I thought about telling her who and what Heath Hall was and represented but I felt like that took away from the secrecy pact of it all. She’d know in a couple days when that backpack and instructions ended up in her care. So instead, I said, “My parents choose my brother over me every time.”

She didn’t argue. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m tired of it. I thought if I drove this truck tonight that I’d be facing a fear, the fear of competing with his memories my whole life. I thought I’d be facing the memory of my dead brother once and for all. Telling him in a way that I had won. Or maybe that it shouldn’t be a competition at all. I don’t know. It sounds weird, I know.”

“So wait, you drove this truck around? Like out of this yard?”

“Yes, I was just getting back when you pulled up.”

“Wow, Hadley. And how did it feel?”

“Freeing.”

She smiled. “I bet.” She put her hands on her hips and looked at the truck again. “And now you’re trying to put it back?”

“Yes.”

She hesitantly asked, “What about your parents? Don’t you want them to know?”

“I think the message would be a little too shocking. I want to ease them into it a bit by talking to them first.”

“Probably a good idea . . . except.” She gestured to the truck. “Now you’ll just give them a heart attack.”

“I know.” I let out a defeated breath of air. “This will not go over well. It would’ve been one thing if I had just left it parked in the driveway. That would’ve been shocking enough. But this?” I couldn’t even finish that thought out loud. This would be like a punch to the gut. This looked like a broken truck. A wrecked truck. This would be more than a shock. I felt beyond terrible. That’s why I was going to fix this. I had to.

Amelia walked around the platform again, as though some new idea on how to solve this would suddenly come to her after over an hour of trying to figure something out and failing. “Where did you go?”

“All the places I wanted to go and never could. I took Jackson.”

She clapped and gave a little jump. “Tell me everything.”

I climbed up on the platform and into the bed of the truck. It teetered just a bit with my weight but the way it was sloped forward provided a really good angle to sit. I patted a space next to me.

She raised her eyebrows. “Are you sure? I’ve never been inside his truck before.”

“Neither had I. Come on. Let’s talk. I want to hear all about your night with DJ as well.”