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“Beach Buoys!” Alex cries, folding the letter carefully and tucking it back into the envelope. She hugs June again, and it’s a sight sweet enough to make your teeth hurt.
I go back to my bedroom and hang my guitar up on the wall, staring at it for a second. The feeling of the strings against my fingers remains.
Twenty-Five
CASH
I paceback and forth in my room that night. I’ve showered. I’ve tried sleeping this off. It’s like I’ve contracted something, and this is worse than a cold.
I’m fucking wasting away because I can’t have June, and I’m losing my fucking patience with it and myself.
I run my hands through my damp hair, staring at the wall that June and I share. She’s just on the other side of it, doing God knows what. I heard her moving around in there a few minutes ago, and it’s torturing me.
I leave my bedroom and move down the hall to Alex’s room.
She’s fast asleep, an angel with her eyes shut and her hand flung above her head on the pillows. Her night light is on, casting stars across the ceiling and the walls. I lift the covers to her chin, then bend and kiss her on the forehead. She gives a deep satisfied sigh, and I smile.
There. That’s better.
I can think clearly again. Alex is everything to me.
I shut my eyes for a second, leveling my thoughts, and then walk past a pile of laundry Alex should have put in the basket. I step on a piece of paper and frown, glancing down at it.
Cash Taylor.
My full name is scrawled across the front of an envelope, and the letters are in that looping scrawl I recognize intimately.
June’s handwriting.
But what is one of June’s old letters doing here? I’ve kept them in my closet on the highest shelf, where Alex can’t reach them.
I glance back at Alex, but she’s fast asleep, and my daughter knows better than to go through my things. There’s a box of old letters nearby, and I open it, peer inside. They’re all addressed to June. Ah, of course, they were writing a pen pal letter to that kid, Daisy, and using the letters I sent June as an example.
But this one is addressed to me.
I bend and pick up the envelope. It’s still sealed.
But it’s addressed to me, right?
I tear the top of the envelope open and extract the letter. I unfold it.
Dear Cash,
I don’t know if I’ll ever send this letter. It’s probably the dumbest thing I’ve ever done, just writing it, but I have to get the words out on paper.
Tonight, you told me that you’re dating Olivia. I wanted to be happy for you, but I can’t be. I can’t be happy for either of you, and maybe that makes me a bad friend, but I can’t be. I just can’t be.
I’ve been in love with you for as long as I can remember. For as long as I knew what love might be. And now you’re with her, and I can’t even stand the thought of spending time with either of you. I know that’s really selfish, and I’ll never try to do anything.
You chose her. I have to come to terms with that. It’s going to take me some time. I think it might take me forever.
I love you, Cash Taylor.
If only you could have loved me back.
June
My heart has stopped beating.
