Total pages in book: 143
Estimated words: 130275 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 651(@200wpm)___ 521(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130275 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 651(@200wpm)___ 521(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
Leo placed his hand on my shoulder. “I’m always ready to talk, when you are.” He got up and left me on the beach. I stayed out there until the sun began to fade over the horizon, a burn-orange semicircle casting the beach in a golden glow. I only moved when darkness fell and the stars came out. I looked up at every one and thought back on what Savannah had said in Norway.
I searched each star for one that could be Cillian. But there were so many, just like the billions of grains of sand I sat upon. Lifting from the sand, I made my way back to the hotel. The lights were still open in the gazebo where we had painted.
The pull of a thread inside of my gut guided me back there, to the piece that I didn’t even remember painting. When I reached the gazebo, everyone’s paintings were still out, drying. I made my way around them, looking at what my friends had been thinking when they had opened their hearts. Dylan’s was full of pastel colors and blues. It was affectionate, somehow. Peaceful. Like the feeling of coming home.
Travis’s made my chest ache. Eleven white crosses in a vivid green field. The sun was bright and yellow shining down upon them. And there was a flash of orange and red standing to the side, hand upon one of the crosses. I understood that to be Travis, mourning his friends.
Lili’s was three hands holding on to each other tightly, never letting go. Only two of the hands were lighter, almost transparent, angelic. Jade’s was a riot of color, every color that could be named. It spoke of vibrant people, bright and fun and filled with life. Her mother and brother.
Then I came to a stop at Savannah’s. Pale pinks made flowers of her canvas. A mason jar sat off to the side, a blossom tree in the background too. Stars hung in the sky, looking down upon the scene. It was calm and peaceful. It looked like a place I wanted to see.
“The blossom grove,” a gentle voice said out of the darkness. I turned to see Savannah coming up the stone stairs from the hotel into the gazebo. She was dressed in a sage-green dress that had strap sleeves and floated around her knees. Her blond hair was down and curled with the heat. She was more beautiful than any of these paintings.
“It’s a cherry blossom grove, back in Georgia. What our small town was named for.” A nostalgic smile flickered on Savannah’s lips. “It was Poppy’s favorite place.” She reached my side and ran her hand over the bottom of the tree. “It’s where she’s buried.”
“Savannah,” I said and wanted to reach out and pull her into my arms. But I felt exhausted and not myself. I didn’t want to hold her the way I was feeling. Didn’t want to tarnish her with my touch. Today had shaken me. Completely. I felt like I was crawling out of my skin.
“It’s where she was happiest. It’s only right she rested there for eternity.” I was so damn proud of Savannah in that moment—and always. The girl I’d met in JFK would never have talked about her sister like this. She stood beside me, right now, strength in her stance and an outspoken love for the sister she cradled in her heart. And Savannah Litchfield, I found, had the biggest of hearts.
“What’s that?” I asked, voice hoarse as I pointed to the mason jar. My throat was sore, like my soul was so tired it didn’t want me to speak. But I had to. All of these feelings were bubbling inside of me, rising to the surface, begging to escape.
Savannah smiled wider. “Our Mamaw gave Poppy a jar of paper hearts before she died, one thousand of them. Each time Poppy had a kiss—an earth-shattering kiss—she was to write it down and record it. She was to collect one thousand in her lifetime.” Savannah’s hand slightly shook as she traced the outline of the jar. “When she was diagnosed with cancer, she didn’t think she would achieve it. But she did it. With her soulmate, Rune.” Savannah looked up to me. “Kiss one thousand was given on her very last breath.”
My heart fired off into a fast-paced beat. I’d never heard anything like that.
“When I used to think of Poppy, I would think of loss and pain and feel her heavy, irreplaceable absence walking beside me every day, ominous and gutting. But when Miriam asked us to paint our lost loved one and who they were to us, and how they made us feel, I couldn’t paint anything other than something beautiful.” Savannah inhaled a trembling breath. “Though her life was short, she lived big and she lived loud and never wasted a single moment, not even when she was dying. She lived life until her very last breath. She was grace personified until the end—and even beyond.”