“She said she flicked through it but couldn’t bring herself to read it. Said she saw my name. Figured I was the best person to have it. To read, when I was ready.” Kelsey pulled a thick bundle of paper out of her bag. “Apparently I was ready yesterday.”

Tears welled in her eyes as she handed me the reams of paper. They were held together with a large binder clip.

“It’s not all of it. Just some of the entries I think you need to see.” She was fighting back her tears and swallowed hard. “I photocopied them so you could read them when you’re ready.”

“Are you sure?” I asked quietly.

She nodded. “He’d want you to see them.”

My eyes dropped to Armie’s familiar scribble and I nodded. My grief was a weighted stone around my heart and I had to inhale deeply to catch my breath.

As I looked up, Kelsey rose from the couch. Tears slid down her cheeks.

“And Heath …”

“Yeah?”

“He’d want you to act on them.”

She leaned down and kissed me quickly on the cheek, and then she was gone.

Leaving me alone.

Just me and Armie’s thoughts.

I pushed the photocopies off my lap and leaned forward, my fingers steepled against my lips. Was I ready to read what was in those pages?

I stood up and crossed the room, leaning my elbows on the mantle as I rubbed my hands down my face. My head was in a pretty bad place. Did I want to read it? Could I handle reading it?

I swung around to look at the pages lying my couch and ran a hand through my hair.

Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

Growling, I crossed the room and picked up the journal.

One thing I knew for sure, I wasn’t going to read Armie’s journal sober. No fucking way. So I hopped on the Harley and rode down to the beach and picked up a fifth of Bourbon from the liquor store near the boardwalk.

It was dusk when I arrived home and the air was cool and heavy with the comforting scents of a Californian fall. I sat in Nikki’s wicker egg-chair on the porch and sipped bourbon straight from the bottle. The pages of Armie’s journal lay unread on my knees while I tried to work up enough courage to pick them up and read them.

Apparently courage came after swallowing the neck of the bourbon bottle. Feeling the warm haze of alcohol in my brain, I started to read.

A lot of it was about his time with the band. About writing songs. About his own observations of what went on around him. About his hopes for our second album and what the future might hold for the band. He had scribbled little pictures over the paper and I traced them with my fingertips. It was so fucking hard to believe he was gone. I’d seen him almost every day for the past twelve years.

By the time night fell, the fifth of bourbon was half finished. My head was in a strange place. Full of Armie and Harlow. Of happier days when life was good.

I sighed and rubbed my eyes. On the day before he died, he’d scribbled down the lyrics to a song he’d written.

Where do you go to, when you’re gone

Where do you go to, when I’m all alone

Without you here, I’m broken apart

With you gone, I’m torn and I’m scarred

I wish I knew where to Go To

So I could leave here and go get you

I climbed off the wicker egg-chair and walked on unsteady legs to the porch steps. Using the handrail to steady myself I slumped down on the top step. The night was bright with moonlight and as I tilted my head back to stare at the milky orb my mind replayed Armie’s words and the lyrics to his unfinished song, Go To.

I stared up into the massive white light of the moon. It seemed so far away. Yet Armie seemed even further. Being with him again wasn’t going to happen until my time here was done.

But Harlow.

Now, that was one thing I could do something about.

As the fog lifted, I knew what I had to do. Things couldn’t have been clearer if Armie had actually walked down from heaven and said, “Dude, seriously, what the fuck are you waiting for?”

I smiled. But it was bittersweet. I missed him so much. I wish I knew where to Go To; so I could leave here and go get you …

I nodded. There was also no denying it. Even from so far away, Armie was so much fucking smarter than me.

* * * * *

HARLOW

“So what happened?”

“Happened?” I echoed.

“Between you and the summer fling?”

Colton and I were sitting on the branch of a great big oak tree. As kids we’d spent a lot of time climbing it, or sitting on the branch amongst the buntings of Spanish moss. Now it was festooned in fairy lights from a previous garden party, like the others that lined the grand driveway leading up to the main house.

It was dark. Above us a full moon was massive and drenched the night in white light. Colton had taken us to dinner at Alto’s and it had been a good distraction. But now, sitting beneath the night sky, my demons were returning.

“He was so much more than that,” I replied quietly.

“You don’t talk about him. Or what happened.”

“He cheated on me.”

Colton was quiet. Like he was giving it a lot of thought.

“Anyone who cheats on you is a fool, Harlow,” he said finally. But his words made no sense. Since he was the one who had started the trend.

“Is that your way of apologizing?” I asked.

“You never gave me a chance to apologize. You ran off to California.”

I glanced at him sideways. “I think we both know it was the best thing.”

“Me doing wrong by you? Or you going to California?”

“Both.” I smiled. “Our relationship had run its course.”

“I’m a fool, Harlow. And so is your Mister Dillinger.” He smiled regretfully. “I will never forgive my actions and how they hurt you. If I could somehow go back in time … well, I wouldn’t be such a fool.”

I turned back to the moon.

“If I could go back in time … I’d do it all over again and not change a thing,” I whispered.

And I would.

Except for the part when Heath ripped my heart out and put it through the sausage mincer. But even then the pain and heartache was worth it for those precious moments I’d shared with him and my friends back in California.

We were quiet for a moment. Our legs swung over the branch while the crickets sang in the grass.

“I’m honored to be escorting you tomorrow, Harlow. I will be very proud, walking down that staircase with you on my arm.”

I smiled, but it was pensive. “Thank you for being here. And for escorting me tomorrow. It’s a comfort having you here.”

“Albeit, a bittersweet comfort.”

I cast my eyes down. “I love him, Colton. As much as I don’t want to, I love him.”

He nodded. “Then he is a bigger fool than I thought. He should be here.”

“But he’s not.”

“No. No, he’s not.”

We called it a night and Colton saw me to the door. Once inside, I headed towards the grand staircase but my daddy appeared in the doorway of his study and beckoned to me to join him.

“A word with my daughter?”

He poured me a brandy as I sat on one of the three leather Chesterfield sofas in the room. I shifted nervously. Chats with my daddy in his study were usually reserved for those discussions about poor grades or the times I’d been busted sneaking out or playing hooky from school because Colton wanted to go make out. Or like the time Bobby, Bridget and I snuck over state lines to go see Van Halen play in South Carolina because Bobby was a crazy Eddie Van Halen fan.

Oh, and let’s not forget the little chat about tattoos when Mama had seen the black ink inside my wrist. She had gotten so flustered, she’d taken two valium and gone to lie down. How on earth was I going to be the Debutante Queen with that thing on my skin?

For all our chats in this room, my daddy had never given me a brandy before. I took it as a good sign.

Then again, it could be a really, really bad one and maybe he was using the brandy to numb me first. I took a hearty sip and almost choked on the hot liquid as my daddy settled in the Chesterfield across from me. He stared into his brandy for a moment, swirling it before he spoke.