Page 95 of Rebel Moon

“You’ve taken care of me long enough,” Luci said. “Medical school was my responsibility.”

Jack shook his head. “All the good you’re doing shouldn’t be rewarded with a bunch of debt. I have the means, and I wanted to do it for you. End of story.”

“What is it?” Grant asked.

Luci looked over at him. “He paid off my student loans. All of them.”

“Wow, okay,” Grant said.

“The debt’s not something I’m proud of,” Luci said. “After all these years and all the ways our lives changed, I still feel shame about being broke.”

“You shouldn’t have to be,” Grant said. “Not with what you’ve brought to your community.”

“Well, everyone around this circle knows life doesn’t work that way,” Knox said. “But if we have a chance to make something right, we have to do it.”

“It’s ridiculous you didn’t tell me how much you owed,” Jack said. “This is my job, you know. To take care of my baby sister.”

“I’m not your job or your responsibility,” Luci said. “But since it’s already done, I have no choice but to say thank you.” She glanced at Ivy. “And thank you too, Ivy. I’m sure you didn’t anticipate that I came with the Jack package.”

“It’s given Jack a lot of joy to do this for you,” Ivy said. “Which means it gives me joy too.”

Blake’s gift came next. She held it up for us all to see that it was a framed photograph of all twelve of us after the talent show night. I vaguely recalled Finley gathering us all together for a photo.

“I wanted a photo with you in it,” Ivy said to Blake. “Without your camera.”

“Thank you, Ivy,” Blake said, clearly moved. “I’ll treasure it. I’m honored to have been part of so much fun this month. I don’t think I can adequately express what this time has meant to me.” Her glance bounced over to Beck.

“I have one more,” Ivy said, reaching under her chair to hand Blake another framed photo. “I didn’t have time to get this one to Santa.”

“Wait, Santa’s real?” Knox asked, making everyone laugh.

Blake was looking down at the photo, smiling, a tender expression in her eyes. “It’s a photo of Beck and me.” She raised it up to show us a picture of Beck and Blake sitting together on the piano bench, her head resting on his shoulder. Just a bit of Beck’s profile showed, but it was enough to know his gaze was tilted toward Blake, as if she were feeding him the notes.

He took hold of it, staring down at the photo for a moment. “Who took this?”

“Me,” Ivy said. “I might have a second career as a photographer. Capturing perfect moments, just like a song.”

“It was a perfect moment,” Beck said, a whisper of wistfulness in his voice.

“And last,” Jasper said, reaching into the bottom of the sack, “Madeleine Price.”

“One for me?” I couldn’t help but feel excited. “I can’t wait to see.” I opened the flat parcel to reveal a frame, and inside the frame were two napkins. It took me a second to realize what they were. Our wish lists, written on napkins at the end of the kind of night only twenty year olds can have.

“Remember that night?” Ivy asked. “We stopped at that diner on the way home from a bar.”

“I remember,” I said. “Ivy and I wrote down what we hoped would come true in the next ten years.”

Ivy’s was written in her loopy scrawl whereas my handwriting was precise, with no crooked lines.

“I found them when I was packing up my things to move in with Jack,” Ivy said. “I’d saved them.”

“We had some big dreams back then,” I said.

Ivy’s had all come true. Playing the Ryman. A record deal. A number one hit. She’d even gotten the last one on her list.

Find a love like Mama and Daddy have.

My list was the same. I’d done almost everything on it.