Page 132 of The Other Side

Then my digits drag to the sketched sunflower and dove.

“Listen to me, Dove.” He takes my hand in his, flipping my palm up. I peer up at him, and once our eyes connect under the shimmering sun, he tightens his grip. “I want you to go and write so many stories on the other side. Stories that will make anyone who reads them smile, laugh, and maybe even dance.”

Tears commence once again, but Brant’s thumb brushes each bead away. “Your crying stops today, Dove. It’s time for you to feel what real happiness is.”

“You too, Dove,” I whisper. “You too.”

“Yeah, both of us,” he breathes through quaking lips. “But when I get to the other side, I’m never gonna forget you. I’m never gonna forget all of this and the life we shared together in this trailer park. Under those pine trees. It’s always going to be you and me.”

I slightly lift my knees to plant my elbows on. I draw in a stumbling breath, my bottom lip rattling as my eyes bloom with tears.

“Write me a million stories, Dove. I’ll be waiting to read them,” he whispers. “Even when you think I’m not, I’ll be looking for you. Flying toward you. I’ll find you.”

Her palm rests on my naked shoulder. Her satin flesh dissolves into me as her lips brush the shell of my ear. “I didn’t write you sad stories,” she teases.

The corner of my mouth flexes, but I swipe a hand down my face to collect myself. I huff a sharp breath through my nose, flicking my attention to her kind smile.

She jerks her chin, and I look at the book. My palm rests at the back of her head to stroke her soft tendrils, and my other hand flips the book open.

“My First Day.”

I read her handwriting above the four-by-six photo. My stare travels to the glossy picture, and she’s in the center of her dorm room. Popping a hip as she rests both hands at her waist.

Oh, my fucking heart.

My lungs tingle with glee, happiness flooding every hollow hole in my soul. Those pockets that were never filled in her absence.

I lock my gaze on the girl I fell head over heels and flat on my face in love with. She has shoulder-length waves, a slimmer frame in her simple jeans and t-shirt, and her smile is shy.

My lip shakes as I pinch the bridge of my nose between my fingers.

Callie’s chin rests on my shoulder, her finger now tapping the thick page of the scrapbook. “My roommate, Kelly, took the photo. That’s her.”

“Me and My Roommate.”

I repeat the title above the bottom picture. Which is of her and Kelly throwing peace signs with puckered lips.

My throat chucks a laugh, and Callie’s giggle rumbles against my arm. I flip to the next page, and each one has two photos glued diagonally—a photo at the top, a photo at the bottom. There’s a border of sunflowers on some pages. A frame of doves on a handful of others. Each telling me a story from Callie’s last ten years.

My tears gradually dissipate, the crooks of my mouth lifting a millimeter more with every tale she shows me.

Literally, shows me.

I see the ski trip and the music festival she talked about that night at The Wild Corral. Holidays with her aunt and half cousins. I scurry my gaze over each page, wanting to memorize every single detail so her stories can live inside me. Pump them through my veins until I’m forced to experience those times with her.

When I turn the page, the next cream-colored paper is blank. Then I flip again, only to be greeted with another vacant paper.

I realize we’re at the end.

I inhale an unsteady breath, beginning to shut the scrapbook when Callie’s hand lays over mine. “Keep going,” she says.

My pulse races. I fling my gaze to hers before returning my focus to the scrapbook. Then I resume surfing through to the end.

“I never knew how long it would be, so I just reserved the very last page.”

Her voice massages my ear, the hum of it caressing me as I turn the last couple sheets.

Until I reach the final one.