“I’m sure you did.” I keep walking to the rock where we wash the dishes.
“You don’t have to wear one. You don’t even have to say what you want out of the new year.”
I grunt and wash the first bowl.
“If we don’t celebrate the passage of time, are we even really living?”
I cock my head at her and raise my eyebrows. My hands are deep in scrubbing the fish stew off.
She wrinkles her nose. “That sounds like a barrel of bull. I know, I know. But it’s not. It’s the little moments that make a life. At least, I think it is.” Her shoulders slump.
“It’s hard for me.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m not sure why.”
“The little moments to me are the ones with my brother. Playing in the barn. Making cardboard mazes for kittens to run through. Having fights with hay when we were supposed to bring in the cows.”
“She hurt you.”
“No, I don’t give a fuck about her. He hurt me. The one person who my grandmother said would always have my back. My brother. She and her sister were inseparable. I’m just... It’s horrible, but I’m glad she died before...”
“That’s not horrible. Being upset with what your brother did is horrible.”
“I’m not upset. I’m changed. I’m a realist. That’s all. That mindset shit Dante was talking about? I’m not woo-woo. I can’t change my stripes.”
“What color were your stripes before your brother— Please,” she says, taking a clean dish from my hands. She dries it, sets it on the dry spot on the rock, and waits for the next dish. “You don’t have to say a thing. Just be with us. I promise I won’t hurt you.”
“Okay.” I can’t. Please? This girl fucking kills me. But there’s no fucking way I’m getting out of this without being hurt. Life—my life at least—doesn’t work that way.
“Can I put it on your head?” Haley’s holding a hat made out of three elephant leaves.
I glance around the circle. The rest of them are already wearing theirs. “Sure.” I’m an ass because I don’t bend down.
She smirks at me. Damn, she’s fucking cute in the twinkle lights of the driftwood Christmas tree. On her tiptoes, she reaches and manages to get it on my head. She takes my hand and then Sam’s on the other side of her. “Come on, join hands.”
I stare at Dante, who’s next to me, but take his hand.
When we’re all linked up, she nods. “On this last day of this year, let’s all take a moment to think about all the good we’ve had. All that we’ve overcome. Let’s close our eyes.”
It’s almost silent. The jungle chirps over the crashing waves on the beach behind us.
A whisper of Haley’s breath slips into my ear. “It’s going to be a good year.” She squeezes my hand three times, then she gently lets it go. But she’s wrong.
“Five, four, three, two, one,” they’re chanting.
A cork pops, and I open my eyes. Dante’s holding a bottle of champagne. The smokey vapor twists out from the top on the wind, slipping away from us into the jungle sky like Haley’s wish.
Chapter 35
Closure
Easton
“What exactly is that?” I point at the very small raft that Calvin’s constructing on the beach. “You’re not thinking we’re going to float away on that, are you?”
“Fuck no, Rockwell.” He doesn’t look up. “It’s a platform for when we go back to the cave.”
“The cave?” I ask. “Like, on the mountain? I thought we decided we’re not going over there unless we have to for food.”
