by Tara Sivec
Epilogue
Everett
Two years later…
Standing in the back of the room, I stare in wonder at Cameron as she laughs and talks to a group of kids in the class who have surrounded her.
Not a day goes by that I don’t appreciate what I have. That I don’t run my hand over the scar left behind on Cameron’s stomach and thank God she’s still here with me.
After a grueling fifteen-hour surgery two years ago, the bullet fired from Bobby Sparks’s gun that day at camp didn’t end up doing as much damage as it could have. It missed her stomach completely, and lodged itself in her kidney. She’s minus that kidney now, but she likes to joke that it was a great way to lose a couple of pounds.
Bobby Sparks, my friend, and the man I tried to help, was convicted of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. Cameron was more than a little upset about the outcome of the case, and not because she thought he should get a worse punishment. Not only was the guilt eating me alive that I somehow could have prevented what happened that day, but it ate away at Cameron, too. She knew about Bobby’s struggles with Amelia and their son. She felt like she should have tried harder to get in touch with him and get him to attend family counseling sessions at the camp.
It took a lot of time, and a lot of reassurance from everyone in Cameron’s life, including Amelia, that there was nothing anyone could have done. Cameron and I are both amazed that after the initial shock, anger, and pain, knowing that her ex-husband was the one responsible for sending those threatening letters to Cameron, and then tried to exact his revenge by shooting her, Amelia has shown just how strong she is by moving forward and refusing to look back.
She and my brother have been going strong for the last two years, and I know he’s the reason she’s doing so well. He took to the role of father figure to Amelia’s son immediately, and Cameron and I are both getting impatient waiting for him to finally pop the question and get that woman to marry him before she comes to her senses.
I thought I could be content just working here at the camp, being a handyman, helping out wherever I was needed and spending the rest of my life doing just that, but after a few months, I grew restless and I didn’t know why. I had Cameron and that should have been enough, and I hated that I couldn’t put a finger on what was making me so anxious and unsettled. Thankfully, Cameron knew me better than I knew myself. After a lot of prodding and a few arguments, she made me realize that even though I was scared, I missed being a doctor. She reminded me that the good always outweighs the bad. For every one patient I lost, I saved ten others. I immediately went back to work part-time at one of the local hospitals, and spent the rest of my time being the on-call doctor here at camp.
I shake my head and laugh at the sight before me, pushing off the wall to move farther into the room.
“If you keep moving like that, you’re going to send another kid to the nurse!” I shout to my wife as she tries to dance to the rhythm of the music playing over the sound system, and failing miserably.
Cameron glares at me through the reflection in the floor-to-ceiling windows before turning around and marching over to me, dodging all of the campers who are in the middle of a dance lesson.
“How many times do I have to tell you, it’s not my fault I kicked Jack Alexander in the shin. He got in my way,” she complains.
“Yeah, well, I’ll forgive you this time. I saw him looking at Olivia funny the other day. I don’t like that kid.”
Our five-month-old daughter, Olivia Aiden Southerland, lets out a happy squeal from the front of Cameron’s body where she’s nestled in a baby carrier. I grab on to her pudgy little hands and start clapping them together.
“We don’t like that kid, do we, Olivia? He’s bad news,” I tell her in a singsong voice.
“He’s four, Everett. I don’t think he’s a threat to our daughter just yet,” Cameron laughs.
“He’s a boy. That’s threat enough.”
I hear a loud bark of laughter, and Cameron and I both turn to find her mom and dad standing behind us, Eli holding his hand to his stomach as he continues laughing.
“You’ll have to forgive your father-in-law. He’s most definitely laughing at you,” Shelby tells me, smacking her husband on the arm.
“How can you not find the humor in this right now?” Eli chuckles. “Thirty-two years ago, in this very room, I caught you staring at our seven-month-old baby girl, and I wanted to kill you.”
Cameron and I watch as her mom wraps her arms around her dad’s waist and looks up at him.
“Full circle, baby. Full circle.”
I look away from them to stare down at my little girl. My blond-haired, green-eyed little girl, who looks exactly like her mother, and suddenly, everything Eli said to me that day in the hospital two years ago makes perfect sense.
“Son of a bitch,” I mutter.
“You okay?” Cameron asks, resting her hands on my shoulders.
I wrap my arms around her and pull her in closer, careful not to squish the little lady between us as she sticks her fist in her mouth and makes babbling sounds.
“I’m definitely okay.”
“Two years, and you still haven’t let me go,” Cameron whispers.
“Of course I haven’t. It was meant to be. I wished for you and it was written on the stars.”
She throws her head back and laughs, bringing it back up to shake it at me.
“That was so cheesy.”
“But you still love me,” I remind her.
She pushes up on her toes and presses a quick kiss to my lips.
“I do. You’re my wish come true.”
I lean down and kiss her again, never more thankful than right this moment that Cameron decided on her tenth birthday we should start making wishes on star-shaped pieces of paper.
We might have gone about it the wrong way, and it took us a while to get here, but at least all of our wishes finally came true.
