I know this will be difficult for you to deal with, so I’ve tried to make it as easy as possible. Someone will need to clean up after they take my body, so I’ve left a card on the kitchen counter for who you should call. There’s plenty of cash in my purse. I’ve left it in the kitchen, on the counter.

If you look in my office, third drawer down on the right, you’ll find that I’ve prepared all the necessary paperwork to file for survivor benefits. Make sure you do this right away. Once the paperwork is filed, you’ll get a check in a matter of weeks. There’s still a mortgage on the house, but there will be enough left to cover tuition for each of you. I’ve set all that up through our lawyer.

Please keep the house until you’re all grown and settled. It’s a good house and despite this one thing, we had a lot of good memories here.

Please know that you three boys made every second of my life worth living. And if I could take away this cancer, I would do it. I would be so selfish about it; I’d probably give it to someone else to suffer through just so I could spend more time with each of you. That’s how much I love you.

Please forgive me. I had two poor choices to choose from, neither of which I wanted. I just went with what would be more beneficial to all of us in the end. I hope one day you can understand. And I hope that by choosing to do this, I don’t ruin this date for you. November 9th is significant to me, in that it’s the same day Dylan Thomas died. And you boys know how much his poetry means to me. It’s gotten me through a lot in life, especially your father’s death. But my hope for you is that this date will just be a date for you in the future with little significance and little excuse to mourn.

And please don’t worry about me. My suffering is over. In the wise words of Dylan Thomas . . . After the first death, there is no other.

With all my love,

Mom

I can barely read my mother’s signature through my tears. Ian walks back into the room several minutes later and sits beside me.

I want to thank him for making me read it, but I’m so mad I can’t even speak. If I had just read the letter before the police took it, I would have known everything right then. The last two days would have turned out so different. I may not have been in such a state of shock had I been able to read the letter then. I also wouldn’t have misconstrued everything and assumed a man had to do with her decision.

And I would have actually stayed home last night, rather than make the choice to get in her car, drive to a stranger’s house, and start a fire that went out of control.

When I double over from the sobs, Ian puts his arm around me and pulls me in for a hug. I know he thinks I’m crying because of everything I just read, and he’s partly right. He also probably assumes I’m crying for saying such hateful things about my mother, and he’s partly right about that, too.

But what he doesn’t know is that most of these tears aren’t tears of grief.

They’re tears of guilt for being responsible for ruining the life of an innocent girl.

Fallon

I set the page down and pick up another tissue. I don’t think I’ve stopped crying since I started reading.

I check my phone and there’s a response from my father.

Dad: Hey! I’d love to, I miss you, too. Tell me when and where and I’ll be there.

I try not to cry when I read his text, but I can’t help but feel my bitterness has wasted a lot of good memories that could have been made with him. We’ll just have to make up for it over the next few years.

I’ve taken breaks to eat. To think. To breathe. It’s almost 7:00 p.m. now and I’ve only made it through half of the manuscript. I usually get through books in a matter of a few hours, but this has been the hardest thing I’ve ever had to read in my life. I can’t imagine how hard it must have been for Ben to write.

I glance at the next page, trying to decide if I need another break before beginning. When I see that this next chapter is the day we met in the restaurant, I decide to continue reading. I need to know what motivated him to show up there that day. And more so, why he made the choice to enter my life.

I sit back on the couch and take in a deep breath. And then I start reading chapter four of Ben’s manuscript.

Ben’s novel—CHAPTER FOUR

Age 18

“Somebody’s boring me. I think it’s me.”

—Dylan Thomas

My arm dangles over the side of the bed, and I can tell by the way my hand lies across the carpet that the bed doesn’t have a frame or box springs. It’s just a mattress on the floor.

I’m on my stomach. There’s a sheet draped halfway over me and I’m facedown on the pillow.

I hate these moments. When I wake up too discombobulated to know where I am or who might be on the bed next to me. I usually lie still long enough to get a grip on my surroundings before moving in hopes I don’t wake up whoever might be in the room with me. But this morning is different, because whoever was on this bed with me is already awake. I can hear a shower running.

I try to count how many times this has happened—when I’ve gotten so drunk that I can barely remember anything the next day. I’m guessing at least five times this year, but this is by far the worst. I can usually at least remember which party I was at. Which friend I was with. Which girl I was flirting with before everything went black. But right now, I’ve got nothing.

My heart begins to beat as hard as the pounding in my head. I know I’m about to have to stand up and find my clothes. I’ll have to look around to try and figure out where I am. I’ll have to figure out where I might have left my car. I might even be forced to call Kyle again. But he’ll be my absolute last resort, because I’m not in the mood for another lecture today.

To say he’s been disappointed in how I’ve turned out is an understatement. Things haven’t been the same at home since the day our mother died two years ago.

Well . . . I haven’t been the same. Kyle and Ian are hoping my downward spiral will find an uphill slope soon. They were hoping once I graduated high school that I would get serious with college, but that hasn’t happened in the way they maybe think it has. In fact, my grades are so bad due to absences, I’m not even sure I’ll make it through the semester.

And I try. God do I try. Every day I wake up and I tell myself that today will be better. Today will be the day I resolve myself of guilt. But then something will happen that will trigger that feeling that I want to drown faster than it appeared. And that’s exactly what I do. I drown out everything with alcohol, friends, and girls. And at least for the rest of that night, I don’t have to think about the mistakes I made. The life I ruined.