“Dear Daughter,” she reads.

One by one, she reads the letters her mother had written for her. And one by one, after she’s done and has read aloud the last line Love Mommy, I watch as she places the letters into the campfire, and says goodbye. After the first letter, I can tell she is starting to get choked up, so I reach over and wrap my arm around her shoulders, and hold her as tightly as our injuries will allow. After the second letter, tears are flowing freely down her face. She doesn’t even try to stop them. After the fifth, my own face is wet and my throat feels like it’s strangling me from the inside out. After that, I stop counting. I don’t know how long we sit there, but by the time she’s read the last letter, the one her mother had written just days before she died, the sun is staring to dip behind the horizon, and the light is beginning to fade, making the fire cast little dancing shadows around the yard.

I press a kiss to her temple as she finishes reading the last letter, her voice so choked up that the sounds she’s making are barely even words anymore. Then, instead of leaning forward and placing it into the fire as she had with the others, she takes a deep, shaking breath and carefully refolds the last letter, placing it back in the box. She sets it down gently on the ground next to her. Then she turns and wraps both of her arms around my middle, and burrows her face into my aching chest.

“It’s okay,” I murmur into her hair. “It’ll be okay.”

“I want to keep that one,” she whispers, and I can feel the moisture from her tears seeping through my shirt. I bring my good hand up and slide it down her back gently, nodding.

“Okay.”

“I want to get it tattooed, too,” she says. “Her handwriting. Dear Daughter, Love Mommy.”

I press a kiss to her hair, my heart aching for her, for all she’s lost. “I think she’d have liked that,” I say. “I know I would. It’s really nice.”

She pulls back just enough to look at me. Her eyes are wide and shimmering with tears, so I reach up and use my thumb to brush them away. She blinks and presses the side of her face into my palm.

“I love you,” she says, her voice still choked up.

I lean forward and press another kiss to her forehead.

“I know,” I say. “I love you, too.”

We sit there silently, just us and the fire, and together we watch the last of the letters burn into nothing, sending little bits of ash up into the darkening sky like stars. I take a shuddering breath. I need to do this.

I need to move on.

I pull my arm from around her shoulders, and reach deep into my pocket, pulling my wallet free. Star looks at me, questions in her eyes, but she says nothing. Slowly, heart in my throat, pain in my chest, I open my wallet and pull out the slip of paper I stashed there what seems like forever ago, but really it was only a matter of months. I unfold it gently, and try not to flinch when Star reaches out a hand to tilt it toward her. She needs to see this. She needs to understand.

FATHER OF TWO KILLED IN CAR CRASH the headline reads.

She tilts her head back, reaching up and raking the fingers of her good hand through her dark hair, shoving the strands away from her face. “It’s about that night,” I tell her. “The crash.”

“The accident,” she says, and for the first time, I nod at the word, instead of brushing it off. That’s what it was, after all. Beyond anything else, it was an accident. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. Not that night, and not any night before or since.

“I . . . ” I let out a breath and tilt my head back toward the sky. Why is this so hard?

Letting go shouldn’t be harder than holding on.

“I think I want to burn it,” I tell her.

“Are you sure?” she says, but it’s not a question, not really. I can see it in her eyes. She just wants me to be certain, like she was. I reach out with my free hand and link my fingers with hers.

And then I nod.

“I need to,” I say. “Holding on, it’s killing me.”

“Then do it,” she says, and nods toward the fire. “Let go.”

It’s as easy as falling. I reach out and let the fire take it.

I have something else to hold on to now.

Star

It’s late and everyone has finally gone home, and I just…

My heart feels so full right now. So thankful. I can’t believe everyone came out to help us like that. It . . .

It doesn’t feel real.

“So,” Ash says as he eases down onto the porch swing next to me. The swing shifts a little, and I’m worried about how sturdy it is. I mean, it looks good, but it’s been out of use for a long time, and I have no way of knowing if it’s going to stay attached to the porch ceiling. I’m having visions of it suddenly giving out on us, sending our already-injured bodies sprawling across the porch, covered in debris. But he manages to make it down onto the swing without incident, even though his movements are slow and stilted by pain. I wince in sympathy. I know the feeling.

“So?”

He kicks his feet out in front of him, and the swing begins to sway back and forth.

“Are you ever going to tell me what your other tattoo means?”

A smile sneaks across my face as I realize which tattoo he’s talking about, and before I know it I’m grinning so hard my face hurts.

I reach over and link the fingers on my good hand with the fingers on his good one, and squeeze them tight. And in that moment, I know that no matter what’s headed for us, we’re going to be okay.

Better than okay. We’ll be together.

He glances over at me and catches me smiling at him like a maniac, and his eyebrows raise a touch in confusion, a little furrow burrowing between them. But then he’s smiling, too, and Bruiser trots up and settles at our feet, shifting with a groan and then I can hear the thump of his tail against the wooden planks of the porch floor.

Still grinning, I lean over and press a gentle kiss to Ash’s mouth, careful of the bruises on his face. His free hand, the one with the cast, comes up to cradle the back of my head gently and our lips slide together until we find just the right spot, and his mouth opens under mine.

Long moments later, we ease apart, gentle as breathing, and the streetlights start to blink on in the distance. “That’s not an answer,” Ash murmurs, and presses a kiss to my forehead.

And I just shake my head and smile, closing my eyes as I lean back into him. “I don’t have to tell you what it means,” I whisper against his skin. “You’re going to figure it out on your own.”

Ash lets out a soft chuckle and tugs me forward to kiss me again. “Okay,” he says. “I can do that. After all . . . ” He presses another kiss to my neck.

“We have the time.”

Acknowledgements

To C, for being the best writing buddy ever. Thank you for all your help and support. You’re still my favourite.

To D, for helping me fix it. Thank you so much. You’re amazing.

To A, for reading it first. Literally. I forgot to read parts of it before sending it to you. You’re wonderful.