Page 99 of The Best Wild Idea
The last time Silas and I talked while I was in the hospital, you were out with your mother for her birthday (remember, I insisted you go?) so Silas and I had time to discuss this trip alone over the phone. It was one of the hardest conversations we’ve ever had.
When I told him about this plan, about this trip, he shocked me at first by saying no.Absolutely not, were his actual words, and I about fell over if it weren’t for all the rails and cords keeping me in the bed. I thought I’d be giving him permission to have the trip of a lifetime with the woman I knew he secretly pined after.
But when I asked him why, at first he putted around the answer, making jokes that weren’t all that funny like “She’ll never want to spend that much time with me” or “You know I hate flying.” But I’d grown serious and insisted that he give me one good reason why he was saying no to all this.
“Because she deserves better.” He finally sobered up enough to say it. “She deserves someone like you. Not someone like me.”
Now, I’d always envisioned Silas as the guy who had everything. The kid walking in wearing the cut-off tank with the coolest shoes, who didn’t give a fuck about the dress code. The one who always knew how to keep one foot in the game without ever taking anything too seriously. In so many ways, from such a young age, he was my idol, not just my friend. The guy who taught me how and when to grow up. How to exit my sheltered childhood and become a man that was worthy of someone like you loving me. I owe all that to him. So, to be told that he felt like he didn’t deserve you shocked me.
“I’ve already screwed things up with her. Irreparably, I think. There’s no way she’ll wantto spend that time with me. It’ll be torture for her.”
I told him that, given the chance, you might find yourself missing him as much as he missed you. And that the two of you could learn to trust each other again because you’ll both need each other.
But, most of all, I asked him to try to repair things with you. None of us are perfect, but we all make the most perfect mistakes that lead us to the life we were meant to have.
He eventually agreed to go and try. His reluctance wasn’t because he didn’t want to, but because he didn’t think YOU would want to. He didn’t want to put you through any of this.
So whether the two of you find it in yourselves to be strictly friends because it’s just too bizarre to cross that invisible boundary placed between you a decade ago by a silly little coin toss — or maybe you’ve found yourselves to be closer than you ever have — I want you to know that wherever I am, whether six feet under or looking down from above, I’ll be smiling if the two of you have found each other again. Because the friends who choose to be family are what I already miss the most.
So, go feel unbelievably beautiful tonight, then return to Boston with a friend, or perhaps, more than that by your side. Keep having the most incredible adventures and don’t stop. Feel the wind in your hair, the spray of the ocean in your face. Laugh in stone houses overlookingbreathtaking views, and tonight, fall in love in a city that demands it.
You were the love of my life, sweetheart. But I hope there’s room for more than just one in yours.
I love you more than I ever thought possible. So, once again, I’m reminding you of my final, most annoyingly ever-persistent request: Live this one-and-only life you have. Love ferociously. Fall freely. Be exactly who you are now, without one single regret. Trade the mundane for messy, and be irreverent. Take it all in until there’s nothing left missing at the very end. And that goes for love, too.
Most importantly, from the very bottom of my heart, thank you, always, for letting me love you,
Grant
Chapter 49
Juliet
I’m wiping away a fresh slew of tears by the time I’m finished reading it and have to get up to grab a tissue from the table nearby. On the way, I drag open the curtains near the black marble fireplace on the wall, gasping when I see what’s right outside the glass.
There she is.
The view Grant promised in his letter.
The Eiffel Tower stands practically up alongside me, almost close enough to touch, but far enough out that I can see the whole thing glistening from top to bottom just outside the floor-to-ceiling balcony of our suite. I stand there for a moment to take it all in, grateful to have made it here to my final destination, the letter still clutched in my hand.
On a small table beside the window, there’s a bottle of champagne on ice, and beside it, a long white box. I lift the lid and stare down at what’s inside.
Grant’s very last words to me fade from view as new tears fill my eyes.
Unsure how to feel, I leave the box and settle into the nearest couch, pulling a heavy blanket over my lap to read the last letter again, before tucking it into the envelope where I know it’ll stay until we arrive back home. I glance at my phone screen to check the time, wondering how long I have until Silas bursts through that door, suddenly missing him all over again.
But instead of Silas’ name, there are over a dozen missed calls and a few texts from Andy.
My stomach cinches in a tight little knot the moment I get the first text to open, then I quickly scan the rest, now awareof why none of the new messages or missed calls are from Silas himself.
I pull up Andy’s phone number to call him as fast as I can.
“Jules.” Andy sounds panicked when he picks up the phone on the second ring. “Did you get my messages?”
I nod silently at the phone, unable to form any words yet, feeling the weight of what his texts just revealed. The events of the last twenty-four hours now threatening to crush me.
“There’s been an accident, honey. They — they didn’t see him crossing the street outside the airport. I’ve sent a car over to you. It should already be downstairs—”
