“Hey, Rowan,” she whispered, eyes already wet as she pulled a handwritten note from her pocket. “I know, two good-byes and you hate good-byes. But I needed to tell you a couple of things.” She read from her notes. “First . . . I don’t think I appreciated you enough. Actually, I know I didn’t. I mean, who else could I have called in the middle of the night about a june bug in my room? You drove two hours to come save me.” She sniffed and lost her battle with her tears, but she kept reading. Not that Cam could understand a single word of it, and given the look on everyone’s faces, they couldn’t either.

He really wanted to close himself off to her heartfelt, raw grief. Instead, he held his hand out for the paper.

With gratitude, she handed it over, and as he began to speak her words for her, she dropped her head to his chest and sobbed.

“‘You always said I needed to reach for the stars,’” he read, his throat on fire as he held her close with one arm. “‘And I want you to know, Rowan, I’m going to keep trying. For you. Thanks for being my ride or die. I’ll never forget you.’”

“That’s sweet, Win,” Piper whispered.

Winnie lifted her head and gave her a soggy, grateful smile.

Cam handed her back the note and gently took the canister, looking down at all that was left of his brother. His heart was still beating in that heavy thumping rhythm from a grief he hadn’t been able to let go of, didn’t know if he’d ever be able to let go. Drawing a deep breath, he stared sightless at the water below, but what he saw was himself on the asphalt that night, holding a dying Rowan, the rain falling on their faces. “I dream about the car accident every night,” he said.

He felt Piper’s hand on his arm, and when he met her gaze, hers was filled with way too much sympathy and understanding, neither of which he deserved.

“We’d fought,” he said through an impossibly tight throat. “He’d been drinking and was acting”—he shook his head—“like Rowan. He could find a good time in doing absolutely nothing, and I snapped.” He knew he had to do this, had to say it all or he’d never be able to live with himself. “We got into it.” And a lot of that had been because Cam was mad that Rowan had ruined some girl’s life getting her pregnant so young, not that he could say that since Piper still didn’t know. “I called him immature and ungrateful and lazy. I told him he needed to grow the fuck up. And he”—he forced himself to look at Winnie and his dad—“he told me to stop being a controlling asshole.”