He shrugs. “Yeah, like I said, I keep my promises.”

  I feel compelled to point something else out. “Once Jonny arrived in Ft. Lauderdale he spent three days digging through the rubble, looking for you. He pulled you out of the wreckage with his own two hands.”

  Ava can’t keep the tears back anymore. “Th-thank you, Jonny. I guess I owe you my life.”

  “You don’t owe me shit. I’m just sorry I couldn’t get to you sooner, and I’m sorry I couldn’t keep Chris alive.”

  “He is alive,” Ava says, her voice hard. “He’s alive. He’s out there. I know he is.”

  “I sure as fuck hope so,” Jonny says.

  There’s a long, long silence then, as Ava toys with the key, staring at the box. Finally she inserts the key into the lock and twists, lifting the lid open.

  I move to stand up. “You probably want some privacy, huh?”

  She grabs my wrist, shaking her head as she lifts out a triple-folded piece of printer paper. “No. I—I don’t want to be alone. I’ve been alone for so long.”

  “We’ll stay.” I glance at Jonny, and he just nods.

  Ava doesn’t miss the eye contact between Jonny and me, and I see a flicker of something cross her face, but she opens the first piece of paper and starts to read.

  Instead of what I was expecting—more tears—Ava laughs. “Oh, Christian. You’re such a melodramatic idiot.” She sets the letter face down on her lap, laughter quieting into sadness. She glances at me and hands me the letter. “Will you read them to me? If I read them, I’ll hear them in his voice in my head, and—I can’t—I don’t think I can handle that yet.”

  I peruse the first few paragraphs and laugh at the dramatic way he wrote. “Melodramatic idiot is right. Good grief. I’ve never read his novels, you know . . . are they all like this?”

  Ava shakes her head. “No, not at all. Same sense of . . . fanciness, I guess you could say, but in the letter he was writing for himself, and for me, so he gave in to temptation a little. He’s always tended to be . . . flowery in his writing, but he tones it back for his audience. Makes him more accessible, he says.” She eyes me. “You should read his books, Delta. He’s a wonderful novelist.”

  I smile. “Maybe I will someday, when I have time to read for pleasure.”

  I smooth the letter against my thigh and start to read. “‘Ava, I have no intention of sending this to you. It is more of a diary or journal entry than anything else, but addressing it to you makes it easier to be honest, since I am, as you may no doubt be aware, rather facile at lying to myself, whereas I could never lie to you. Thus, I am beginning an epistolary journey . . .’” I pause, laughing. “Jesus, what does that even mean, an epistolary journey?”

  “It means—” Ava starts.

  “I know what it means,” I interrupt, feeling a little snarky, “I may not have gone to college like some people, but I’m not totally stupid. It was a joke.”

  Ava just rolls her eyes, thankfully not taking me seriously. “Oh shut up. It’s not like I’ve rubbed the fact that I went to college in your face. And it’s not like I’m any more successful than you are.”

  “You drive a Mercedes-Benz,” I pointed out.

  “Only because my husband is successful. I wrote one mediocre book, which sold a mediocre number of copies, and I write a mediocre blog with a mediocre number of followers.” She waves a hand. “Christian is the truly talented one.”

  “You’re still better off than I am.”

  Ava frowns at me. “Delta. You sold songs to four different major country stars, three of which hit the top one hundred, and the fourth hit top ten. That’s nothing to dismiss.”

  “Yeah, sure. And that got me precisely nowhere. I had a moment of hope, but it fizzled out like a candle in a rainstorm. I barely made enough to buy the car I’m still driving, which is now a piece of shit, because that was almost fifteen years ago.”

  I feel Jonny’s speculative gaze on me. “You sold songs to country music stars?” he asks.

  I shrug and roll my eyes. “Yeah, but that was a long time ago, and I was a whole different Delta back then.”

  “Didn’t sound like a whole different Delta to me last night when you were singing with those people on the beach.”

  Ava is intensely interested. “Am I missing something?”

  I wave a hand. “There were some people jamming by a bonfire, and I sang a little. No big deal.” I let out a sigh. “Now, can we get back to this epistolary journey thing?” I ask, rattling the paper in my hand.

