Page 138 of The Long Way Home
I tilt my face toward the setting sun and close my eyes, letting the warmth soak in. I pretend Josh is beside me. For a moment, I let the thought take shape. The way his arm would rest lazily across the back of the dock, how his leg would bounce without him noticing, the way his smile could hold an entire conversation. I sit with it. With him. Let myself miss him for once. This place is sewn through with him. Every board, every chipped bit of paint, every summer storm that sent us runningfor cover while laughing too hard to breathe. It is impossible to be here without feeling the ghost of him everywhere.
After Josh died, no one ever really looked too closely at my grief. I didn’t invite it in, and I didn’t push it away. People liked me better when I smiled, when I stayed busy, when I didn’t make them sit with the sharp edges of my loss. People needed me to hold it together. Margo, my parents, Rhett. So I did. I played the part. And sometimes, I was grateful for that. It let me tuck the ache away, to pretend the world hadn’t lost something irreplaceable.
Even when I knew it had.
A few minutes pass before I hear footsteps behind me on the dock.
Rhett lowers himself beside me. I know he can tell something is off, but he doesn’t press me on it. It’s one of the things I’ve always respected about him. Most people see grief and rush to smother it. Patch it. Distract it away with soft lies and well-meant reassurances. But Rhett doesn’t do that. He lets it breathe. He lets me breathe.
The sun dips lower, scattering gold across the water in that way that makes everything ache just a little more. The kind of light Josh used to call magic hour. He believed the world was more honest in the minutes between day and dusk.
“Hell of a view,” Rhett says after a long stretch of quiet.
“Yeah.” My voice comes out small, carried off by the breeze. “Josh always loved the lake at this time of day.”
“He was a sucker for the sun.”
I smile, something fragile pulling at the corner of my mouth. “He used to drag me out here in the mornings, even when I begged him to let me sleep in. Said sunrises and sunsets at the lake were the whole damn point.” The memory pulls a cracked laugh out of me.
“He pretended he was a philosopher instead of just annoyingly chipper before eight a.m.”
“He really was the worst morning person,” I say, rubbing at my cheek. “Always with a plan. Always up before everyone else.”
“He made everything feel bigger,” Rhett murmurs. “Life had more texture when he was around.”
His eyes stay fixed on the lake, jaw tight in that familiar way he gets when emotion climbs too high, and he’s determined not to let it show. I know that tension. I want to smooth it away.
“This place…” I swallow. “It makes me miss him so much.” My voice barely holds. “I know you miss him, too. He was your best friend.”
Rhett looks at me then. His eyes are bright, wet, unguarded in a way that knocks the breath from my lungs. I see the hollow Josh left behind. The shape of the absence we both carry.
For once, I’m not alone in it. For once, the grief doesn’t feel so isolating.
“I miss him every damn day.” He plants his elbows on his knees, hands clasped tight. “Some days I still wait for his name to light up my phone. Or I swear I’m going to head to his house to hang out with him. But then I remember he isn’t here anymore. He won’t ever be here again.”
Tears sting hot at the back of my eyes. I blink up at the sky, as if that will keep them from falling.
“He would be so proud of you,” I say, fighting past the swell in my throat.
Rhett’s inhale snags. His Adam’s apple lifts and drops, a hard swallow.
“He would be proud of you, too,” he says, cutting a glance toward me. “So many memories I have of him, you’re in,” he says. “You and Josh. Always together. And being here, this place…” His gaze sweeps the shoreline. “…it sharpenseverything. Makes it hurt more. But it also makes it feel more real.”
I know what he means. Some days, for me, the missing is quiet, a ghost passing through a familiar room. Other days it roars. But I guess the ache is the price we pay for having had something worth missing.
I can’t help but let the doubt seep in. It gnaws at the base of my throat. I’ve spent too long swallowing questions just to keep the peace, just to survive the ache of everything I lost. But something in me has shifted here at this place. I can feel pieces of the old me stirring. The girl who laughed easily. Who wanted things without apologizing for it. Who believed she deserved more than being someone’s soft place to land.
If I want a real shot with Rhett, if I want anything honest, I can’t pretend this fear doesn’t exist. I don’t want to be a trauma response. I don’t want to be the familiar shape his grief reaches for in the dark. I’ve been reduced to that before. A stand-in. A reminder. Something safe because it’s already broken in the same places. And I won’t do it again.
I owe it to myself to know. I deserve to be wanted for who I am now, not because I’m what’s left standing when someone else is gone.
“What if…” The words snag. I try again. “Do you think you have feelings for me because I’m what’s left of Josh?”
Rhett’s head lifts slightly, puzzled.
“I mean…” I hate how small I sound. “I’m the closest thing to him you have. The last piece of him still here. What if that’s why you—”
His soft chuckle cuts through my spiraling. It startles me. My brows pull together.
