What a perfect ending I want to say, “Do you even realize how long I’ve been waiting?”

Great dialogue.

Great scene.

I almost laugh.

And then the arms embrace me harder, and I look down at the friendship bracelet Quinn always has on his left hand. It’s old, from some seaside town in Oregon, something Ambrose gave him forever ago; he joked he’d wear it until it fell off and his dreams came true.

I asked him why his dreams would come true when the bracelet left him.

He never said why.

But right now, he’s holding me. I can smell him, breathe him in. I lean back against his chest, and with shaking hands, he pulls the ragged strings of the bracelet loose with his teeth while still holding onto me.

It loosens. I stare down at the whitish-brown strings that are braided together with one small rock in the middle. The rock isn’t even pretty; it’s this grayish-blue-looking thing that’s held together by nothing.

“Dreams come true when you let them go,” he whispers in my ear. “You hold them in the palm of your hand for so long that it’s all you can feel against your skin. It imprints onto your body in such a way that you don’t even realize it.” I don’t know why, but I start to cry. “What nobody tells you is that dreams can very easily turn into nightmares when they linger too long, when they imprint in your soul, when you can’t see past them and only focus on them, they become bigger, and they shift.” He briefly lets me go, grabs the bracelet from his hand, and dangles it over the water. “Sometimes dreaming means letting go, not holding on. I was going to wear this until my dream came true and you know what’s so funny about that? My focus was so straightly focused on getting my best friend back, on fixing things, on things being so fucking perfect that I forgot what it meant to be a friend, what it meant to truly be there. I let my dream become a nightmare, and I used this as a symbol of what I needed to accomplish, like some trophy I’d get when I finally did it. I never needed it, and neither do you. You’re perfect the way you are, Mary-Belle. You have a boyfriend who loves you despite the hatred you feel for yourself sometimes. That’s what true friendship is. True love isn’t in the pretty—it’s born out of the ugly, so if you want to let go… take mine.”

He puts the bracelet in my hand.

Hot tears stream down my cheeks, and my throat hurts so bad I feel like I really might die as I grip the bracelet.

“Let go,” Quinn whispers. “I’ll help you.”

“And if I can’t?” I ask.

“You always can. It’s not if you can. It’s if you will. Sometimes, we hold on to things because we’re afraid if we let them go, we’ll have nothing left to worry about. Anxiety can be your best friend or worst nightmare.”