Page 232 of Bend

I spent my whole life thinking I was on my own.

Turns out home was waiting somewhere I couldn’t see,

Full of people I belonged to who didn’t know about me.

She keeps singing, and I just listen.

I stop trying to follow every line after a while and let her voice fill the cabin instead, soft and a little unsteady in places, but stronger than it was when she started. By the time the last chord fades, there are tears on her cheeks again, and for once she doesn’t reach for the pen or try to fix anything.

I take the guitar gently from her hands and set it aside, then pull her into me.

She comes without hesitation.

My hand slides to the back of her neck as I kiss her, slow and soft, nothing rushed about it. Just her mouth against mine, her fingers curling into my shirt, and both of us sitting there with Wolfe still threaded through everything around us.

When I pull back, I keep my forehead against hers.

“He would’ve fucking loved it.”

Her eyes close, and the smallest smile touches her mouth.

I hold her there for a while.

We’re still grieving. Thorne is too. All of us are, in different ways, and I don’t think that shit is going anywhere anytime soon.

But maybe getting through it was never supposed to mean getting over him.

Maybe it’s this.

Echo finishing the song.

Thorne learning how to not be afraid or ashamed of how he feels..

Me finally admitting I can’t hold everybody together by myself.

All of us slowly figuring out how to keep living around the space Wolfe left behind without pretending it isn’t there.

It still fucking hurts.

It probably will for a long time, but we’ve got each other.

And I think, eventually, we’re going to be okay.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Echo

Four months later, Andre is yelling at me to get the fuck away from my own motorcycle, so apparently even certains do not change in the midst of tragedy.

“I heard you,” I call without looking up, still crouched beside the bike with one hand braced against my knee while I check the rearset for what has to be the third time.

“Then why are you still touching it?”

“Because something felt off.”

“You have a mechanic.”

I finally straighten and wipe my hands down the thighs of my leathers before looking at him.