Page 132 of The Long Way Home
“Done,” Rachel says. “Sold. I’m in.”
Everyone murmurs agreement, and before long, we’re pulling anchor, heading back across the lake. The late afternoon light turns the water golden, and the pine-covered hills around us stand quiet in the distance.
By the time we make it back to the house, the sun still hangs low on the lake, casting everything in that dusky kind of blue. Everyone peels off to shower, the place a chaotic rotation of damp towels and music playing in bedrooms.
I take a quick shower and throw on a pair of light-wash jeans and a soft, heather gray crewneck tee. I toss on a pair of clean sneakers and run a hand through my hair. Just casual enough not to overthink it, but pulled together enough that I don’t look like I just rolled off the lake.
Being out here brings me a kind of peace I didn’t know I was still missing. The lake is calm, the air cool, the world unhurried. It feels like a pause on the reality I’ve been trapped in for the past four years. Like the universe has finally given me space to breathe.
The phone call I had with my mom this morning is something I’ve spent years of my life chasing. For a long time, I thought that was what I had been waiting for. By saying those words somehow the hurt would loosen it’s shape. Don’t get me wrong, telling her how I truly feel has provided me with healing.
But sitting here at the lake now, spending the day watching Sunny laugh with the others, seeing how easily joy finds her, I understand how wrong I was.
Forgiveness is not a moment. It is a decision. And it was never my mother’s words I needed.
It was his.
Losing Josh before I could be honest with him, before I could say the things that mattered, the things I was afraid to admit, left something unfinished inside me. That silence became a weight. It followed me everywhere, shaping my choices, teaching me restraint where I should have chosen truth.
I wasn’t waiting for my mother’s explanation for why she left me. I was waiting to face the grief of never getting the chance to tell my best friend the truth, and to forgive myself for carrying it alone for so long.
The thought settles, and before I can second-guess it, I pull a pen from the kitchen drawer and grab a pad of paper. I step out onto the dock while everyone else is still inside, the boards warm beneath my feet.
I sit. I take a breath. And then I write:
Josh,
Fuck, I miss you, man.
I miss the dumb stuff the most. Cheap beer on Sundays. You screaming at the TV like the Falcons could hear you. The way you’d shove a controller at me and call me washed up when I lost for the third time in a row. I miss the noise of you. The space you filled without trying. But more than any of that, I miss talking to you. You were the one person I never had to explain myself to. My brother in everything but blood.
I found my mom, Josh. Yeah. That still feels strange to write. And before you ask, no I wasn’t brave enough to tell her to fuck off. I guess I really needed you for that part. I listened to her apologize for leaving me, and for the first time, I didn’t shut down or get angry. I let it land. I think… I think I forgive her. Not because it didn’t hurt. But because I don’t want to carry that hurt into the rest of my life. I don’t want it shaping the way I love. Or the way I run when things start to matter too much.Which brings me to the part you probably would’ve punched me for.
I’m in love with your sister.
I know. I know that breaks every rule we ever joked about. I know I promised you I’d look out for her. I was supposed to make sure no one ever hurt her.
What I didn’t tell you—what I didn’t even let myself say out loud—is that I was already in love with her. From the very beginning. From the first time she rolled her eyes at me and called me dramatic, the first time I called her Sunny just to see her glare soften. To be honest Josh, I didn’t stand a chance. I’ve loved her quietly for twelve years.
I loved her even after you died, when she was barely holding herself together, and all I wanted to do was take her pain and carry it myself. I tried to bury it. Tried to convince myself it was loyalty. Or guilt. Or proximity.
It wasn’t. It was her.
She is the love of my life, and I can’t fight it anymore, Josh. I want to spend my life loving her. Choosing her, over and over and over. Keeping her safe, not because I owe you, but because I want to. She deserves to be noticed.
I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I carried that in silence with me for so long. And I swear to you, Josh—on every memory we share, on every bruise from backyard football, on every promise we’ve made each other and every late-night conversation about who we were going to become—I won’t break her heart. I am going to spend the rest of my life loving her, and I hope one day you’ll approve.
Hell, maybe when we meet again, you can give me shit for it.
I miss you every day, brother. I wish you were still here. There are still moments I reach for my phone to text you. Still things I hear that I know you’d laugh at. You’re stitched into who I am. Loving your sister doesn’t replace you. It nevercould. You were my brother first. You still are. And I hope wherever you are, you know I carry you with me. I hope you know how much you changed my life for the better. I love you, man.
Rhett
I fold the paper carefully, crease by crease, until it becomes a small, imperfect airplane. I send it skimming across the water, watching it glide for a brief, weightless second before it dips and disappears beneath the surface. Gone, but not erased. Released.
I turn back toward the house, my chest lighter than it has been in years, the ache still there but no longer sharp enough to cut.
Inside, I pour myself a drink, the familiar weight of the glass grounding me as the amber liquid settles. The quiet hum of the house wraps around me.