  But Ava was not letting this go. “I didn’t mean the singing, although that’s great, and I’ve always said you’re too talented to be stuck waitressing, but you and Jonny—”

  I interrupt her by reading the letter, loudly, to shut her up before I had to answer any awkward questions. “‘Thus, I am beginning an epistolary journey, in which I attempt to discover myself. Revive myself. Syntactical cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Prosodic self-diagnosis and -medication.’” I pause with a huff.

  “Prosodic self-diagnosis and -medication. Seriously? Where does he come up with this shit?” I continue, more seriously. “‘I’ve journaled most of my life, and I brought those notebooks with me on this trip, and I read the backlog of journals on this computer’s hard drive. I read through them all, and I don’t really like what I have read, for the most part. I tell only one side of things. I indulge in what you, my love, call my purple prose . . .’”

  I read the rest of the letter without any additional commentary, and, indeed, Christian truly does have a compelling way with words, even if he does tend to be a little over-the-top sometimes. Some parts were a little difficult to read, clearly meant solely for himself and Ava—I felt as if I were eavesdropping on a private, intimate moment—the warm huff of your breath on my skin and the wet suck of your mouth around me and the building pressure of need reaching release. Ava, I need the sweet cream of your cunt—I mean, Jesus.

  Even I have to admit that shit is hot. It’s not meant for me though, it’s meant for Ava. I can tell even with my voice as a filter, she’s hearing Christian. Hearing him whisper the words to her. Whisper her name in her ear as they fuck in the darkness.

  I shiver, because it’s an erotic image, even if it is my younger sister.

  But then he writes things like the last few sentences—I loathe each of the thousands of miles between us, but I cannot wish them away, for I hope at the end of my journey I shall find you. Or rather, find myself, and thus . . . you. Myself and us. I am taking the long way home, Ava—and my heart twists in my chest because, holy hell, that’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard.

  The man loved her, that much is completely evident.

  I finish the letter, and Ava wordlessly hands me the next one.

  I read it through, and that one is . . . very, very uncomfortable for me to read. But it’s so damn compelling. It reveals so much of the man, so much I could never have begun to understand about him had I not read that letter. Ava is clearly emotional now, but when I finish the second letter, she hands me the third, which is a much thicker stack of papers. I shuffle through them, and I’m thankful Christian numbered the pages.

  “Jesus, this one is an actual fictional story, I think. Like, a full short story.” I glance at Ava. “Are you all right? You need a break?”

  She shakes her head. “No, I’m not all right, but I don’t want a break. I want to hear what he wrote.”

  I suck in a breath and hold it. I glance over at Jonny. He’s struggling with this, too. Missing Chris and probably feeling like an intruder on a private moment, as I am.

  I read the story, “The Selkie and the Sea” and, by the end, I’m hooked into it, fascinated by it. And when I finish, all three of us are silent, lost in our own thoughts.

  “That’s really amazing,” I say. “You’re not kidding, Ava; he really is a talented writer.”

  Jonny shifts on the bed. “I never went to school, so I was barely literate, even in Spanish” he says, seemingly apropos of nothing. “I learned to speak some English as a kid because everyone learned to speak a little, but when a hurricane hit and I lost everyone, I found a spot on a freighter, working in the galley. One of the guys on that ship taught me to read and write in Spanish and then in English. So, I can read and write fluently in both Spanish and English, but . . . I’m not, like, on that kind of level.” He reaches across Ava and taps the sheaf of paper in my hand. “So, I gotta confess, I don’t really understand why he included that story in the letters he wrote you. I mean the others, I understand. But that one, I don’t get.”

  Ava takes the story from me and flips through the pages herself for a while, rereading here and there. Eventually she sighs and glances at Jonny. “It’s . . . it’s a metaphor, sort of.”

  “A metaphor . . .” Jonny murmurs, “That’s a comparison of some kind, right?”

