Despite my physician’s recommendation, I am declining to consent to this medical treatment, test or procedure. The physician has explained the following risks associated with not following through with the recommended test/procedure/treatment.
I can’t read more. I scan to the bottom of the page, where Storm’s signature burns into me, the date two months before the accident.
“What is this?” My voice shakes. The words bounce around in my brain, the whole story there, but somehow unable to come together in a way I can believe.
Cameron stares at me, his eyes glassy. “She gave it to me at graduation.” His voice is raw. “She was afraid your parents would find it. She didn’t want anyone to know. I didn’t even open it until later. I—I didn’t know it’d be the last…” He doesn’t finish, but I know what is coming: the last time I would see her.
“How long have you known? Not this”—I wave the treatment refusal form in the air—“but that she was sick, I mean.”
“Since March twelfth. I’m so sorry. She made me promise not to tell anyone. She begged me, and you know how Storm is.”
“Was! How she was.”
Cameron leans forward, moving to hug me, to comfort me, but I recoil from his outstretched hands. My movement rustles something on the bed. The scrap of paper, the one that fell out of the envelope. I pick it up. My fingers feel numb against the smooth paper.
It looks like it was torn hastily from a bigger page. Random print covers the back, words that make no sense. I flip it over. The front side of the paper has only two words, in Storm’s handwriting.
I’m sorry.
“What—” But before I can ask, the realization slams into me, and my whole body grows cold, as numb as my fingers.
Cameron is talking, but I can’t make out his words. The only thing I can think about, the only thing I know, is this: it wasn’t an accident.
I’m on my feet now. It wasn’t an accident. My sister chose to leave me, to disappear from my life. I race to the door. I don’t know where I’m going, don’t really care, but I can’t be here stuck in this tiny room with Cameron and the proof of Storm’s abandonment.
“Anna, wait—”
Suddenly, my voice rushes back, and I spin, lashing out. “You knew! You knew this whole time, and you still let me… let me—” I sputter to a stop. Tears fight at my eyes, and I try to force them back. He doesn’t deserve my tears, not after this. But they fall anyway.
“Let you what?” His voice cracks, and he stands statue-still, as if afraid he’ll scare me off with any movement.
“You let me do all”—my arm waves in a broad circle, gesturing to the whole world—“this. To follow this stupid list. To give Storm the perfect summer when she didn’t care enough to be here herself—to finish her own list!”
I crumple, falling to my knees, hysterics overtaking my body. Cameron’s arms circle around me, tentative at first, then drawing me into his chest, his hand stroking my hair. He murmurs softly into my ear, words I can’t understand, but the deep rumble in his chest is comforting.
I cry. I cry for Storm, who is gone. Even though I realize she did this to herself, to me, I miss her desperately. She left a whole life behind. In nine months, I’ll be older than she ever was, and she won’t be my big sister anymore.
Suddenly, I am so tired of crying, of feeling vulnerable. I rip myself away from Cameron. I get dressed, slipping a sundress over my head. Then I pack my bag.
Cameron’s intake of breath is sharp, but I interrupt him before he can speak. “Please, Cam,” I say, barely more than a whisper. “Just let me go.” I walk out, the door clicking shut behind me, and I leave Cameron, the list, and this summer behind.
Chapter 31
I walk for hours until my legs ache and my feet are raw. I’m in a residential subdivision; ahead, the street dead-ends at a park, a wide lawn leading to colorful playground equipment and tennis courts. I sit on one of the swings and call Piper. It goes to voice mail.
“Where are you, Pip?” I groan and hang up. I’ve been calling her since I left the dorm, desperate for someone to talk to, but she’s not answering calls or returning texts. Piper is never without her phone. I dial again. This time, it doesn’t even ring before voice mail picks up. I sigh.
Another text alert dings on my phone. Cameron has called four times and sent countless text messages. I can’t bring myself to read them. I swipe the notification from the screen and pull up Jovani’s number.
“Hey, girl,” he says, answering immediately.
