Never coming back from the Great Beyond.
Do you feel guilty yet? You should. Because Cameron misses you, even though she won’t admit it. I’ve tried my best to make her happy without you here. She puts up a good front about not giving a shit that you’ve been gone for so long, but I know she’s lying. She needs you now, more than ever. She needs you to get that stick out of your ass, suck up the reasons you’ve stayed away from us, and come home.
I’m not going to be there to make her laugh, wipe away her tears or cheer her on when she does something amazing. I am officially passing the baton over to you. It’s your turn now. You’ve traveled around the world, you’ve saved lives, you’ve become a God damn hero to strangers. Now it’s time to be a hero back here at home, where you belong. It hasn’t been the same without you. We haven’t been the same without you, and now that I’m gone, you can make it up to me by GETTING YOUR ASS BACK WHERE YOU BELONG.
And just so you know, I read your box of wishes that we swore we’d never, ever read until we were all old and gray. Dude, I’m dead, so you can’t be pissed at me for that. But I am so pissed at you from beyond the grave for never telling me about that shit. I mean, I knew, of course I knew, I’m not blind or stupid. But all these years when I thought you were just being an idiot and refusing to admit how you felt, or figured you must have changed your mind and moved on, you were actually admitting everything on those fucking stars! I’m your best friend and you didn’t even tell me. Is that why you stayed away for four years? If it is, you’re an even bigger asshole than I thought. It’s time to stop wishing on those fucking stars every year and make your dreams come true by actually doing something about it.
I’m sorry I won’t be there to see Cameron kick your ass for staying away for so long. Be careful, she’s developed a mean right hook over the years. But go easy on her, man. She’s going to pretend to be okay, pretend like everything is fine and she’s fine and her whole damn life is fine…you know how she is. Always more concerned about everyone else instead of herself. She’s going to need you now, more than ever.
I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was sick the last time we talked on the phone, but what would have been the point? It’s not like you could do anything about it, aside from sit here and watch me die. I don’t want you to remember me like this. It’s bad enough Cameron has to have this picture of me in her head for the rest of her life, I won’t do that to you, too. I want you to remember me as the devastatingly handsome, perfect specimen of man that I was. I want you to remember the good times, the laughter, growing up together at the camp, and me being full of life instead of confined to this fucking bed with barely enough energy to write this damn letter. Don’t you dare feel guilty about not being able to save me. I know you’re an amazing doctor, but sometimes, cancer wins.
Come home, Everett. Come home and finally do something about those wishes.
You can’t save me, but you can come home and save our girl.
—Aiden
Chapter 1
Everett
How much pain can one person handle before they give up?
Watching children die right in front of their parents’ eyes?
Telling someone that they’re sick, but you don’t have the resources to help them?
Getting an infection from unclean water and living in horrible conditions?
Trying your hardest to travel to every third world country you could possibly think of to avoid going home only to find out your best friend since you were ten-years-old died of pancreatic cancer, and because you didn’t even know he was sick you weren’t there to help? All because you avoided him? Never got a chance to apologize for being such a shitty friend? Never got a chance to say good-bye?
How much is too much?
I take another swig of vodka and let my head thump back against the wall, wondering how much more I can take. I’ve been trying to numb the pain with booze since I came back to the states. It works for a little while. The blur of vodka when it pumps through my veins makes me forget about everything for a few minutes.
A few minutes of peace.
A few minutes of not hearing the cries of babies or the pleas of mothers begging me to save their children.
A few minutes of not seeing Aiden’s face in my head, smirking at me and calling me an asshole.
A few minutes of not thinking about her.
One-hundred-and-eighty-seconds where I can close my eyes and feel nothing.
With my ass on the floor and my legs sprawled out in front of me, I close my eyes and let the quiet bliss takeover, but it’s gone too soon. It never lasts long enough. Not anymore. Not after that letter he wrote.
That fucking letter.
I open my eyes and my body breaks out into a cold sweat when I look at the letter I crumbled up and tossed a few feet away from me. The letter I’ve been rereading for the last three months, ever since it showed up in my mailbox in Cambodia, exactly two weeks after Aiden died.
My eyes stay glued to the ball of paper, Aiden’s neat, block handwriting peeking out of the crushed page, as I bring the vodka back up to my lips and try to drink away the pain and misery swirling around inside of me. It doesn’t even burn anymore when it goes down and I can almost fool myself into believing the water bottle I poured it in is really just water. I don’t know why I bother trying to hide it at this point. My brother has seen all the empty vodka bottles I’ve hidden under my bed and out in the garage behind shelves and boxes. He found an entire box of empty liter bottles in the trunk of my car yesterday that I meant to take out to the garbage dump and get rid of, but never got around to it. Probably because I was too drunk to drive there.