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“And yet, we lied to my daddy,” I whisper.
“He was distraught. I couldn’t allow you to get into trouble. That one is on me. I’ll take the blame if needed.”
“Why didn’t she tell us she was leaving? Why didn’t she wait for us?”
“Because she’s Brooke. She was giving us time. She knew we wouldn’t have let her leave without us.”
I close my eyes. “I don’t know what to do from here. Everything seems wrong. Sitting at the table for a bowl of cereal.Talking on the phone, watching TV, anything she’s not here to do with me seems so wrong.”
“One of the last things your sister told me was ‘Live, love, be happy. We only live this life once.’ We should do that for her,” he says, causing me to open my eyes.
It’s there in his blue gaze. He’s going to say something to change both our lives forever. Something that my sister would have suggested. I can feel it.
“Do what?”
“Go to Paris. I already looked into it. Daddy said he’ll take care of everything. You can take her place on the trip. Well, not take her place… I… I was thinking.
“Brooke spent the last year planning this trip. She wanted to do this so bad. I have to go. I have to see those places for her. I just thought… well, I was thinking you’d want to do it with me.”
“I can’t. It was her trip,” I say softly.
“I think she would want us to go. Think about it. We could do this in her memory. Go to all the places she wanted to see. Experience it all. Maybe leave pieces of her there. You know. Like those bracelets she used to make for us.” He gives a sad smile.
He continues. “I still have those. I can bring a few to… well, we can figure that out as we go. I want to do this for her. I just thought it would be… right if we do it together.”
I draw my brows. I don’t know. It sounds so like Brooke. Wanting to make her mark on the world. This trip meant everything to her. Her room is filled with maps and an itinerary for the trip. At night, I’ve been reading her journals to feel closer to her.
Brooke made Paris sound like this magical place that would help her find herself. However, everyone who knew Brooke knew she could romanticize anything.
Yet, something in my heart begins to open to the idea. Maybe I can find myself there. The music has stopped. I haven’t written a single lyric or note since the morning before I lost my sister.
“You think my mama and daddy will let me go? They didn’t want me to go before… they really won’t want me to go now.”
“Leave that to me. I’ll talk to them. If you’ll go, I’ll make it all happen.”
“For her. I’ll go for her, but we have to stick to her plan. I want to do everything she wanted.”
“That’s the plan, darlin’. Right down to the baguettes, chocolatier, and the perfumers.”
I give a tear-filled smile. Brooke wanted to create her own scent and name it Pook de Cakes. My lips tremble as I give a small laugh at that.
“Let’s do it. For Pook,” I say.
“For Pook.”
Trevor
“You really thinkthis is a good idea?”
Tom stares at me like I’m crazy. I think I might be. Losing Brooke has left me raw inside, but the thought of losing Lynn, too, has left me hollow.
I lean back in my saddle and let my mind wander for a bit. Nothing makes sense anymore. I thought I needed answers before. I need them more than ever now.
“This trip was the only thing I could think of to get her to stop avoiding me,” I murmur and reach for my hat to lift it and push a hand through my hair before running my forearm across my brow.
Brooke wouldn’t have wanted us to break up over this. Well, can we even call it breaking up? We were just getting started.
It took everything in me not to kiss her trembling lips this morning as I sat on her bed holding her. She was gorgeous even with her tearstained cheeks and wild hair from not doing a thing with it for days.
