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“I hope you’re always this unhappy,” she whispered, staring through Sophia’s dark eyes, not blinking, so she knew that she meant it too.
She had less than forty-eight hours to live, and she would not give those up for anyone.
Her last hope gone, taking with it all the time she had left in this world. Lost. Out the hole where her heart used to live.
“Forty-eight hours.” Jet’s throat closed up the rest of the way, cutting off her breath, the room tilting, doubling, tripling, suffocating her. She closed her eyes. “So, this is it,” she said. “This is how I die. Alone. In a cell. That’s how it ends.”
But there was something worse than all of that put together. That she was going to die while Billy hated her. That was worse. A black hole that spread from her chest, hungry, taking every last bit of her with it. Leaving her with just Billy’s pale eyes.
Because, Billy, this past week, I haven’t really been dying. I think, maybe, it’s the opposite. I’ve finally been living. And that’s all because of you. You showed me.
I’m sorry, Billy, and I hope you listen to this, and you find some way to forgive me. Because I’m an asshole, and I can’t die knowing that you hate me, because I—” “—You have reached the voicemail limit. To send, please hang up, or press one to rerecord your message.” Jet swallowed. Replaced the receiver to hang up.
I BET this is foreshadowing
She was brave, and she was useless, and that was all fine with her.
Jet thought she knew, what Billy meant. Maybe she’d already known, since she heard his song, maybe even before that too.
“You know,” he said, gripping the wheel with both hands, even though they weren’t going anywhere. “I think this has been the worst week of my life, because I’m going to lose you, and I don’t want to lose you.” He cleared the lump in his throat. “But, it’s also been the best week of my life, because I got to spend it with you.” “Me too,” she said again. Same words, completely different somehow, another language. “Good.” Billy clicked his tongue. “Glad we agree.” “Yep. Same page.” Billy caught her eye and Jet smiled, just out of one side.
“It was Jet who figured most of this out, not me. She did it. We just needed a couple more hours, that’s all we needed. Then Jet would have known it was you too. She died not knowing.” He cried, couldn’t stop it now. “I would have let her die thinking it was me, so that she had that. I was going to give her that, I wanted her to have that, I thought she needed it.”
He’d finally let something go in that moment. Not the girl he loved—that would never leave him—but his need to be loved back, to fill the hole his mom had left in his heart.
His chest seized, closing in around his heart, hiding it. It belonged to Jet, always would, he thought. But it belonged to Billy now too, shared, one half each.
Billy looked at Luke. That was what Jet said to him in her letter, her final goodbye. Luke could be scary, Luke had a temper, but maybe Luke could change; maybe he was even changing right now, in front of Billy’s eyes. Was this what Jet would have wanted? She never got the chance to tell Billy the ending she would have chosen.
That final week, not quite long enough, not quite dead yet. But if it’s a frog to you, then it’s a frog to me too. And (I swear) I’ll always play it (I do), Because I wrote this little song…for Jet.
Dear Reggie, I know you’re a dog, and I know you can’t read. But I couldn’t go without answering that one question I always ask you. Who’s a good boy? It’s you, Reg. You’re the good boy. Take care of Mom and Dad for me. Love, Jet xx
Life isn’t about proving something, about waiting for it all to begin. It already began, Luke, and you’re missing it. But we’re different here too. I think I only ever really hurt myself, living that way, but I think you’ve hurt other people, Luke. I know you have.
But here’s the thing. I don’t know if I love you in the same way, not yet, but I think I’m starting to. I think I’m falling, if I know what falling feels like. I know you make me feel safe, I know you make me feel ten feet tall. I know you’re my best friend, always have been. And I think, if we’d had more time, we could have got there. We would have got there. But I also think that if I hadn’t been dying, if we didn’t have this week together, then maybe I never would have seen it. Maybe I would have moved to Boston, forgotten all about you. So I don’t know what that means. Maybe it just wasn’t
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And to Billy Finney, Apartment 1B, 4 Central Street, Woodstock, Vermont, I give my Ford F-150 truck. I know he’ll take good care of it. Go find new stars, Billy.