“Hey, Grandma and Grandpa, would you mind watching your granddaughter for a little while?”
Shelby immediately moves forward to take Olivia, and I help Cameron remove the carrier from off her shoulders, tossing it to Eli. Lacing my fingers through hers, I pull her out of the studio and over to a golf cart parked right outside.
“Where are you taking me?” Cameron asks as I pull away from the studio, keeping one hand on the wheel and resting the other on her thigh.
“You’ll see,” I tell her with a smile.
A few minutes later, I pull up in front of our treehouse and park at the base of the ladder.
“My birthday isn’t for another couple of weeks,” Cameron muses as we get out of the golf cart and I gesture with my hand for her to go ahead of me up the ladder.
We still honor our wish tradition every year, even if we have other plans on our birthdays, and even if we have to sneak away from the parties her parents throw for us. Since I emptied both of our boxes of wishes two years ago, we’ve started refilling them again, but now, we tell each other what our wishes are after we put them in our boxes. We learned our lesson about not being honest with each other, and we won’t make that same mistake again.
Once we get up into the treehouse, I plug in the white Christmas lights as Cameron sits in the beanbag chair in the middle of the small room. Dropping down to my knees next to her, I pull up the loose floorboard and grab Aiden’s box from our hiding spot, where it’s still nestled down inside next to ours, wiping off the layer of dust on top of it.
“I think enough time has passed, and it’s only fair that we read his wishes now,” I inform Cameron, sliding the lid off of his box, my throat clogging with tears when I look down into the box and see the pile of stars with his handwriting on them.
“I mean, he did invade your privacy and read all your wishes,” Cameron agrees as I hand the box over to her.
She laughs to herself, pulling the top star out of the box and reading it out loud.
“I wan
t to be the richest man in the world.”
I laugh right along with her and shake my head.
She continues pulling out Aiden’s stars, all of them in order from the last one he wrote on his birthday a few months before he was diagnosed with cancer, down to the ones he wrote when he was a child.
“What’s this?” Cameron suddenly asks, pulling a folded-up square of paper out of the bottom of the box after she gets through all of the stars, which are now littered over the wooden floor around us.
Taking the paper out of her hand, I unfold it and see it’s a letter that Aiden wrote to both of us. Squeezing in next to her on the beanbag chair, I hold the letter in my hand and wrap my arm around Cameron’s shoulders, pulling her against my side.
She rests her head on my shoulder as I read his words out loud.
Dear Cameron and Everett:
I can’t believe you read my wishes, you assholes!
Just kidding. I’m probably dead by now, so I guess I can forgive you. I’m sure you’re wondering when I wrote this and stuck it in the bottom of my box. I’m currently in bed, looking over at Cameron asleep on a chair in the corner of my room. I had Seth go get my box from the treehouse this morning so I could stick this note at the bottom of it, and I’m gonna have him go put it back the next time he stops by to look at me with pity and tries to come up with something nice to say instead of “Sorry you’re dying, man.”
I know I don’t have much time left, and it fucking sucks. Everything hurts, and as much as I hate saying this, I know it’s time for me to go soon. I already wrote a letter to Everett and sent it to him the other day, so he’s gonna know I read his box of wishes a few weeks ago when I was having a rare good day and had enough energy to get my sorry ass up to the treehouse.
What I didn’t tell him in his letter is that I read your wishes, too, Cameron. Jesus, you’re both a bunch of idiots. I hope if you’re reading this, that you pulled your heads out of your asses and admitted how you felt about each other. If not, I’m going to come down from heaven where I’m probably soaking in a Jacuzzi with the skanks who have gone before me, and beat both your asses. And you know how much it will piss me off to leave a Jacuzzi filled with skanks, so don’t make me come down there.
Since my impending death has suddenly made me come clean about all my wrongdoings, I might as well also admit that I only asked Cameron out to piss you off, Everett. Sorry, kid, but I never really wanted to date you. You’re like a sister to me and that’s gross. I honestly thought it would make Everett wake the fuck up and do something about his feelings for you. And really, Cameron? You actually accepted? What the hell is wrong with you? You should have smacked me across the face and told me to go to hell. And yeah, I know I asked you out a few more times after that disastrous first date, but it was hilarious watching you all uncomfortable and wanting to be anywhere but on a date with me. I should be offended by that. I’m hot. Well, I used to be hot. Whatever.
Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, I love you both. I want you two to be happy. Maybe I went about it the wrong way, but I did what I thought was right at the time. I never expected it would push Everett away and make him stay away for so long, and I’m sorry for that.
I’m also sorry that I wouldn’t let Cameron tell you I was sick, man. I realize now that you’re going to be pissed and probably feel guilty when you find out, and I never wanted that. I just didn’t want you to see me like this. It’s bad enough I need help taking a piss and can’t even stay awake for more than a few minutes at a time, and I don’t want you remembering me like this. I want you to remember me as the guy who was always better looking than you, and better with the ladies than you.