“Hi, Jo.” I’m flooded with relief at the sound of his voice. It’s the first time I’ve heard it since I left.
“Anna? Are you okay?” I can hear Piper’s voice in the background, and I wonder if he only answered because she wouldn’t.
“No, not really.”
“Hold on. I’m pulling over.”
“You answered your phone while driving?”
“Relax, Mom. I’m stopped now. What’s up?”
Swaying slowly on the swing, I tell Jovani my story, starting with the night of the horrible party, when I first found the list. I tell him about my plan with Dad and Aunt Morgan and convincing Cameron to come with me on this crazy trip. Nothing gets left out, and my face blazes as I recount—details excluded—rushing back to the B&B to be with Cameron. When I get to this morning’s fight and what Cameron was hiding in that envelope, I choke over my words. The story exhausts me, and I slump against the swing chain once I’m finished.
“You really got a tattoo?” They’re the first words he’s said since I started, and the absurdity of the question, after everything I just told him, catches me off guard. I laugh. In the background, Piper echoes him. “She got a tattoo?”
“Yeah.”
“You’ll have to show me when you get home.” He pauses, and I wait. It’s one of the things I love most about Jovani, the way he never says something unless he really means it. He weighs his words carefully. “You love him?”
“I do.”
“And he loves you?”
My chest flutters at the question. If there is one thing I could never doubt, it’s that Cameron loves me. “Yes.”
“Then you forgive him,” Jovani says. Simple as that.
“But he—”
“I know what he did. It sucks. I’m not saying you should go running back to him right now. You are allowed to be mad at him. But find a way to forgive him. Don’t throw away what you have over this one thing. Take some time and figure out how to get past it.”
“What if I can’t?”
“You can. That’s not the question you need to be asking. The question really is, what if you won’t?”
Can I forgive Cameron? I’ve never felt as betrayed as I do now—betrayed by the two people who love me the most. I think back on the summer. The devastation that’s ripped me apart, and the trip that’s started to piece me back together. Storm and Cameron, at the center of it all.
Yes, I know I can forgive him. Not now—now I’m too hurt, too angry. Someday, maybe tomorrow, maybe five years from now when we bump into each other in the aisles of the grocery store, I’ll look at him and this will be forgiven, just another chapter in the story that shaped my life.
“Thank you, Jo. You always know what to say.”
“It’s a gift,” he says. “So, what are you going to do?”
The words form in my mouth before I even know the idea has developed, and when I say them, I know they’re true. “I’m coming home.”
“What about Cameron?”
“I’ll take the bus. The ride will give me time to think, away from him.”
“Let me know when you get back. We can grab lunch, maybe watch a movie.”
“That sounds, perfect,” I say. “Thanks, Jo.”
“Anytime. But can you do me a favor?”
“What?”
“Tell Cameron. Just send him a text if you don’t want to talk, but let him know you are leaving.”
“I will.” I’m about to h
ang up, but something stops me, and I keep the phone to my ear. “Hey, Jo?”
“Yeah.” His voice sounds far away.
“Why do you think we never worked out, you and me?”
He seems unsurprised by the question. “You don’t love me.”
I start to protest, but he talks over me. “I know you love me, Anna, and I love you. But we both know you never loved me the way you love him.”
“I’m sorry.”
He laughs loudly. “Don’t be. We had fun.”
“That we did.”
“You okay?”
“Not yet, but I’m better.”
“Good. I miss you, girl.”
“You too.” A pause. “I better call my aunt. I’ll talk to you later. Tell Pip I said hi.”
We hang up, but I don’t call Aunt Morgan yet. Instead, I look up the number of a taxi company. I tell the man where I am and settle in to wait. There’s another text from Cameron, but I’m still not ready to read it. I swipe it off the screen. Maybe later.
I push my feet against the ground, raising the swing higher, higher until I’m on my toes, nowhere else to rise. I let go, riding the swing on its subtle arc, a human pendulum. Pumping my legs the way Storm taught me when we were kids, I propel the swing to the limits of its chains.
