sleep all day, she would.
When Merrick reached her room, he found the corked bottles in green and blue sea glass lined up along three shelves above her dresser. He grabbed a blue bottle and headed to his room, where he retrieved paper and a pen.
He sat on the bed he no longer slept in and wrote. He wrote because this was her language.
Brooke may not believe in fate.
But eventually, Merrick would help her see the light.
It was dark by the time he pulled up alongside the curb before the glammed-up storefront. He paid the parking meter and leaned against his car, not quite ready to go inside. It had been a year since he’d sent that bottled message out to sea. If not for his sister, he never would have had the courage to see the rest of his plan through.
“Miss you, Maya.”
A breeze picked up, lifting the collar of his shirt. It was stupid. Silly. But every time he spoke to his sister as if she were here, Merrick wondered if she could hear him.
And if she could hear him? She’d tell him to get his rear inside and fulfill the promise he’d made.
“I’m going. I’m going.” He pressed two fingers to his lips and blew a kiss to the wind before he shoved off his car and headed through the glass doors.
Forty-Eight
Brooke
“You got this?” Nikki looks past me through the passenger-side window. “I can come in.”
I follow her gaze to the lobby entrance of the four-star San Francisco hotel. Inhale. Clutch my twine-bound manuscript more tightly in my arms, hugging it to my chest. Me and these words. These words and me.
So many times I’ve pressed the work of another author against my heart. Wishing they could change me. Mold me into another character. Shape me into the best version of myself.
But these pages. These thoughts and emotions and memories . . . They have changed me. More than any Hobbit’s journey or child’s venture through a wardrobe.
Because they are mine. This is my story. And I’m finally ready to share it.
“This is something I have to do on my own,” I say, allowing emotion into my eyes and voice. Not so afraid to let it show anymore. “Thanks, Nikki. For driving me. For everything.”
“You’re a Berkeley girl now. We’ve got to stick together.” She winks. “Speaking of sticking together, Nigel says a certain Prince never stops talking about you.”
I blush and clutch the pages even tighter. I haven’t seen Merrick in over a month. Not since that day at the tea shop when I let him view River’s suicide through my eyes. Since I trusted him to hold on to the pearl bracelet I desperately want back. We’ve texted. Liked one another’s posts on social media. Now it’s mid-October and we haven’t once hinted at meeting up again. I can’t decide if he’s just being nice, or if both of us are too afraid to make the first—or second—leap.
“He keeps asking me if I’ve read anything good lately,” I tell Nikki.
“Oh?” Her dark, perfectly shaped eyebrows arch. “And have you?”
I eye her. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”
She looks up at the low convertible ceiling and bats her curled eyelashes. “I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about, girl.”
I slap her arm playfully. Nikki feels more like a sister to me after two months than my own sister Jordan feels after seventeen years.
“I’m not saying anything.” Nikki focuses on her phone and taps the screen until she pulls up her favorite podcast. “But I will tell you that there may or may not be something you’re missing.”
“As in . . . ?”
“You know, for a college girl who’s written almost an entire novel, you’d think you’d catch on to things more quickly.”
My jaw goes slack and I slap her arm again. “Nikki! What do you know?”
She shrugs and clips her phone into the holder beside the stereo. When the podcast host’s voice plays through the Bluetooth speakers, she unlocks the doors with a click. “I’ve said too much.”
I groan and gaze toward the brightly lit hotel lobby.
“Have you written an ending?” Nikki touches my arm. She knows me so well already. I love her for it.
“I can’t.” I think of River. How I believed her death over a year and a half ago was the last page. “The novel reads like a fairy tale but feels closer to a tragedy. I don’t know how to end it on the right note.”
“You’ll figure it out.” Nikki turns down the volume. “Personally, I vote for a happily ever after with the most romantic kiss ever. One where the girl runs into her beau’s arms. The music swells and everyone watching can’t help but tear up a little.”
I can’t tell if she’s talking fiction or real life now. “Sounds like a fairy tale.”
“And who says fairy tales can’t come true?”
“Maybe you should write the last scene,” I say, and I almost mean it. “You have way more experience in that department than I do.” My cheeks burn hotter. My heart beats a little faster with thoughts of summer nights and lanterns and kisses beneath the stars.
Now it’s Nikki’s turn to blush. “Nigel is definitely a much better kisser than I imagined. Of course, he’s had an excellent teacher.” She palms her chest lightly and tilts her chin. Her confidence is both intimidating and inspiring. Never arrogant. More . . . secure. She knows who she is and nobody can make her change.
I want to be Nikki when I grow up.
“Maybe your happy ending scene is closer than you think.”
Again, I have no idea if she’s speaking of my book or something else that warms my core and lightens my head.
When at last I step out onto the curb, I slip my manuscript inside my tote bag and adjust my focus. The October evening air is perfect. Welcoming.
I wish I didn’t have to go inside.
But I have to do this. It’s what my—our—oldest sister would have wanted.
I enter the lobby and ask a woman at the front desk for directions to the event space where the concert will be held. She pulls out a map and a highlighter, marks an X where we stand, and circles a set of elevators.
“The north elevators take you to the even-numbered floors. You’ll take those to the fifty-second floor. There you’ll see a new set of elevators that grant access to the roof, where the amphitheater sits. You’ll need a room key to gain access to that floor, hon.”