Boone looked away. “Hey. That’s not a big deal. We were kids. You were a kid.”
“Yeah. I was. But there was still... I was afraid. I was afraid of everything, and most of all, I was afraid of that pain never going away. Never ending. And your pain made mine worse. So I lashed out. And then... I have carried the guilt for that, and I use that guilt as an excuse. I used it to tell myself that I didn’t deserve to have relationships because I wouldn’t be able to be there for someone, because look at what I did to you when you needed me most.” He shook his head. “But that wasn’t it. I was just afraid of how much I felt. And I took it out on you. And I used it as an excuse my whole life.”
“There’s no guidebook on how to handle stuff like that,” said Boone. “And I’m not gonna claim I’m any less messed up than you.”
“Yeah. But some of the messed up you are might be my fault.”
“No,” said Boone. “Hell no. You were always there for me. And yeah, you’re kind of a stoic bastard. But you’re a good man, Flint, and you have been the whole time. Not saying you haven’t made mistakes. I’ve heard the song.”
“Well. She forgives me. I’m going to marry her.”
“Good,” said Boone. “You should. And hell, if she can forgive you, I certainly can. Even if I don’t feel like there’s much to forgive.”
“Thank you,” he said, and he meant it. Because whether Boone was willing to admit it or not, Flint knew that he needed that forgiveness.
And then he did something he knew his brother would be allergic to. He reached out and hugged him. Clapped him on the back. “I’m going to ask her to marry me,” he said. “Well. I already did. But I’m going to get down on one knee and give her a ring and everything.”
Boone looked at him long and hard. “Good for you.”
“Do you think you’re ever going to do that?”
He chuckled. And it sounded kind of bitter. “I have a barrier to that. It isn’t the same thing you have. But it’s...an issue.”
And yet again, he wondered about the phone call he just overheard.
“Well. If you want to talk about it, I’m here. And newly in touch with my feelings.”
“Wow. I’m going to pass on that.”
“Okay. Love you.”
And he’d said it. And he meant it. Boone flipped him off, and that felt about perfect.
At midnight, he and Tansey were in his room, and that was when he did it.
“I have something for you.” He got down on one knee in front of her. “Tansey Martin...will you marry me? For real. Forever?”
Tears sparkled in her eyes as she nodded, and he took the ring out of the box and slid it onto her finger. “I know you can buy yourself any piece of jewelry that you want.”
“But I want this one. Because it’s from you.” She smiled. “I have a song that I want to play for you.”
“Well. Then I want to hear it.”
She sat down on the edge of the bed, holding her guitar, and this one was different. A little more upbeat than the songs she usually played.
And this song was about love. Choosing it, hanging on to it.
Love is cactuses
Good-luck charms and bad-luck nights
Sunny days and colder weather
Letting go and holding on
And I’ve heard the best revenge is living well
But the best is letting go
So you can just love
In the end, it’s all that matters
In the end, it’s the greatest
And he knew it was true. The real story of them. Good and bad and the two years in between, when they didn’t have each other at all. And he was grateful. So grateful, that she had decided to let go of all the anger she had every right to have, so that they could love each other instead.
She had apologized to him recently, for the song. For the fact that some people would never accept they were back together, because they were still holding on to that story she’d told so well.
“It’s part of our story,” he’d said. “And I wouldn’t trade it. Because it had to happen for us to end up here.”
It was true. He’d had to break again to know that he wanted to be whole.
“You know,” he said. “I was wrong, about winning. I said that you couldn’t love anything. That you couldn’t care about anything more. But loving you, that is winning. And everything else... Everything else is just noise.”
She kissed him. “I love you. And it’s winning for me too.”
“It was the cactus.”