Up here, soaring through the sky with my hair trailing behind me, it’s easy to forget, to just let everything I learned this morning fade away. To pretend it never happened. I’m a child again, with no cares other than whether Mom and Dad will let me stay up late. Birds sing in the trees at the edge of the park; I squeeze my eyes shut and let the sounds of their song surround me.
I swing and swing until my legs are tired, and then I keep going, unwilling to come back to Earth quite yet. I could stay up here forever, away from the pain and heartbreak of real life.
But, all too soon, I hear the sound of gravel crunching beneath car tires, the unmistakable screech of brakes. The taxi driver waits for me to slow my swing, and I jump to the ground as soon as I’m sure I won’t face-plant in the grass. The driver steps out of the car as I cross the lawn toward him.
“Are you Anna?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
He grabs my bag from me and sets it in the trunk then rounds the car to open a back door for me. “Where are we headed?”
“Um, a bus station?”
“Like, Greyhound?”
I nod. “Yes, please,” I say as I settle into the seat and close my eyes.
The taxi pulls away from the curb, and we wind through labyrinthine streets. The driver makes a few attempts at conversation, but when he’s met with nothing but one-word replies and the occasional grunt, he abandons his efforts.
We arrive at the station sooner than seems possible. It’s a small building, stark gray with only a sign in the window signifying that it’s a bus station. Through a dirty window, I see a woman behind a counter, an ancient computer propped in front of her. Three vending machines stand against the outside wall, soldiers in a row waiting to serve.
I pay the driver and watch as he drives away. Dropping my bag on the ground next to a solitary wooden bench, I pull my phone from my purse and sit.
Aunt Morgan answers immediately. “Anna! Oh thank goodness. Where are you?”
Pulling the phone from my ear, I check the screen. I’ve missed twelve calls since I climbed onto the swing.
“What’s going on?” I ask evenly.
“Why don’t you tell me? Cameron called the house—”
“He did?”
“He’s panicked! Told me you ran off and won’t answer his calls or texts. Where are you?”
I wrap my hair around my wrist. “Did you know?” My voice is ice.
“What?”
“The truth, Morgan? Did you know?”
“I’m not sure… what do you mean?”
She sounds convincing, and my heart breaks at what I’m going to tell her. I’d been so sure that I was the only one left in the dark, that my whole family knew Storm was sick and had been lying to me, that I never considered that maybe she’d kept the truth from them, too. That maybe it was only Storm and Cameron who lied to me.
I’m not sure which version hurts more.
“Anna?” Aunt Morgan says apprehensively, when I don’t answer for several moments.
“She was sick. Again.”
“Who was—?”
“Storm! The cancer came back, worse this time. And she decided—” A sob heaves in my chest, snatching the words from between my lips before they have a chance to come out. I can’t do it, can’t say the rest out loud. Because saying it out loud is acknowledging the truth—that Storm hit that tree on purpose. Instead, I say, “And Cameron knew. This whole time. He knew, and he never said anything.”
“Oh, Anna,” she says. “I’m so sorry.”
With the side of my hand, I wipe a tear away, hating that I’m crying again. I take a deep, shaky breath. “I’m coming home.”
“Okay.”
Suddenly, I’m reminded of why I love Aunt Morgan so intensely. She knows me better than I know myself sometimes, and she knows exactly when she can push me and when she should just let things be. She doesn’t try to convince me to talk about it or to defend Storm and Cameron. She simply says, “Okay,” and then, “Do you need any money?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “I’m at the bus station, but I haven’t checked to see how much a ticket will be. I’ll go now and call you back if I need anything.”
“Okay. Keep me posted. I love you, banana.”
“You too.”
It takes the ticket agent nearly fifteen minutes to beat her old computer into submission and to find a route that will take me from Wilmington to Muscatine with the fewest bus changes. She can get me as close as Cincinnati, where I’ll have to catch a smaller shuttle to Muscatine. The cost of the ticket scrapes right to the bottom of my bank account, but I don’t have to call Aunt Morgan for money. The woman hands my itinerary across the counter along with a receipt she grabs from a printer that’s maybe even older than the computer. My bus leaves in ninety minutes.