  She nods. “Right. If you were to say the sky is a blue blanket, that’s a metaphor. If you say the waves are like a rollercoaster, that’s a simile. Same thing, but a simile uses the words ‘like’ or ‘as’ to make the comparison.” She taps the story. “This is an extended metaphor. The idea behind it is that the main character in the story, Murtagh, the selkie . . . that’s Christian. When we first met in college, he was living on this tiny little sailboat in the bay, and he drove this old truck he’d fixed up. I thought it was this cute thing he did, living on the sailboat. I didn’t realize then how he felt about the sea. I mean, he talked about the places he’d been, all these amazing, exotic places, and it made him seem so romantic and worldly, you know?

  “But the more serious we got, the more I realized he really was living on that boat because that’s where he felt most at home: on a boat. It made me nervous. Like, what if I woke up one day and his boat was gone? I knew I loved him by that point, but . . . I hate sailing. Delta and I grew up in St. Pete’s, so I grew up on the ocean. I’ve been deep-sea fishing, and I like going on short boat rides and jet skiing and all that, but I like going back to dry land when I’m done. I like being in control, having a motor, knowing I can point it back toward land and go home. Sailing, being out in the open ocean . . . I don’t know. It makes me feel . . . vulnerable, I guess. Unsafe.”

  “Part of the lure,” Jonny says. “The risk, the doubt, the challenge. It’s you and your boat against the whole ocean, and you have to know her and work with her and understand her and love her and even hate her, if you’re gonna live out there.”

  Ava laughs. “You sound just like Christian.”

  Jonny makes a face, laughing with her. “You mean he sounds like me. I taught the man everything he knows about sailing, you know.”

  “My point is, that’s how he feels, and I hate sailing. We had a big fight, when he realized I hate sailing and would never be willing to get on a sailboat with him and sail away and never come back, which is what he always dreamed of us doing.”

  She pauses for a while and resumes, explaining the story once more. “He stayed in Ft. Lauderdale for me. With me and for me. He gave up the sea for me. But I think deep down he always felt a little imprisoned. Trapped, sort of. So to him, he was like the selkie in his story, except instead of being the woman who lets him go back to the sea where he belongs, I stole his skin and trapped him on land with me. The story is his attempt to make sense of why he left me like he did. When Henry . . . ah, um—when—when . . .” She trails off, choking. Starts over, stronger. “When Henry passed away, grief sort of . . . took over. I checked out, basically, and he was left to deal with his own grief totally alone. Eventually, he had to go. He had to. Like a selkie, if he didn’t go back to the sea, he would have wasted away.”

  Jonny nods. “Makes sense, when you explain it like that.”

  He meets my gaze then, and I think I understand Ava, and I feel, also, like that story can be applied to Jonny and me. He’s as much a selkie as Christian is, he belongs out there, and I have my life here, and it would be the worst kind of cruelty to trap a man like Jonny on land with me, like Murtagh in the story. It makes sense, when seen through the lens of Christian’s story.

  Jonny’s eyes, on mine, shine with an understanding, a mutual moment where each of us realize the truth we’re both wrestling with.

  Ava sighs. “If he’s out there, he’ll come back to me.”

  “Don’t give up hope, though, okay? Our boy is a fighter, you know?” Jonny passes a hand through his hair. “Now that you’re feeling a little better, I think I’d better, uhh . . .” He shrugs. “I should go. I gotta find Dominic.” He stands, glancing at me, then away, and back to me.

  Trying not to look too hard at me. Trying not to let me see what he’s feeling.

  I do see it though.

  “I’ll walk you out,” I say.

  Ava glances back and forth between Jonny and me, speculative. Suspecting. I hustle after Jonny and walk him to the hospital exit. We stand face to face, surrounded by a swirl of people: nurses, EMTs, and people visiting loved ones.

  Neither of us seems to know what to say.

  Jonny reaches up, touches my face with his palm. “I guess this is adios, huh?”

  “I guess so.”

  He hesitates, his palm still on my cheek, and lets out a frustrated breath.

  And then he kisses me.

  It’s not a goodbye kiss, it’s . . . it’s an everything kiss. Desire, regret, need, goodbye, an expression of a million things neither of us know how to encapsulate in our thoughts, much less say out loud.

