Page 81 of All the Ways You Save Me
“Let’s go back there,” I say.
Garrett looks down at me. “Right now?”
“Yes, right now.” I sit up so I can gaze into his eyes. I spent years mourning Adam and moving on to build a life with Jason here in Maple Ridge. Everything in this place has been touched by loss, and sorrow, and now the knowledge of Jason’s lies and manipulations. I can’t go back to my apartment to face Adam’s hoodie tucked away in a box under the bed and Jason’s shirts still hanging in my closet.
The photo of me, Adam, and Jason is still sitting on the mantel where I left it, and the sight of our teenage smiles might just break me. When that photo was snapped, Adam and I had so much hope for a future together, so much anticipation, so much love. And Jason? Was there evil in his eyes back then? Was he already plotting to steal Waylon’s money and let Adam take the fall when we wrapped our arms around each other and smiled for the camera?
Garrett’s gaze shifts out across the darkness, and I wonder if he’s thinking about the old trailer on the other side of the river. I can’t imagine how it must be hitting him to be back in Maple Ridge at the site of so much terror and trauma. To have walked into that warehouse, where Waylon threatened to have him killed, or into Jason’s house, where his best friend betrayed him.
The FBI agents who took Jason away told us that another group of officers had arrested Waylon and found enough cocaine in the warehouse to put him away for a long time. IfJason is willing to testify against his boss, he might get a lighter sentence and an offer of witness protection. There’s something karmic about the fact that when Jason gets out of prison, he’ll be sent away to live in a new town, with a new identity, far away from everyone he cares about. While Garrett and I will be together, finally out in the open, finally free.
I take his face in my hands and kiss him. “Garrett?” I whisper against his mouth.
“Yes?”
“Take me home.”
EPILOGUE
THREE MONTHS LATER
Madeline
Garrett and I walk hand in hand down the beach, the waves lapping at our ankles as the cool breeze blows in from the water. It’s late September, the tourists are mostly gone now, and there’s a bite in the air at night that signals fall. It’s the perfect weather for a beach bonfire, and as we approach the spot where Ian is piling wood into an A-frame and Chloe is handing out drinks from a cooler, we wave to a few of my students who jog by on their way to their own party to welcome the fall.
“Hey!” Chloe calls when she spots us, and I run over to give her a hug. We grew close working at the bar together this past summer, but when I moved back to Sandy Harbor, Mrs. Friedman recommended me for her old teaching job, and I started a few weeks ago. Chloe’s had to hire a new bartender, and we don’t get to catch up as much as we’d like. “How did it go in Maple Ridge? Is Jason going to cooperate?” Chloe and Ian are the only people who know Garrett’s and my history outside of Josie, and since we drove back this past week to talk to theprosecutor about the case against Waylon and Jason, I’m sure they’re dying for an update.
“The prosecutor says that if Jason testifies in the case against Waylon, then we won’t have to, and they’ll be able to keep us out of it. Jason should be highly motivated by the fact that they’re offering to protect him in exchange for information.” The prosecutor assured us that Jason will still get a lengthy prison sentence, but it will be on the other side of the country, away from Waylon. And from us.
“That’s a huge relief,” Chloe says, exhaling a heavy breath. “You and Garrett have been through enough.” She hands me a can of beer and I clink it against hers. “And how’s the school year going?” she asks.
“It’s very nostalgic. Somehow my career has led me to teach atbothmy former high schools.” I laugh. “But mostly the kids are the same. Seventy-five percent great and twenty-five percent monsters.”
“So, you’re saying there’s hope for Ellery?” Chloe asks optimistically. “She’s solidly fifty percent monster these days.”
This past summer, Ellery and I bonded over building sandcastles, seashells, and reliving all the adventures of my childhood beach days. She’s a great kid, and I know that being a single mom is hard on Chloe, so I reassure her that Ellery is zero percent monster, and there’s plenty of hope.
The wood pile ignites into flames, and we head over to join Ian and Garrett. More people wander in, locals from the bar who I’ve started to consider new friends and a couple of old friends from high school who I ran into at the bakery or bookstore. So far, nobody I used to know has mentioned hearing any drama about my family leaving the island, aside from the guy Garrett kicked out of the bar a few months ago.
I spotted him once in the grocery store staring creepily over a display of peaches, and when Garrett heard about it, he insisted on talking to the sheriff. They reached out tothe Maple Ridge police department, but nobody could find any evidence that anyone on Sandy Harbor is connected to the drug trafficking operation or Waylon, so for now, they’ve dropped it. I’m inclined to do the same. I’m tired of dwelling on the past and ready to look to my future, but Garrett still insists on meeting me to walk me home when I’m out late.
A warm glow envelops us and we settle into the sand together. I turn to find Garrett looking at me with the firelight dancing on his face.
“What is it?” I ask, a smile tugging at my lips, but I already know the answer. That expression holds the same emotion that vibrates through me when we’re drifting asleep at night, and I feel his chest rising and falling against my back. It’s a mix of contentment and complete and utter amazement that we’re here together, we made it, and this is forever.
As if he can read my mind, Garrett reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small, blue box. I stare at it in his rugged hands as he flips it open to reveal an emerald-cut diamond flanked by aquamarines the shade of the sky, and robin’s eggs, and Garrett’s eyes. My favorite color.
“Marry me, Madeline,” he whispers. “I know it’s only been a few months since we’ve been together again. But I spent ten long years without you. If we’d had that time, we’d be married by now. Maybe we’d even have kids.”
I smile at the thought of a little dark-haired, blue-eyed boy digging in the sand, a red-haired girl begging her dad to teach her how to surf.
“I don’t want to wait any longer to be with you forever,” Garrett says.
“Yes.” I slide my hand up his arm, feeling the texture of his scar beneath his tattoos. It turns out the flower is a mountain laurel for his mother, and the black-eyed Susan and Queen Anne’s lace he had etched there for me, for the memory of our perfect day in the field of wildflowers all thoseyears ago.
“Of course I’ll marry you,” I say, my eyes filling with tears. “I can’t wait to start the rest of our lives together.” I lean in to kiss him, and when we pull away, applause breaks out from all of our friends gathered around the fire. I look around at their faces—Chloe and Ian, and Ellery is here, and—I gasp.
“Josie?”
