I thumbed through the well-loved pages, hearing Cam’s voice recite the story of generations of brothers who had been shaped by their fathers’ expectations and biases. It was no wonder he loved it so much. Page after page was highlighted or annotated, the scrawling script changing from pencil to pen in places, from the penmanship of a child to that of a man.

There it was. My finger ran down the words as I spoke aloud.

“I said that word carried a man’s greatness if he wanted to take advantage of it.”

“I remember Sam Hamilton felt good about it.”

“It set him free,” said Lee. “It gave him the right to be a man, separate from every other man.”

“That’s lonely.”

“All great and precious things are lonely.”

I looked up as the sun glinted on the greenhouse Cam had mentioned he was building, and the man himself stepped through the glass door, wiping sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his shirt. His ball cap was on backward, his T-shirt as dirty and stained as his jeans, and yet he’d never looked so beautiful to me as he did in that moment, this incredible man fighting to make things grow in the most inhospitable terrain possible.

Just like his mother had.

I read the final part of the text, since Cam had highlighted only that portion.

“What is the word again?”

“Timshel—thou mayest.”

I closed the book and held it to my chest. He’d thought that part was important enough to remember—the concept that maybe he, too, could choose to be what he wanted and not what he’d been told to be.

But he’d skipped over the words that ripped at me as I stood there, watching him secure another panel to the building, still fighting to make his world a little better on a day when he didn’t think he deserved it.

Maybe it was a different kind of choice—to shove everyone away—but it was also my choice to let him. Or, rather, not to let him.

I watched him for another few minutes, planning my course, strategizing my next steps, until I knew he’d have to come in soon from lack of sunlight. Then I walked over to the desk, took out a piece of notebook paper, and tore it in a strip.

Then I fought.

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-One

Camden

Gravel crunched beneath someone’s steps as I locked in another panel to the greenhouse. I didn’t need to look to know who it was, since there was only one person brave enough to come after me on a day like today.