Page 61 of Will & Patrick's Endless Honeymoon
Eventually, after the sun has been swallowed by the sea, and they’ve both had two more sodas, Will pulls his phone out and gives Patrick the go-ahead. He shudders as their phones ping with dozens of texts.
Will glimpses incoming messages from Owen, Kevin, Caitlin, and one from Olivia, plus a bunch from his mom and a few from his dad before they’re swallowed by Good Works-related texts and old weather alerts.
“I don’t know where to start.” Will chooses to open the one from Olivia first, in case his youngest sister needs him.
Connor stole my Army boots and wore them into the creek on the farm. They got stuck in the mud and he left them there. Now I can’t find them and even if I could they’re probably ruined. I hate him.
Okay, not great, but not an emergency. It can wait. He scrolls to the message from Caitlin next.
Patrick interrupts him before he can read it. “Good news. Jenny says she’s kicked Tom to the curb.”
“And Jax?”
“Begged him to forgive her.”
“Did he take her back?”
“Looks like.”
“Tell her not to mess it up again,” Will says, skimming Caitlin’s message about school, her dorm, and her decision to rush a sorority.
Patrick nods and types in his reply. “That’s it. The hospital actually respected my order not to text me, shocking as that is. There are texts from your mom that basically accuse us of ruining her trip by leaving without discussing it with her first. Won’t dignify those with a response. And I’m done. I won’t risk further exposure to the outside world.” He powers down his phone.
Will replies to Caitlin and offers to cover the expense of anything she’s forgotten to take or anything she needs.
“Like birth control,” Patrick quips, reading over his shoulder.
Will frowns. But then adds a line about birth control and his willingness to pay for the pills if need be. He gathers from the texts from Kevin that his mother still hasn’t returned from her jaunt to meet up with his father, but nothing in Kevin’s messages seems urgent.
He texts his uncle anyway with their anticipated arrival time the next day. He ignores the Good Works texts, because surely Owen has everything under control. And, if he doesn’t, then Will can wait until he’s back in Healing to deal with it all.
Then, through half-squinted eyes, he opens the string of texts from his mother, dating all the way back to before she crashed their honeymoon. Quickly, he messages her that they’re leaving Hawaii tomorrow, and he’ll see her back home in Healing. “That should do it.”
“Quick, shut down before she can reply,” Patrick urges him.
But before he can, his phone pings with a message from Uncle Kevin.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you should know that Ryan passed away last night.
Will’s mouth goes dry, cold chills race over him, and a lump fills his throat. The world around him whistles in a wind tunnel of shock.
Patrick grabs his phone out of his hands, and Will realizes he’s been staring at the message, unresponsive, for a long time. After a minute, Patrick powers down the phone and takes hold of Will’s hand. “Let’s get out of here.”
Will nods.
Out of the corner of his eye, Will sees Patrick motioning for a server. “Charge it to the room.” Then he grips Will by his arm and gently hauls him to a standing position. “C’mon, puddin’-pop.” His voice is sandpaper rough. “Let’s take a walk to the beach.”
Will stumbles several times on the trail surrounded by flowering bushes leading down to the empty, sandy beach, still strewn with footsteps of earlier beach goers.
Everyone seems to have retreated to their rooms or the hotel restaurant for the evening, and Will’s grateful for it. He’d hate for a bunch of strangers to see him cry, and the idea of going to their room, spacious and beautiful as it is, feels too claustrophobic to hold all of his emotions.
Because he’s having big ones.
Emotions that don’t even feel like they fit inside his body. They crash out all around him like water on the rocks and beat at the seams of him like the waves on the sand. The ocean breathes his pain, holds it, and then smashes it out again.
“It shouldn’t hurt like this,” he says finally. “It shouldn’t even matter.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Patrick pulls him down to sit on the sand near a shady outcropping of rocks. “Of course it matters. You loved him. He was a big part of your life, for better or worse, and you’re too good of a person to want this to be how it ended for him.”