Back outside and firmly situated on my bench, I find Cameron’s number on my phone and send him a text.
ME: I’m going home. Taking the bus. I’m fine.
His reply comes immediately, and for the first time today, I read the words he sends.
CAMERON: Anna, please, just talk to me. I love you.
His face flashes across my mind, the pain that masked it as he pulled the envelope out of his bag. The hurt is brand-new all over again as I replay the papers he hid from me, the tiny scrap of paper Storm had written on. I echo her words to him now.
ME: I’m sorry.
I turn off my phone and shove it into my bag before settling in to wait for my bus. It’s going to be a long ride home.
Chapter 32
Aunt Morgan sits next to me on the hard, unforgiving couch. Her knee bounces about six thousand times a minute, but I don’t bother trying to steady it. Her outward emotion mirrors my inner one perfectly. The parentals will be back any minute. I keep glancing through the observation window, wondering when I’ll see their plane dotting the sky.
I’ve been home a week, and I haven’t told Aunt Morgan the whole truth yet. That little scrap of paper, Storm’s apology, haunts me, taunting my efforts to go back to real life since the shuttle pulled into Muscatine and dropped me back into normalcy.
I haven’t seen Cameron. Haven’t talked to him, either. He came to the house the day he got home, dropping Storm’s car in the driveway, but I stayed in my bedroom, ignoring the doorbell. He’s tried a few times since, standing on the front porch, attempting to convince Aunt Morgan to let him in. Eventually, I heard her tell him to give me room, and his visits stopped, along with his texts and phone calls.
Jovani pushes for me to talk to Cam, but I can’t bring myself to do it. After I got home, I tried to write an apology, but as soon as I typed the first two words, I was done. I’m sorry. The anger rus
hed back in, as fresh as it was when I first saw those same words in Storm’s handwriting and learned that the boy I’d fallen in love with had been lying to me all summer.
Piper won’t talk to me. I called her the day after I returned, but she didn’t answer. I’ve texted, called, even went by her house. She’s not answered anything. I stopped trying a couple days ago. I miss her fiercely, but she obviously needs time to get over it, and I’m trying to give her just that. I’m not sure how much longer I can wait, though. I need my best friend.
“It’s here,” Aunt Morgan says, knocking me with her knee.
The plane is impossibly huge in the sky, taking over the blue as it descends to the runway. Together, we walk to the window, joining the crowds waiting for their loved ones. The plane takes forever to pull up to the gate. We wait even longer. People pour off the jetway, looking weary. Some run and embrace their waiting families; more stream past us, down the stairs to the luggage carousel.
I see Dad first, his head peeking above the crowd, and then a family shifts, and Mom’s standing there, smiling. She looks more relaxed than I’ve seen her since the accident. My parents clutch hands, moving as one unit, and suddenly I’m overwhelmed with how much I’ve missed them. I weave through the crowd until I’m standing in front of them, tears in my eyes.
Dad hugs me tight against his chest. In this instant, I’m six years old again, and my dad is the bravest man in the world. No one can comfort me or make me feel safe like he can. I let his steady breathing calm my nerves before I let go and hug Mom.
She’s soft, a pillow I can fall onto and drift to sleep. She smells of vanilla and stagnant airplane air. I inhale deeply, finding her typical, mild citrus scent buried deep. “Welcome home,” I say.
We wait for their luggage then pile into the SUV, Aunt Morgan at the wheel. “You all want to get some lunch?” she asks. “Or just head home?”
“Home, please,” Mom says. “I’m exhausted.”
The ride is filled with awkward small talk: How was the flight? You’ll have to show us your pictures. Did anything exciting happen while we were gone? Both Aunt Morgan and I fall silent at that question, the weight of the summer infiltrating the air in the car, but Mom and Dad don’t seem to notice.
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