Page 95 of The Words We Lost

When I booked our girls’ weekend in Oregon, I promised myself I wouldn’t leave there without telling you everything. I practiced the conversation a thousand times on the way down, practiced how I’d transition from telling you about the prognosis involving my head beforeI told you of the one that had been plaguing my heart for more than three years at that time. But I hadn’t anticipated your tears over my surgery, any more than I’d anticipated my own. And once again, fear held my tongue captive.

As the surgery date edged closer, I pushed Merrick and Ember’s fate aside and focused on a new plan. How could I possibly give my fans the ending they begged for when I was carrying around a secret that harmed the ending of the people I loved most in the world? I finished dictating the memoir only days before my prognosis changed, and outside of my mother, all I could think about was the “what if” of not getting to be there when you and Joel read those final words.

I wrestled for years over a secret I was scared to tell ... until I finally got it all out on the page. If only I knew sooner the kind of freedom truth can bring, I never would have kept it so long from the people I love most. I pray you can know this freedom, too. I pray you both can.

I love you, sister.

Always and forever,

Cece

Much like Joel, I stand motionless at the conclusion of my letter for nearly a minute. There’s so much to digest and sort, and yet one thing stands out amongst it all.

“She was scared to tell me.”

“She had reason to be,” Joel says in a tone that confirms his statement is only loosely related to whoever threatened and blackmailed my father. But Cece had witnessed more than my father’s decision to board the Campbells’ boat that night; she’d also witnessed my complete and total rejection of Joel and of the entire town I’d once called home. Was he right? If Cece had told me the truth sooner, would I have cut her out the way I’d cut Joel out?

To try to imagine my life without her friendship after my father’s death feels wrong on every possible level. She was my closest friend, my confidant, my travel companion, my plus-one to every publishing eventwe were asked to attend. We’d plotted together, brainstormed together, built a fictional kingdom together. To erase her from any one part of my life would have felt like erasing a part of myself.

And yet, hadn’t I done that with Joel?

I’d tried to erase him from all the best parts of my life.

And maybe that’s what this had all been about—Cece’s quest for us to read the memoir together wasn’t only for me to discover the truth about my father’s death, but for me to discover something else, as well.

Something I’d lost and wasn’t sure I would ever find again.

“Joel, I—”

“There’s something written on the back.” His gaze freezes on the folded stationery in my hand. I turn it over to find two postscripts:

P.S. You asked me to wait to submitThe Fate of Kingsto you until I could hand it to you over a bowl of caramel-cheddar popcorn, but due to logistics, I had to go with Plan B. So I left it where your favorite literary dog could stand guard over it until you were ready to find it.

P.P.S. I have full confidence your masterful revision skills will bring this first draft ofThe Fate of Kingsto life. There’s not a soul on earth who has loved this story more than you.

Joel and I look to each other first and then to the bookshelf we’re still facing.

“Does she mean...”

But he’s already stretching for the top shelf I can barely see on my tiptoes. If there’s something back there, then Cece would have needed the help of a stepstool. As would most staff and VIP guests who would have visited the library in the months following her death. Joel pushes the fallen books aside and reaches toward the back. Whatever he grasps is substantial, as it takes him some maneuvering to bring it down.

The stack of primary-colored notebooks he holds up is wrappedin twine, and at the sight of it all I can do is laugh. The raw sensation bubbling up my throat is so foreign, and yet the release of it feels almost therapeutic.

“Unreal,” he murmurs. “Absolutely unreal.”

Only it is real.

And all I want to do is verify that these four notebooks do, indeed, hold the ending of a story countless readers have been waiting on sinceThe Twist of Wills, myself included. I drop to the carpet and use the shelf of beach reads at my back for support.

And then I open the blue notebook on top.

Dedication:

To the sister of my heart, Ingrid:

Sometimes the happiest endings begin after a cliffhanger.

May the same be true for you.

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