There was the Wyatt Larson who could talk to anyone about anything, the man who’d operated the largest commercial construction company in the state before his whole world came to an end, lecturing me about living for the moment and not letting the past make you fear the future. I knew he wasn’t a hypocrite, that’s what he believed; he just was incapable of living like that now.

“I have lost him, dad,” I confessed, wondering if I’d ever had Jude.

Dad looked off into the distance, his expression flattening. “It always amazes me how when we’re sure we’ve lost something for good, it winds up finding us.”

I smiled. It was a sad one, but it still registered. My dad had said the same thing numerous times when I was younger and lost a favorite toy. He’d been right. As soon as I surrendered to the fact Teddy was long gone, he somehow popped up in the most obvious of places.

“Even if we did get back together,” I said, “how could we ever hope to move on from something like that? How can I look past his dad being Henry Jamieson? And how can he look past my family being the reason he lost his dad?” That question didn’t have an answer, and I wasn’t expecting one.

“I’m fool hearted enough to believe love can conquer all,” he admitted, lifting a shoulder.

I laughed a little, but it sounded all off since I was trying not to cry. “You are fool hearted,” I said, looking over at him. His words and voice were right, but his shoulders and head still hunched forward. He was a fraction of the father he’d been. But I’d take a fraction.

“What happened to you, dad?”

He looked up, searching the clouds. Looking for shapes or answers or an escape, I wasn’t sure, but searching for something. “When a child dies, a parent loses a part of themselves,” he said. “Your whole world ceases to exist and you’re nothing but a shell of the person you once were. Your mom has dealt with it in her way, me in mine, and you in yours,” he said, lifting his hand off of John’s gravestone and rising. “Your mom hates the world, I avoid it, and you try to save it.”

“Tried and failed,” I muttered, not about to count the ways.

“I know why you try to save the world, baby,” he said, extending his hand down to me. “Because you’re trying to atone for John. To atone for the guilt you feel for it not being you that day.”

I stared down at the dates of John’s life. A life cut short because I was being a brat and made my older brother deliver dad’s lunch. “I’ve saved nothing.”

“You saved yourself, Lucy,” he said, his forehead lining. “You saved me. That first year, the only thing that kept me getting out of bed in the morning was you.”

I stared at his outstretched hand, not able to accept it. “I didn’t save John.”

“Oh, sweetheart. John wasn’t yours to save,” he said. “I didn’t save him. God didn’t save him. How much longer are you going to let the guilt of the past hinder the present?”

I looked up at him, grayed, wrinkled, and sad. He’d aged thirty years in the span of five. “I could ask you the same.”

“I know,” he said, extending his hand again. “But you’re stronger than me, my Lucy in the sky. You’re stronger than you credit yourself.”

I took his hand, letting him lift me up. “You are too, dad,” I replied, leaning in and kissing his temple. “You are too.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The last couple days leading up to graduation were packed with senior breakfasts, cap and gown distribution, cruises around the lake, and yearbook signings. I’d chosen not to participate in any of it. Despite dad’s and my “pep” talk at the cemetery, I couldn’t seem to accept his words as truth. Fathers were meant to encourage and believe their daughters were infallible creatures. I knew dad believed in what he’d said to me, but it was because, as a father, he was incapable of looking at me in an impartial light.

I was his baby girl. His Lucy in the sky. That was all he saw when he looked at me; he couldn’t see what I’d become. But he was right about one thing—I couldn’t save the world. It wouldn’t change what had happened and it wouldn’t bring John back. However, having accepted that, I no longer knew what to do with myself. My life felt kind of empty and upside down, and that was no recipe for celebrating with a bunch of people I’d known less than a year and wouldn’t be in contact with in a week.

I’d been silent in my assigned metal folding chair, waiting to get this thing done with so I could put this year of my life up on a shelf and forget about it. The rest of the three hundred plus graduates were trickling in, everyone hugging and smiling and gushing about how they’d stay friends forever and would never, ever lose touch.

It was all way too much mush and bullshit for me.

A few more minutes passed and the majority of the seats filled in. I bit at my tassel. Fifteen minutes down, two hours left to go of blah, blah, blah, our future is bright, blah, blah, blah, you can be anything you want, blah, blah, blah.

Blah.

One of the last remaining stragglers weaved through the row a few in front of mine. Sawyer was moving a bit awkwardly, like something wasn’t working quite right, or something like his hand had been glued to his dick. I didn’t even try to help the laugh that burst free.

A few heads turned, including his, but as soon as he saw it was me, his head snapped away like I’d just clocked him in the jaw. I’d kissed that dirtbag. I’d done more than just kiss him. That was enough to make a girl swear off men forever. Especially a girl about to head to college where I’d heard the guys who’d been dicks in high school turned into Grade A assholes, and the few good ones were already taken by the time fall rolled around. Outlook in the man department was bleak, so I’d just pretend there was no department with that title. Better off alone and marginally happy than coupled and positively miserable.

Principal Rudolph appeared from behind the burgundy colored curtains and headed for the podium. This was going to be painful. I actually felt bad for my parents, who were both in attendance, smiling and waving at me every time I glanced in their general area.

“Students, parents, faculty,” he began, going for the whole ominous thing that just wasn’t working for him, “this is truly a time to celebrate the past, the present, and the future.”

What was it with these graduation speeches? Was there some law they all had to be the same, old, tired thing?

“I’d like to take this time to—” Principal Rudolph froze in place, his mouth open and his eyes wide. Making his way onto the stage, Jude jogged across the stage, holding out his hand to Rudolph.

He gripped the mike harder, shaking his head, so Jude snatched it right out of Rudolph’s death grip. I hadn’t seen Jude since Sunday morning, and everything about him was different. He looked like a man at peace. A man who’d uncovered all of life’s mysteries. A man who still, despite all the revelations and words, made my heart throb.

“Excuse me for just one minute, everyone,” Jude said, stepping around the podium. Heads were turning, looking to their neighbors to see if they were just as confused. “No surprise I’m not here speaking as a valedictorian today, but I think all of you are surprised I’m graduating at all, so I’m interrupting this little borefest. Since we started the year with me ripping the mike out of Principal Rudolph’s hands, we might as well end it just the same.” A hushed round of laughter rippled through the graduates. “And I actually have something important to say, unlike the rest of these genius bastards down here in the front row.”

Everyone was either whispering to their neighbor, or trying to pull their mouth from the floor, or glaring at the stage like this was inexcusable. However, Lucy Larson was smiling. Seeing Jude up there in his cap and gown, about to graduate, moving on to some future that involved football warranted a smile. I was happy for his successes.