Page 162 of Catch the Sun

With my throat in knots, I stare at him as he stands from the stoop and sends me a small nod.

“My real name’s Eli, by the way.” Walking backward, he raises his beer bottle with a wink. “Don’t tell anybody.”

I smile through the tears, a silent thank-you, and watch as he heads back to his house and gets to work on an old RV sitting idle in the front yard.

As I puff on my cigarette, Ella trickles through my mind like a sunbeam forcing its way through gray clouds.

I told her I needed space.

My brother is gone, but so is hers. My world is rocked, but she’s in the same boat, getting tossed and thrown among tumultuous waves. We’re both victims, both drowning in the shadows, both trying to find the light.

It’s hard to think about what she went through that night with my brother. The secret she clung to. The pain she guarded and kept from me as a way of keepingmesafe and protected from that same pain. Her spirit was so broken, and I had no idea why.

Never in a million years would I think it was my own flesh and blood who tore her down and rendered her paralyzed.

I’ll never say McKay got what he deserved when Jonah put a bullet in his chest—I can’t. Forgiveness is a complicated beast, but love has a way of lingering, despite it all. I can’t think of the heinous acts he committed without thinking of the sweet, happier moments, too. I’m certain Ella feels the same way about her own brother.

Light and darkness. Yin and yang. Sun and moon.

They coexist.

But I do know what Ella deserves, and it’s not this. It’s not my radio silenceor cold shoulder. She needs my light, my warmth, more than ever.

Chevy is right. She’s my light and I’m hers.

My sweet Sunny Girl.

From that first glance in the schoolyard, her smile peeking out from behind a book in the golden afternoon light, I felt it deep inside my soul—she was, and always would be, my sun.

I pull the partially smoked cigarette from between my lips, frowning as I ponder why I ever craved the needless crutch in the first place.

With conviction, I stomp the cigarette beneath my foot, snuffing it out it without a second thought.

And I never look back.

Chapter 40

Ella

I sit on the handmade bench as the sun sinks behind the clouds, leaving splashes of fuchsia and burnt orange behind.

“We should find a clearing in the woods and make it our own special hideaway. Dad can help me build a bench for us to sit and read books together. We can talk about our day at school and watch the butterflies flutter by. It’ll be our secret hiding spot.”

My fingertips trail over the wood grains, lingering on the jagged carving: MANNING, 2013.

He did it.

He made the bench, just like he said he would all those years ago.

Tears rush to my eyes. I wonder how long he sat here, waiting for me to come back, to sit with him and read storybooks together and watch zebra butterflies flutter their wings. I told him I’d see him the next day, but my father turned that one day into ten years.

I inhale a shuddery breath as I glance at my phone.

Max:Meet me in the clearing at sunset.

I’m here.

I’m ready.

---