3 weeks later
I stand in Finn’s orange room, making sure the stack of books next to his bed is exactly how he left it. My barn wall turned out pretty awesome—the wall really does look like wood, weathered and aged from the elements. In fact, Marley has plans for me to paint the store in a similar way. I’ve stopped hating the orange. It’s like Finn said—a sunset—and the accent wall brings it all together. I think Finn will like it—I hope he will.
He comes home today. He has a couple more weeks in bed, another month of taking it easy and physical therapy, and then he can go back to normal life. I’m not even sure what that means for Finn. I keep asking myself, because I can’t ask Finn—when will he get to run? Maybe I’m in a rush, but I want to help him check everything off his list. I want Finn to live.
The bell to the store jingles and I hurry down the steps to meet him. His face is scrunched in discomfort. And my smile fades. Is it too soon for him to be home?
“What did you do to our tree?” he asks.
“Oh, that.” My sigh of relief is audible. I’m over the shock of our tree being gone—it’s been three weeks.
“Wait until you see your room,” Danny mutters.
The steps are a lot for Finn—he won’t come down them again—not for a while anyway. But his face lights up when he steps into his sunset bedroom—and I instantly know I did the right thing by painting it for him. He shifts his gaze to me. “I like it. I mean, it’s no navy, but it’ll work.”
I roll my eyes and refrain from shoving him.
“It’s been a long day, a long ride. You need to rest,” Marley says, staring down at Finn who already sits on his bed. I know it’s her roundabout way of telling Finn and I that we can’t spend the next few hours talking or playing video games. As zen as Marley is, she’s still a mom.
I chew on my thumbnail. “I just need one minute. Is that okay?”
“Of course it is,” Danny tells me, ushering Marley from the room. “Come on, momma bear.”
Finn does look worn out. I only need a minute—maybe two.
I stand next to him, excited to tell him my news, but he hands me a slip of paper before slipping his feet already free of their shoes beneath the sheets of his bed. “What’s this?”
He swallows. “That’s all I know.”
It’s a small slip of paper—whatever he knows isn’t much. I open it up and read. “Male. Caucasian. Twenty.” I sit on his bed and meet his watery eyes. “Your donor?”
“Yeah.” This has always been the hardest part for Finn.
“You know whether you needed a heart or not this stranger still would have died, right?”
“I know.” He stares at the blue comforter over his legs.
I cup his cheek and force him to look at me. “I’m so glad you’re okay.” I lean in and press my lips to his. He’s for once free of hospital wires and tubing and a nurse telling me I can’t stay any longer—although there is Marley. Still, he brings his hand to the back of my head and holds me there, connected to him.
But then I can feel even in his kiss how tired he is.
Exhaling a shaky breath, I sit back, putting a little more space between us.
“What did you want to tell me?”
I have to think a minute. “Oh. Um, I enrolled in school—here in Jackson.”
“You’re staying?” A grin swells his cheeks.
“I’m staying. And as an end of summer gift or something—Rodrick and Summer are flying Cytha to Jackson.”
“Nice, when does she get here?”
“Two days,” I say, biting my lip. “I was hoping she could meet you.” I’m nervous to ask, as I know he’ll be confined to his room and to his bed for the next few weeks.
“Yeah,” his brows pinch together, but he nods, still bearing his grin, “I’ll even put some pants on for her.”
I laugh and stand, my fingers slipping into my pockets. “I guess I should go.”
“You’ll be back tomorrow?”
“Try and stop me.”
30
Cytha sits on my bed, in Jackson—in person! She listens to the retelling of my dream.
“And how long have you had this one?”
“Three weeks.”
She twists a thread from my bedspread around her finger. “Dang.”
“But Finn can’t go anywhere—not yet. So, I don’t really expect it to go away anytime soon.” I look at my best friend, in the flesh, on my bed, in Rodrick’s house. I’d cry—but I already did when she first arrived, and I think I might freak Cytha out if I cry twice in one day.
“You’re sure it’s him?” She shrugs. “It could be someone else with you.”
“It’s always him.”
She purses her lips, thinking. “What’s the name of the park?”
“Um,” I dart my eyes from one point on the ground to the next. My head hurts, trying to make out the writing on the sign. I should know this. But I don’t. “I’m not sure.”
“The street?”
“I see the sign, but I’m so focused on the purpose that I don’t read it.”
“The purpose that you don’t really understand.”
“Yeah. I just feel it. I know it’s important—but the dream never tells me what it is.” I rub my eyes, tired from dreaming and the anticipation of Cytha’s arrival. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
Cytha loops her arm around my neck and squeezes my side. We’re cheek to cheek and I feel like my sister has come home.
“I wish you could stay forever.”
Cytha scoffs. “I wish you were coming home.”
I bite my lip. She knows it was my choice. We both expected me to come home. “It’s not just Finn. I’m just getting to know my family, you know? I want them in my life.”
“I know. You get what you settle for, sister. I’m glad you want your family, Es, and that you aren’t going to settle for less.”
“But?”
“No buts. Just—I miss you.” Cytha’s dark eyes narrow in that way that tells me she has more to say. “I applied to Great Basin.”
“In Elko?” Cytha and I weren’t even sure we’d make it to college and here she’s filled out the application.
“Mom says we can afford it, and I need to go to school or what will I do, work at the Casino like her and Dad?”
I kind of assumed that’s what she would do—and maybe me too. “What are you going to study?”
Her mouth pinches as if she’s almost embarrassed to say it. “I want to be a nurse.” She clasps her hands together in her lap. “Phil was always talking about school. He’s studying to be a physical therapist, and I had more questions for him than I ever thought possible. I didn’t even know what I wanted until I started asking.”
I smile at her. It’s only been a few months, but my best friend seems all grown up. “I guess Phil was good for something then.”
She sighs. “I haven’t quite given up on Phil yet. I’ll be eighteen in a month.” She shrugs and we both fall into fits of laughter.