—Veronica Roth
We can mend each other. So many in my life have played a part in mending me. I take out my phone and send a quick text to Jordan. It’s the one thing I didn’t say that I wish I had.
I love you. You are not nothing to me.
She doesn’t respond, but I see the notification she’s read it. Maybe someday she’ll say the same. Even if she doesn’t, I know I am loved. That I am not nothing. And I never will be again.
Relief washes over me when I see Nikki’s red convertible sitting outside the lobby entrance. I climb inside. Exhale.
“How’d it go?” Nikki asks.
“I don’t know yet.”
“Did you give it to her?”
“I did.”
“And?”
I face my friend. Stare at my empty hands. “We’ll see. But I think I figured out my ending.”
Nikki squeals, then makes a face. “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”
“I thought you hated spoilers.”
“True.” She puts the car into drive and pulls away from the hotel. “But I get dibs as first reader.”
“Promise.” I can’t help but picture a boy with his pinky extended, a Prince who promised he didn’t read my words.
Now that’s all I want him to do.
As we cruise through the city, the lights gazing down like so many stars, I let the scene form in my mind. I’d planned for Coral to die at the end of her story. She was supposed to die. That was her purpose. Her destiny.
Her fate.
But every time I sat down to hash out the chapter, I could never get it quite right.
Now I know why.
Now I know . . . that’s no way to end a fairy tale.
Like a character created by one of my all-time favorite authors—a boy who beat the impossible odds against him—Coral would make it past her intended ending.
She would have an after.
And I would be the girl who lived.
Forty-Nine
Merrick Prince
Merrick pulled his key out of the ignition, sat back, and stared up at the shabby downtown apartment building. The barred windows gave him a feeling of entrapment, though he hadn’t even stepped foot inside.
After all his searching, the trail had finally led him here?
He almost didn’t want to know what waited beyond those brick-and-mortar walls. What did this last chapter matter? The truth might hurt Brooke more.
He turned the engine over again and shifted into reverse. The car idled, ready to take him far away from the finality of this moment. He wasn’t doing this. What good could come of it?
But then his phone conversation from earlier that morning replayed in his mind. Vivi King—aka Mee-Maw—truly did have her fair share of secrets.
“The bracelet was yours all along?” Merrick’s detective work had ended at a custom jewelry store off the coast just north of San Jose. “The shop’s records showed your name on the purchase order.”
“A wedding gift from my late husband,” she said through a light chuckle. “I thought I’d lost it for a time. When it showed up on my oldest granddaughter’s wrist a few months later, I kept my lips sealed. She was so happy with that young street musician the summer she came to stay.”
Mee-Maw told Merrick everything. About the guy River referred to as her “prince.” Though Vivi only knew his alias, it didn’t take long for Merrick to trace his identity through social media based on his description and where he played. Process of elimination did the rest.
Ironic that the man who’d caused so much trouble lived mere miles from the home where Merrick grew up. Big city. Even bigger state.
Small world.
“What about when Brooke started to wear it?” he asked Vivi.
“She grew so attached to it after River passed, I couldn’t bring myself to tell her it was mine. I didn’t have the heart.”
Merrick released a full-voiced exhale as the memory faded. He put the car in park, shut down the engine again, and climbed out. The strong scent of asphalt stung. He tripped over a crack in the sidewalk and cursed. He was on edge and he hadn’t even started. At the top of the stoop he rang the buzzer for apartment B3, then pocketed his hands and waited.
“Yeah?” The man on the intercom sounded as if he’d been sleeping.
Merrick checked his watch. Late afternoon. Either the guy worked a night shift or he was lazy. Merrick was inclined to believe the latter.
“Hey, I’m looking for Andrew ‘The Sandman’ Daniels.” The pearl bracelet in his pocket felt like a weight. He hoped to lift it soon. From Brooke’s shoulders more than from his own.
“It’s Drew. Or Sandman. I answer to both. Who’s asking?”
“My name is Merrick Prince. I’m a friend of River King’s.”
The intercom went silent before a loud ennnt sounded above him. Merrick slipped inside the bar-and-window door, then took the stairs two at a time. When he made it to the correct apartment, Drew stood in the open threshold. The scent of stale air and dried sweat wafted from behind him.
“What do you know about River?” he asked before Merrick could explain. “If she’s pregnant it’s not mine.” He crossed his arms and then one leg over the other. Everything about his stance said this guy had a certain amount of experience with pregnant girls showing up on his doorstep.
Nice. Merrick should have stopped while he was ahead. He still could. Instead, he withdrew the bracelet. Held it up into the harsh, flickering fluorescent light. “Recognize this?”
“Ah, a jealous boyfriend, then?” Drew shrugged a pair of bony shoulders. “Figures she’d go for a rich one. Good for her, man.”
The way he said man rubbed Merrick the wrong way. It was so far from Grim’s casual terms of endearment. Was Drew covertly insulting him?
Merrick glanced down at his retro jacket, ironed shirt, non-distressed jeans, and white sneakers. Did his clothes give away his—his father’s—status? So what if they did? Who was this guy to judge him? Currently, Drew modeled a pair of Santa cat pajama pants. At three o’clock in the afternoon, for crying out loud.
Plenty of insults bombarded his mind and played on the tip of his tongue. This isn’t about clothing or status or who drives what car. This is about River. And Brooke. I’m not leaving until I get to the bottom of this.
“I’m not River’s boyfriend.” Merrick almost said he was dating her sister, but that wasn’t quite true.
For now.
“I’m trying to help her sister find closure,” Merrick started again, trying to figure out where the conversation had gone south.
“Closure?” Drew asked, tone drenched in sarcasm. “It didn’t work out between us. How much more closure does she need?”
It hit Merrick then. Full force.
He doesn’t know.
Merrick cleared his throat and swallowed. “River died.”
Palm to his forehead, Drew slumped against the doorframe. “Oh, wow—” He slid down the frame to a crouch. “When?”
“January before last. She left this bracelet to her sister. Brooke.”
Recognition shone in Drew’s green eyes. Had River mentioned Brooke to him? He rose, pushed his bleached hair off his forehead, and took the bracelet. The way he stared at it made Merrick wonder if the guy was seeing another scene entirely.