Page 74 of A Box of Wishes
“Alastair? How much have you had? Just the one bottle or more?”
Ryan didn’t think he’d get a sensible answer. The burn in his chest said he was running out of time. He pulled a notepad and pen from his pocket and shoved it at his cousin.
“Here. Write a wish.”
Alastair shook his head. “No,” he mumbled. “This isn’t… I don’t deserve… I—”
“Stop arguing and write your fucking wish!” Ryan snapped. “Or I’ll write it for you and then you’ll be epically fucked!” He pushed the pen into Alastair’s hand and held the pad for him. “Write, damn you!”
Alastair obeyed.
He smeared two lines across the page, then let the pen drop from his hand.
Ryan stood on the bridge, waiting for inspiration. He’d put the box to sleep on Boxing Day. He shouldn’t be feeling what he felt. But if Fate was ready to help Alastair… he needed to find a way to accomplish that.
His boot touched the discarded bottle. It clinked against the parapet, then rolled a couple of steps.
A bottle.
A bottle instead of a box.
Why not?
Ryan snatched it up and unscrewed the top. He emptied the few remaining swallows of whisky into the gutter, rolled up Alastair’s wish and pushed it into the bottle. He replaced the cap, screwing it on as tight as it would go.
“Here.” Alastair was unsteady on his feet, but Ryan didn’t care. He shoved him against the parapet and pushed the bottle into his hands. “Throw it.”
“Wha—”
“Throw it in the river.”
Alastair flailed, almost catching Ryan in the face. Then Alastair let go and the bottle dropped, his lips shaping a thank-you as his message hit the water.
A bottle instead of a box.
And a river instead of… well, that was the question.
Whatever they’d done had worked, because the fire in Ryan’s chest went out and the tug in his gut disappeared.
“Come on. Let’s get you home.”
Hope
On a normal day, the drive from Northampton to Rothcote was an easy one. Once away from the river and out of the town’s sprawl, the road was dual carriageway, with only a couple of roundabouts interrupting the flow.
Today, the drive was anything but swift. Ryan got stuck behind a hearse going up the hill. Then the lights outside the police station turned red to let a stream of fire engines and ambulances deploy. And a string of lorries clogged the access to the motorway.
He breathed a sigh of relief when he was past the motorway junction and traffic thinned out. Alastair hadn’t said a word since he’d thrown the bottle into the Nene, and Ryan didn’t know how to start a conversation.
Were you planning to kill yourself?was the question he most wanted an answer to. The very idea horrified him so much, a phantom pain in his chest shortened his breath once more. He didn’t want to fight with Alastair. Neither could he dispense advice when he’d made such a hash of his own affairs. Maybe Alastair was right and making arses of themselves did run in the family.
“I don’t want you to be alone,” he said, just before they reached Towcester and the junction with the A5. “Join me in the coffeehouse?”
Alastair roused himself. “I’ll be fine,” he said. “I promise, Ryan. I just want to curl up and sleep. I won’t do anything that will drag you away from work again.”
“You didn’t—”
“All I want is sleep.” He watched fields and rows of solar collectors out of his side window. “I never thought of writing a wish. Do you… Do you think…?”
