Page 121 of The Long Way Home
Turns out there isn’t. Grief is renewable. Bottomless.
I am drowning in it, a living fountain of saltwater and heartbreak, while my brother—my best friend—is reduced to a still shape on a sterile table. Motionless. Final.
How is that possible? How does the world keep moving when he doesn’t? How does oxygen still exist when his lungs no longer draw it in? I don’t understand what comes next for me. I had never had abeforeJosh. There was just Josh. Everywhere. Constant. And now there isafterJosh. And it’s a place I don’t want to exist in.
Rhett doesn’t argue. He looks at me and in that look, I see it. The same devastation that’s hollowed me out has carved a home inside him, too. Josh wasn’t just my brother. He was Rhett’s best friend. His chosen family. The loss has ripped into him just as deep, just as cruel. But here, he doesn’t fall apart. He swallows it. Buries it somewhere deep and lethal and steps forward when I can’t.
Without a word, he bends and lifts me into his arms. My body offers no resistance. It feels like nothing. Like smoke. Like grief has stripped me of all weight and substance and purpose. I press my cheek to his chest. His heart is a violent thing beneath my ear, but still beating. Still alive.
It is the only thing anchoring me to this place, to this moment. I am in a world I no longer recognize, but haven’t been allowed to leave.
Rhett shouldn’t be driving. The thought screams inside me. We should never get into another car again. Cars kill. Cars twist metal and bodies and futures. They steal. They stole Josh. And if the universe has any appetite left for cruelty, they’ll steal Rhett too. The fear coils tight in my chest, but I don’t fight him. I can’t. There’s nothing left to push with.
That light inside me—the one that used to flare when Josh teased me, when Rhett looked at me for half a second too long—it is gone. Snuffed out as if it never mattered. Like it was never meant to last.
So I let him.
I let Rhett carry me through the sliding hospital doors, past the antiseptic air and the humming lights, out into a night that feels wrong in its quiet.
I let him lower me into his car with unbearable care, as if I’m something fragile and precious, even though we both know I’m already broken beyond repair. There are only shards of the person I was left.
I don’t look back as he closes the door, thinking leaving the hospital will mean leaving my hellscape behind. But only once it disappears in the rearview mirror do I realize—being alive while my brother is dead is my true hellscape.
I have no other choice than to let him drive.
Away from the hospital. Away from the last place I will ever see my brother. Away frommyJosh.
I let Rhett take me home.
Chapter Twenty-seven
RACHEL
Now
“I’m so excited to be off the grid,” Slone shouts, turning the music down just enough for those of us in the back to hear her.
“Speak for yourself. I’m not sure how I’m going to get any work done,” Lexi mutters, her thumbs flying across her phone screen, the sharp taps of her typing filling the quiet.
Anderson chuckles from the driver’s seat, glancing back at her. “I think that’s the whole point, Lex. We’re supposed to be taking a break from work.”
Lexi exhales hard, still glued to whatever fire she’s trying to put out on her phone. “You should try telling that to my boss. He seems to think PTO is just a myth I made up.”
“It’s all about boundaries, Lexi. You have to set them.” Margo pops a piece of gum into her mouth and offers me one. I shake my head no.
“Before Ms. Therapy starts conducting a deep dive on all of us, not just Lex, I’d like to announce we’re here,” Slone says, whipping her seatbelt off. I am already reaching down to grab my bag. I need out of this car before Margo starts reading my thoughts.
“God forbid I use what I paid a good penny for,” Margo mutters under her breath, but I catch the ghost of a smile at the corner of her mouth.
The car rolls to a stop at the end of the long gravel driveway just as sunlight spills through the trees. The heat shimmers on the windshield, thick and golden. Tires crunch over the stone. It’s the sound of every summer I can remember. Of a thousand moments folded into the corners of this old place.
Doors swing open in a flurry of limbs and noise. Lexi stretches her arms above her head with a theatrical groan. “It’s kinda hot out, ugh, I spent way too much money on my makeup just to sweat it off.”
Slone immediately hands her the bag of paper towels and Gatorade bottles. “You better hydrate, beauty queen.”
Lexi scowls but takes them. Slone grabs the two heavy coolers like they’re nothing, hoisting them with a grunt. Margo and I each grab an armful of grocery bags. Anderson takes whatever is left.
The porch creaks under our weight as we climb the steps. Inside, cedar and dust linger, heavy alongside the memories of every summer I ever spent here with Josh. Wood-paneled walls close in, familiar and unchanging. The couches slump in their usual spots; the mugs in the cabinet remain stubbornly mismatched. Everything is here—everything excepthim.
