Page 230 of Bend

“I watched her get worse. I knew every appointment could be bad news. I knew eventually there was going to be a last conversation, a last day, a last time I walked into that hospital room and she was still there.”

She swallows hard.

“So when she died, it fucking destroyed me, but some part of me had already been grieving her before she was gone.”

My chest tightens because I know where this is going before she says it.

“With Wolfe…” She shakes her head. “There was none of that.”

Her eyes fill again.

“One minute he was there. He was smiling and talking shit and being Wolfe, and then he just wasn’t.” Her voice cracks slightly. “I didn’t get time to understand I was about to lose him. I didn’t get to prepare for the idea of a world without him. There was no warning that the last conversation was the last one.”

She wipes beneath one eye with the heel of her hand.

“That’s the part I can’t fucking get my head around. With Mom, I knew the ending was coming even if I hated it. With Wolfe, somebody just ripped the page out.”

Fuck.

I look toward his jacket hanging near the kitchen before bringing my attention back to her.

“I know what I lost. He was my brother. One of my best friends, and that shit fucking wrecked me.”

Echo reaches for my hand again.

I let her take it.

“But I also know what you and Thorne lost was different.”

Her brow pulls together immediately.

“Dray—”

I shake my head before she can turn this into me trying to make her grief bigger than mine.

“I know. I’m not comparing it.” I look down at our hands and her fingers tighten around mine.

“He mattered to you in a way that changes the shape of everything after.” I glance toward the guitar. “That kind of connection doesn’t just disappear because he did.”

Echo goes quiet, and I let the silence sit instead of filling it with more shit she already knows.

After a while, her head drops against my shoulder.

“You’re always trying to take care of us.”

“Someone has to keep you disasters alive.”

There’s no real humor behind it, but the corner of her mouth moves anyway.

Then she looks up at me. “You know you’re allowed to be fucked up too, right?”

I look up, letting my eyes hold hers, because she’s right and I hate that she’s right.

I’ve been so busy checking on Thorne, making sure Echo answers her phone, keeping an eye on everyone else that I’ve barely given myself room to admit how much I miss him.

“You know, I opened our messages two days ago,” I say finally.

Echo’s expression changes.