“You do matter,” I told him, and my voice cracked right down the middle. “You do. Joe, I’m so sorry. I never thought—it wasn’t meant to be like that. I wasn’t thinking. I was lost in my head. Everything was falling apart. Gavin was… gone. And I didn’t do enough to stop him from leaving. I blamed myself for that. If only I could have been stronger. If only I could have been more.” I tugged on his hair. He shuddered. He shook. He quaked, and I said, “You’ve always been strong. I told myself it was because of what you were, of what Dad made you into. You weren’t like us, or so I thought. And that wasn’t right. You were put on this pedestal, and it wasn’t fair. Joe, I love you just as much as I love Kelly. I failed you if you ever doubted that, and that’s on me. You did nothing wrong.”
Kelly said, “We’re in awe of you, Joe, and everything that you’ve done. If Ox is a unifier, it’s only because he has you. If we’ve survived as long as we have, it’s because you led us. We followed you into the dark when Richard Collins took from us. When Elijah came. When Caswell fell. We would follow you anywhere. No matter what you do, no matter if you’re our Alpha or not, we’re always going to be with you.”
Joe sniffled, rubbing his face against my stomach. “I know. It’s just nice to hear it. It’s lonely being an Alpha. Dad never told me how lonely it could be. I wish he had. Even with Ox, it feels like I’m on an island and no one can get to me.” He laughed wetly. “Stupid, right?”
“No,” I whispered. “It’s not stupid.”
“I wish….” Joe stopped. He frowned. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Don’t,” I told him. “Say it. Say it all.”
He took a deep breath. “I wish Dad had never been an Alpha.”
And there it was. Out in the open. A thought we’d all had at one point or another, spoken aloud and laid bare. It wasn’t fair, but then life never really is. But it was Joe who had the courage to speak his truth while the rest of us hadn’t dared.
Kelly said, “Me too.”
I said, “Me three.”
They laughed.
“But we can’t change that,” Joe said, and though he was still blue, there was green relief mixed in, as if he’d revealed a great secret. Finally. At last. “This is who we are. This is who we’re supposed to be.”
We were quiet for a time, each of us lost in our own thoughts. I was cold, but it didn’t matter. I didn’t want to move. Moving meant breaking apart, pushing them away. I wanted to stay in this moment for as long as we could.
It was Kelly who filled the quiet. He said, “Dad loved us.”
“He did,” Joe said. “With his whole heart.”
“I still get mad at him,” Kelly said. “For all the secrets he kept. But if Joe is right and it’s like being on an island, it makes sense. He must have been lonely. Even with all of us.” Then, “The letter.”
“What letter?” I asked.
“The one he wrote for Robbie without knowing who Robbie was.”
“Oh,” I said. He’d told me about it before, but I hadn’t read it. It wasn’t for me.
“Ox got one,” Joe said.
“Did you read it?” Kelly asked.
He shook his head. “No. Ox offered, but I wasn’t ready. It still hurt too much.” He turned over, his chin right below my rib cage. I lifted my head and looked into his blue eyes. “There’s one for Gavin.”
“That’s not….” What. Right? True? Real? It was. Of course it was. No matter what happened between us, the letter was meant for him. There wouldn’t be anyone else. “Yeah. I guess there would be.”
“It helped me to understand him better,” Kelly said. “What he was thinking, why he did some of the things he did. But you know what I got from it the most?”
“What?” Joe asked.
“That he loved us. Maybe more than anything in the world. He wasn’t perfect. Far from it. But he tried as hard as he could.” He sighed. “He reminds me of Carter that way.”
I couldn’t speak.
“Yeah,” Joe said. “He was like Carter, wasn’t he?”
I closed my eyes.
“We’ll get through this,” Joe said, and I heard a bird singing somewhere in the trees. “We’ll figure it out. We have to. Everyone is counting on us.” I heard him smiling when he said, “And Carter’s gotta get his act together. Make a man out of Gavin.”