  I break the kiss first, because my throat feels oddly tight, and there’s a lump that feels hot and hard, and it’s so stupid to feel any of this, so I break the kiss, back away laughing, wiping at my lips. “You’re such an asshole,” I say.

  He frowns. “How so?”

  “By not being an asshole.” I take another step back. “And for kissing me.”

  “Sorry for not being more of a dick, I guess?” He laughs. “But sorry, not sorry for the kiss.”

  I dart back to him, three tripping steps that leave me pressed against him, in his arms, my hands buried in his messy hair, kissing the ever-loving hell out of him, and then I back away. Another step, and another, staring at him, fingers on my lips, feeling the memory of the kiss lingering there, and then I turn and go back into the hospital. And yeah, the entire way back in, I feel Jonny’s eyes on my ass, and I may or may not have perhaps not so subtly accentuated the sway of my hips just for him.

  When I get back up to Ava’s room, she spends the first few minutes I’m back eyeing me.

  “What?” I ask.

  She wiggles a finger at me. “You and Jonny. There was something in the air between you two.”

  It hurts, and I’m still fighting the urge to cry, and I really don’t want to talk about it, especially not with Jonny’s best friend’s wife, who is my sister. I shrug.

  “He’s gone. Doubt I’ll see him again.”

  Ava peers at me, her little sister eyes seeing too much. “You’re trying not to cry.”

  “Am not.”

  Ava shakes her head. “I’m not an idiot, Delta. I know when you’re trying not to cry. You won’t look at me, you’re swallowing a lot, and you’re blinking a lot, and you’re using that clipped I-don’t-want-to-talk-about-it tone of voice.”

  I sigh. “Okay fine, well . . . I don’t want to talk about it.”

  She sits up a little higher. Eyes me even more suspiciously. “Delta . . .? Did you sleep with Jonny Nuñez?”

  I shrug again. “Does it matter? He’s gone.”

  Ava wraps an arm around me. “Oh God, honey. You slept with a sailor.”

  I can’t help sniffling, and I hate myself for it, because this is classic Stage Five Clinger syndrome in full bore.

  “You fell in love with him too, didn’t you?” she asks.

  I shake my head. “It’s nothing like that.”

  “Then why are you crying?”

  “Because I’m a dumbass.”

  “You’ve always been a dumbass, dumbass. I watched you go through a dozen breakups, and you never cried. You didn’t cry when everything happened with that rich asshole Tom or whatever his stupid name is, and you haven’t cried since. But you’re crying now.” She huffs a laugh. “You fell in love with him, silly.”

  “Did not.”

  “Did too.”

  “Did not!” I snap.

  She just laughs. “Did too.” She points at me and ticks off her fingers as she lists things to prove her point: “Tears, don’t want to talk about it, denying it left and right—all classic signs of love.”

  “I don’t believe in love: number one,” I say, ticking things off on my own fingers now, “and we barely know each other: number two, and we live totally and completely incompatible lives: number three.”

  “None of that has any bearing on whether or not you fall in love with someone. Love isn’t logical, honey.”

  I glare at her. “You’re not helping, Ava.” I wave a hand. “Besides, he’s gone, and he’s not coming back. It doesn’t matter if I did or not.”

  Ava just holds me until I’m able to get my stupid bullshit under control, and then she smiles brightly at me. “So. You mentioned a bonfire and singing? Think they’ll have another one tonight?”

  I smile back and nod. “Rob said they were going to.”

  She gestures at the hospital room. “Well? Help me blow this popsicle stand, huh? I need clothes, and I need real food, and I want to hear you sing.”

  I breathe out shakily. “Some of that is easier said than done, but we can figure something out.”

  “I don’t care if I have to go hungry and wear this stupid hospital gown, as long as I get to hear you sing, Delta.”

  I hug her again. “I can manage that much, I think.”

  6

  It’s well past midnight, maybe nearing on one in the morning. Dominic is beside me. We’re sitting on the edge of the boardwalk, in the shadows. A dozen feet away, maybe less, is the bonfire. There are at least a hundred people sitting in groups, or couples, or individuals, all gathered around the fire. The audience is in a semicircle, focused on a single point, four people with their backs to the fire, facing the crowd.