“Ya know, I don’t know exactly where my brother is right now, but I hope that he is at peace. And of course, if he chooses to haunt me, I hope he at least doesn’t do it while Zach and I are, well…” She waggles her eyebrows and giggles as I put my hand up, inferring that she should not finish that sentence. She continues. “But what I do know is that he would hate you not being happy. He would hate knowing that the smile that he made sure he saw every day was gone. He would understand and want someone to be able to put that smile back on your face if he can’t. We know that if he were here that you both would be together and hopefully by now I’d be spoiling the shit out of my nieces or nephews,” she says, smiling, but that smile quickly turns to a frown and the unshed tears start to spill over. “But he’s not. He’s never coming back. So, Dani, I need you to live, for you, for Emmett, for the dreams, and for the memories. You can’t live your life carrying the weight of my brother’s death, you just can’t. I won’t allow it. We let you walk away once before, and fuck if we are going to let you do it again. Prove that my brother’s death wasn’t for nothing but his dreams dying with him and yours as well. We can’t change your dreams together falling apart, but you can still do something about yours—make new ones.”
Fuck not being able to hide my tears and my shoulders trembling. “But I just feel so guilty that I get to live and he doesn’t.”
Haylee pulls me into an embrace, and we are both crying uncontrollably. She cups my cheeks, forcing me to look at her. “I know, I know, but I need you to fucking stop. Don’t let your guilt get in the way of being happy. You did not cause that accident. That’s what it was—an accident. A wrong place at the wrong time. I need you to make the decision to stop feeling guilty. To make the decision of living your life. You only get one, and how amazing is it that in that one life you get two great men who love you when most people don’t even get one.”
In a bit of shock, I pull back from her. “Kyler doesn’t love me.”
She tries to hide her laugh. “Oh yes he does. I’ve known him for a few years now, and I’ve never seen him look at someone the way he looks at you.”
Hmmm…. How does he look at me? Is she about to go full-blown Shakespeare up in here with me?
“And how is that?” I respond.
She puts her forehead against mine, and I’m brought back to being kids when we would try to make a point. It was our version of trying to get into the other’s head—kind of alien vs magic shit that we believed.
“Honey.” Haylee pauses. “Ky looks at you the same way Emmett used to.” She gives me a brief smile as she grabs my hand and squeezes it. “It’s also the same way you look at him.”
There is no use in hiding my feelings no matter how much they scare me. I nod in silence, I do love him, but hopefully I didn’t fuck this all up for us by our fight. I need to fix this, to fix us. It has felt good to smile again, to feel loved. Wiping the tears away, I’m sure smearing my already day-old makeup even more, and running my fingers down my hair to help calm the mess, I find myself giggling. “Shit, Hails, when did you become the smart and wise one out of the two of us?.”
Haylee gets one of those shit-eating up-to-no-good grins that I see often on my brother’s face, and I instantly know I will regret hearing whatever her answer is.
“Probably around the same time I started sleeping with your brother.”
Even through my laughter I make a playful gagging sound as if I just threw up a little in my mouth. Haylee lets out a loud, cackling laugh that I haven’t heard in forever. It’s like a sound of coming home, of memories that made us laugh so hard we snorted, cried, and sometimes peed our pants. Okay, so the last one only happened once, and I was ten.
“If that’s not the pot calling the kettle black, missy. Remember every time we talked about boys growing up and all your firsts? I had to hear about my brother, so bleh,” she says, sticking her tongue out at me. And just like that we are both rolling over laughing. How we went from tears of sorrow to joy, I’m not sure, but I’d like to think Em had something to do with it.
Taking a deep breath to regain some composure, I ask my best friend, “So you’re really going to marry my brother, huh?” I grab her hand to properly inspect that gorgeous rock he gave her this morning. The ring is simple yet beautiful, just like her. It feels as though so much has happened today that I can’t believe it was just a few hours ago that Zach was on one knee in front of her giving her this.
“Yeah, I am,” she says, wearing a grin from ear to ear. She turns to face Emmett’s gravestone, holding up her left hand. “Did you hear that, big bro? I’m getting married, can you believe it?” Haylee looks up to the sky and squeezes her eyes shut before turning back to me. “But you know what’s better than him becoming my husband?”
I put my thinking face on and move my head around as if I’m giving it serious thought. I playfully respond, “A root canal? Maybe natural childbirth? Falling out of the tree house and breaking your arm?” A smile comes to my face when I say the last one, remembering when we were kids and Haylee did exactly that.
Shoving me playfully, she is all full of smiles when she says, “Bitch! No, I was going to say, I still get you as my sister. See? That plan didn’t change.”
I’m forever thankful that my relationship with Haylee isn’t ruined. I know I made lots of mistakes over the years including leaving my family and friends behind. I was worried that Hails wouldn’t want anything to do with me, but that’s not her. And she’s right, after all these years, the one thing that never changed was that Haylee and I were meant to be sisters. It’s just a different Hanks and Jacobs marrying this time.
I pull her in to what is possibly our millionth hug of the afternoon. “I love you, Hails.”
“I love you too, D. Now, what do you say we get back to the apartment because I’m pretty sure Kyler has officially driven Zach insane and possibly paced the floor away.”
I nod as we stand up and brush the grass off our clothes. Haylee steps forward and kisses the headstone. “I’ll see you later, big bro. I promise I’ll take care of her. I miss you. Love you, E.”
“Can you give me a minute?” I ask Haylee as she steps back. She nods and turns to head toward the cars. I bend down, kiss my hand, and place it on the dash between Emmett’s birth and death date. I am reminded of the poem Zach spoke at Em’s funeral, “The Dash” by Linda Ellis.
Emmett was only on this earth for eighteen years, and he spent most of those years loving me. He loved me with everything he had and will always be in my heart. I’ve wasted years of my dash angry, sad, and hurt, thinking my dash was over when his ended. It’s time to rearrange my life and start living. There will never be a day that I forget Emmett. He lives with me, and I hope that he will be with me every day till the end when I hope one day we will be reunited.
“I love you, Emmett Adam Hanks.”
I close my eyes and take a deep breath, imagining him standing there in front of me. “I love you, Cupcake.”
Blowing out that breath, I respond, “Forever and always.” I smile as I turn and walk toward my car where Haylee is standing next to my brother’s Jeep. We silently nod at each other before hopping in the cars and heading back to Pennsylvania.
“I f you don’t stop pacing and sit the fuck down, I’m going to punch you. You’re gonna wear a hole in the floor, and then we’ll never get back our security deposit,” Zach chuckles before taking a sip of his beer.
I stop pacing and take a seat on the chair next to the couch. I’m so anxious, I adjust myself in the seat four or five times before Zach puts his hand on my arm and looks me in the eye. “Ky, you need to calm down. Hails said they’re on their way back. She’s okay.”
“I know. I just really love her, man, and I’m afraid it’s all fucked up,” I tell him honestly.