And it’s not like I’m exactly thrilled that you have to see me like this, Cameron. That you have to watch me fade away and sit here day after day, waiting for me to die. I’d try to kick you out of this room, but you’re a stubborn ass and it would just be a waste of the few breaths I have left. Which is the main reason why you’re the only one I want here with me at the end. You’re the strongest person I know, kid. You’re braver than anyone I’ve ever met, even if you don’t feel like it right now. You’re gonna to be okay, Cam. Because Everett is going to come home and finally stop being a fucking idiot and tell you he’s been in love with you all his life. And you’re going to stop being a fucking idiot and tell him the same thing. You two are going to be happy together, take care of each other, and do all of the living that I won’t get to do.
I know I always used to complain about our stupid wish tradition, and all of the wishes you read in my box were superficial and dumb. But the first wish I ever made when I was ten years old was the best and most important one, and I’m attaching it to the bottom of this letter. I’m sorry I won’t be here to see you two together, Everett, but the image of Cameron hopefully showing you how good her right hook has gotten before she forgives you for being a stupid shit will make whatever time I have left on this earth worth it.
Don’t ever stop wishing on stars.
My wish came true, and so will yours.
Aiden
Acknowledgments
Thank you to my agent, Kimberly Brower, for loving this story even when I hated it as soon as I finished writing it. Thank you for talking me down from the ledge through all the hundreds of rewrites and edits and different versions of Wish You Were Mine until everything clicked and it became something I’m so incredibly proud of.
Thank you to my absolutely wonderful editor, Michele Bidelspach, for helping make this story better and one I love so much more after you gave it your magical touch.
Thank you to Jessica Prince for all the plotting phone calls and texts, and for not wanting to kill me every time I changed my mind about how this story should go.
Thank you to the best beta readers in the world: Michelle Kannan and C.C. Wood. I could never write a story without you kicking my ass when something sucks, and giving me a huge ego boost when something is good.
Thank you to all of the members of Tara’s Tramps for your unwavering support, and for all of your posts, which make me laugh when I’m sad, or run out to the store to stock up on eye bleach.
Thank you to the fabulous women of FTN. For your support, your love, your help, and everything in between.
As always, thank you to my family, who remind me to shower and feed me when I’m on a deadline.
Last, but certainly not least, thank you to my readers. Thank you for letting me do what I love. Thank you for continuing on this crazy ride with me whether I make you laugh, make you cry, or make you read with all the lights on. I love you all, and I’m so incredibly blessed that you allow me into your lives and into your hearts and let me tell you my stories.
1,843 days. That’s how long I survived in that hellhole. They tried to break me, but I resisted. And I owe it all to the memory of warm summer nights, the scent of peaches, and the one woman who loved me more than I ever deserved to be loved. Now, I’ll do anything to get back to Shelby…
Turn the page for a preview of
THE STORY OF US.
And find out more about
THE STORY OF US here at…
tarasivec.com/book/the-story-of-us/
Prologue
How much can a man take before he breaks? Is it measured by how many minutes, hours, days, or years he lives in hell? Is it one too many punches, kicks, or broken bones because he refuses to give in?
I wish I knew. As my head whips to the side when a pair of knuckles slam into my cheek again, I wish I knew the exact moment all of this will finally come to an end so I can count down the seconds and know exactly how much longer I need to hang on. Five years, two weeks, four days, and nine hours of the same thing, day after day, and I’m ready for it to be over. But I won’t give in. I won’t give them what they want even as the punches turn into kicks and the kicks turn into puddles of blood soaking into the dirt floor around me. Marines never give up.
Ooh Rah!
They scream at me in a rapid-fire fore
ign language. I’ve learned just enough in my years here to understand how much they still hate me, my country, and my refusal to give them what they ask for. Just like I’ve done for 1,843 days, I close my eyes and pretend like I’m not getting the shit kicked out of me. I think of her smile, her laugh, the smell of her skin, and her gentle touch. The punches and the kicks morph into soft hands sliding over my chest and warm palms pressed against either side of my face. The metallic scent of my own blood dripping down my face turns into the sweet, crisp smell of fresh peaches and my mouth waters, wishing I could taste her skin one last time.
I wonder if she’d touch me with the same boldness now that scars disfigure my skin. I wonder if she’d love me the same way when she saw how twisted and confused my mind has become just so I can make it through another day.
I wonder if she still thinks of me as much as I do her.
I wonder if she knows she’s the only reason I’m still breathing, still fighting, and still holding on.
Blood pools in my mouth and I spit it into the dirt, wishing the dry, packed earth would swallow me up just like it does with the bodily fluids that drip down off my skin.
“Give us names and this will stop. You will live like king and not like dog.”
My torturer speaks in broken English, giving his battered fists a break and squatting down to stick his face close to mine. For five years, they’ve been under the impression I’m some high-ranking military official and can give them the names of top brass with checkered pasts they can extort for their own agenda in this war. I gave up trying to make them understand after the first year. They’ll never understand and they’ll never care. At this point, it’s just a game to them anyway. They don’t care about the names; they just care about having another American under their thumb to torture for sport.
“How about we kill your friend instead? Will that make you talk?”
