He chuckles, his breath warm on my cheek. “You mean my outstanding personality wouldn’t have been enough to win you over?”
I gaze up at him, his eyes bright from the moonlight. “Afraid not,” I say, holding back a smirk. I suck in air through my teeth. “I’m kind of super shallow.”
His eyes narrow, a feisty look crossing his face. In one quick movement, he pulls me away from the railing, turning me around. His arms slide around mine, holding me safe and warm. Closing my eyes, I sink against his chest, letting the sound of his heartbeat and the gentle swish of the lake lull me into a peace I haven’t felt in ages.
Chills flutter across my neck when he leans in close, his lips grazing my skin. He smells like Mrs. Cade’s cherry pie. “I love you, Raquel Clearwater,” he whispers into my ear.
My hand laced into his, I bring my hand up and kiss his knuckles. “I love you, too.”
Epilogue
Five years later
It seems like only yesterday that I sat in this stadium, sandwiched between Sasha’s parents and mine, cheering my head off when Elijah walked across the stage, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in social work.
Now all the same people are in the stands, gathered here to see me walk across this terrifying stage. My toes curl up in my black flats. I ditched my heels in Elijah’s jeep, planning to change into them when we go to dinner after graduation. The thought of tripping over my own feet and falling on my face in front of the dean and several hundred parents is enough to make me question any type of shoe choice. To make matters worse, walking across the stage today is only the first of two more graduations it’ll take for me to be a veterinarian.
Taking a deep breath, I glance around at my peers, a sea of burgundy gowns with gold collars. There’s an excited buzz in the air, and I twist my engagement ring around my finger, letting the familiar curves calm my nerves.
When it’s time for our row to walk up to the front, I’m so freaking nervous my face feels like it’s going to melt off. And here I’d thought getting a degree in biology was hard. Standing on a stage in front of so many people is much worse.
I glance back at the audience, knowing Elijah is there somewhere, watching me. I can’t pick him out in the crowd, but I know he’s there, those blue eyes crinkling with pride.
“Raquel Clearwater,” the speaker says.
My feet move, taking me across the stage to where I shake someone’s hand, and then I’m given a fake diploma and I move forward, shaking someone else’s hand. I guess it’s the dean, but things move so quickly my head is spinning. At the top of the stairs, I pause, smiling — I’ve been smiling this whole time — while a photographer snaps my picture.
As I walk down the stairs, following the graduates in front of me as we head back to our seats, I realize I’ve been handed more than just a diploma. Wrapped around the cardboard tube with a rubber band is an envelope.
My name is written on it in pink Sharpie.
Hands trembling, I somehow make it back to my folding chair in the middle of the floor, in the sea of burgundy and gold graduation gowns.
I rip open the envelope. My heart shoots up to my throat when I see a fat cat dressed like a professor, a shiny red apple on a desk and books stacked up next to it.
I glance around. Everyone is on their phones, heads pressed together to snap a selfie, some turning around and waving at their parents. On the stage, the rest of my graduating class continue getting their diplomas.
I open the card.
Hey there Miss Graduate,
Did you miss me? I bet you’re wondering how I pulled this one off, huh? Well, it was easy. You’ve had your heart set on being a vet since you were eight. I knew you’d choose Texas State University because it has a great science program and I knew you’d never leave Texas because, well, I just know you.
The rest was easy. I contacted Dean Marshall and told her my story. She said it was the sweetest thing she’d ever heard, and promised to deliver this card to you on your graduation day.
This is a big day, Raquel. It’s only one of the big days that will happen in your life, and although I’m not actually there, hollering your name like a crazy person from the stands, know that I am still with you. I’m in your heart, and all that sappy BS, right? And I’ll be there when you graduate as a fully legit animal doctor and I’ll watch you from the clouds when you go on to save puppy lives and cut dried poop off Persian cat butts. (Hey, no one ever said the honorable field of animal doctoring was a glamorous job, Rocki.)
I hope you are living an awesome life, now that you are no doubt a super sexy twenty-something ready to conquer the world. How’s my brother? Did the two of you fall in love even though I told you not to? Are you two married? How are Mom and Dad? I realize by now that you’ve probably had to introduce them to Elijah, and they’ve probably put two and two together. I guess that’s okay. I just want you all to be happy.
I better see some gorgeous Rocki babies in the future. You tell them Auntie Sasha is watching them from heaven if they ever try to pull some teenage rebellion crap on you, okay?
Thank you for being the kind of friend who makes me want to go through these extraordinary efforts in my final days. It’s been a blast leaving notes for you. I can’t imagine a better way to slowly drop dead than to spend all my time making these adventures. So how about one more?
(Check the back of this card.)
Love you and miss you always,
Sasha
Acknowledgments
Here we are. The acknowledgments. This part is almost harder than writing the book. This is the part where I realize all the pages before this point started out as an idea, which was then edited and revised, cut apart and pieced back together, and polished into something that’s wonderfully better than what I originally wrote. This book started as my idea, but then it became ours, and these are the people I’d like to thank:
My agent, Kim Lionetti. I am honored to have you in my corner. Thank you for pushing me to write better books, and for being generally awesome. As far as agents go, I won the lottery.
Thank you to my editor, Kate Egan, for loving my characters and giving my book a home. It has been a dream working with you and shaping this book into something even better than I could have imagined.
To Lisa Lyons and the whole publishing team, thank you for welcoming me to the KCP Loft family. I am so squishy excited to be a part of this imprint, and to have my book in the ranks of such inspiring talent.
No one understands the mind of a writer quite like another writer. To Deirdre Riordan Hall, thank you for being the one who gets me. Thanks to Becky Wallace for the brainstorming lunches and cupcake celebrations. Major thanks to Cassie Giovanni and Lynn Painter for being my writerly sounding boards as I prepared for this book to enter the world.
Tons of thanks to my social media friends, writers, aspiring writers and supporters, who have been there to chat about books, writing and everything else.
To the readers who take books home and invite the characters into their lives, thank you for choosing my story. To the bloggers, reviewers and bookstagrammers, you are the soul of the book community. Thank you for sharing your passion with the world.
There are dozens of friendship Easter eggs hidden in this novel and only Felicia Morgan will find them. Because of twenty-four years of friendship that started with my ugly pair of dollar-store shoes, I am equipped to write a book about two best friends. Felicia, you poetic, noble land mermaid, thanks for everything.
Thank you, Susan Connally, for being my rock as I pursue a passion that often feels like quicksand.
Thanks, love and gratitude to my family in blue. For keeping my husband safe, for the friendship and family, and mostly for thinking it is really cool that I wrote a book.
I promised Matt Howard I would put his name in my book. I trust he will be buying several copies now.
All the thanks in the world go to my family, who is constantly subjected to my writer neuroses, and yet still loves me. Hallee, you are the greatest kid on earth. Chris, thanks for the unfailing support and belief in me. When I am down, you guys are up, and when I am full of doubt, you bring the hope back. I love you both to pieces.
Finally, my love and thanks to Nova, who was never more than a few feet away while I wrote and edited this book. Since you can’t read this, I will express my gratitude in handfuls of doggie treats.
About the Author
CHEYANNE YOUNG is a native Texan who has a fear of cold weather and a coffee addiction that probably needs an intervention. She loves books, sarcasm and collecting nail polish. After nearly a decade of working in engineering, she now writes books for young adults. (She doesn’t miss the cubicle one bit.) Cheyanne lives near the beach with her husband and daughter, one spoiled-rotten dog and a cat that is most likely plotting to take over the world.
The Last Wish of Sasha Cade Page 24