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“What am I going to do?” I said again.
My big brother gentled his face and gently gripped my shoulders. For just a moment, he looked like the old Parker with his eyes fixed on mine. “I’ll tell you what you’re going to do. You’re going to let your family take care of you. That’s what we’re here for.”
The hurt in my heart broke open into something sharper, something unnamed that I felt down to my toes. The grief of so many different things was too big to fit into my skin, and I felt it like a tear through my bones. “That sounds like something Dad would’ve said,” I said in a trembling voice.
In the next heartbeat, Parker had me wrapped tight in his arms, and while my brother held me, I let myself cry.
Chapter 10
Jax
Three months later
“This is stupid. Do I have to do this?”
My table companion was remarkably unfazed. She sipped her coffee, eyes trailing over the courtyard thick with tourists. Some, like us, had finished their pilgrimage and had the unkempt look to prove it.
“You do,” she said calmly, her English accent familiar and kind. “You turn your mobile on yet?” she asked.
I shook my head. “I already told you, not until I land Stateside.”
Margot eyed me over the rim of her cup of coffee. “How the bloody hell does your boss let you do things like this and not sacked you yet?”
Steadily, I held her gaze.
She blew a raspberry. “Now he stops talking,” she muttered. “You’re full of secrets, young man, and it’s not nice to keep secrets from your nosy friends.”
I’d done so much of this trip alone, but in the past few weeks, I’d linked up with her and her husband, there to complete their own journey after losing their son. We walkedtogether for twenty-four days, taking two rest days in a small town with open rooms, taking turns washing our socks, resting our legs and stopping to listen to choirs singing in beautiful old church buildings. Cobbled pathways and bridges and mile after mile at the end went much easier with their steady companionship.
In front of me was a piece of paper she’d conjured from her backpack, stacked on top of the certificate saying I’d completed the arduous trek. Never in my life had I felt the twinge of every single muscle in my body like I had in the past few months.
It wasn’t even pushing past the physical discomfort. It was the feeling of being completely disconnected from anything familiar. And through that tiredness, through the isolation, I was craving home for the first time in my life. Craving familiar.
The pen in my hand felt like an anchor though, and I pressed the tip down onto the paper, then yanked it back. “I don’t … I don’t know what to say.”
Margot made a small humming noise, waving at two little girls playing in front of our table. They raced in circles around their parents, giggling at the birds as they chased them. Behind them, the spires of the Santiago Cathedral stretched tall, the blue sky behind them a stark backdrop for the age-blackened edges.
“Robby wrote a letter to himself,” she said, nodding her head to where her husband was wandering in front of the church, camera against his face and aimed at the peak of the impressive building. “A reminder of how he felt being at the end of this.”
I sighed, watching her face as she talked. They were in their sixties, and kept impressive pace along the walk for their age. Some days, she was the one who kept me moving on target, if I was being honest.
“And yours?” I asked.
She smiled, her eyes misting over slightly. “I wrote a letter to our son. Telling him about our trip. What he would’ve liked. How I wish it could’ve been him accomplishing this marvelous thing like he’d always planned.” Margot blinked rapidly, the tears disappearing like they’d never been there, then she patted my hand absently. “Write what’s on your heart, dear. If you want to remember what you feel like right now. Or maybe something you know needs to be said, even if that person might never see it.”
Just like it had every day I woke with the sun on this trip—every single day—her name was the thing that materialized in my head. Just a whisper. A reminder.
What did I feel right now?
I felt haunted.
Felt like I couldn’t tear her from my chest even though the thought of seeing her again sent a dizzying sort of anxiety racing down my spine. Years of avoiding Poppy, years of lying to myself that she was nothing, and I had to face the truth that I couldn’t escape her. Going halfway across the world and pushing myself to every physical and mental limit in existence, and she was still there—locked deep in a corner of my ribs that I couldn’t pry open.
If I pinched my eyes shut, I’d see her wrapped in a blanket, playing checkers, choking on her whiskey, and the soft, patient look in her eye when she kissed me on the cheek and walked out the door.
Iwantedto tear her loose. I wanted this feeling gone. Because no matter what I felt right now, I still knew I wasn’t built to make someone like her happy.
“That girl,” Margot continued quietly, eyes still on her husband. “The one you told us about. You could write to her.”
