Being a mason in the city of San Francisco paid me good money, and the fact that I never spent it meant that I had a pretty fat bank account. I didn’t even bother going back to my apartment. I got myself a new phone and drove away from my life. My old life.

I pretended as I drove down Highway 1 that I wasn’t going to her, even though deep in my gut, where my instinct and my internal compass lived, I knew I was going to her.

Because I knew what she wanted to wish for. I knew what she was too scared to say out loud.

She wished for me. For me.

And I couldn’t be the reason she no longer had the will to wish for something better for herself. I couldn’t be the reason she got stuck in her guilt and her fear.

And it wasn’t that I had nowhere else to go. I had a big wide world to disappear into. But none of it held any appeal.

Because she was where I belonged.

It took me two days, sleeping in a hotel halfway between San Francisco and Santa Barbara, my phone growing hot in my hand as I watched her video twenty times before falling asleep.

Every time I watched it, I saw something different, some new way she’d changed. The look in her eye. The tilt of her chin. The squared-off shape of her shoulders. She was older than she’d been when I drove away from that mountain. By centuries it seemed sometimes.

And she was only more beautiful for it.

I kept thinking about how she’d turned her tragedy into a flashlight for kids who lived with the same kind of abuse she’d lived with. Who’d built walls out of secrets and lies in an effort to control what was uncontrollable. Other people. Our own pain.

Our own hearts.

She’d turned her cowardice into bravery, and it would take someone stronger than me not to crumble in the face of that. I was good and crumbled. Maybe I always had been.

I found my way back up Peter’s mountain. Parked my truck in the spot where we’d parked the old one. I sat there, the engine running, watching the two dogs come trotting out around the side of the house.

The back door opened, and Peter came out with his shotgun. When he saw it was me, he put the shotgun against the house and stood there waiting for me to get out of the truck.

It took me a long time because I didn’t know what I was going to do. Or say.

Mostly I wanted to say nothing. Do nothing.

I looked up at the apartment above the garage, thinking that she’d come running out any minute, but she didn’t. And the longer I sat there, the weirder it got. Finally Peter walked over to my side of the truck, and I rolled down the window, still unwilling to commit to getting out.

“She’s in town,” he said. “She found a counselor to talk to. Someone she likes. You…you want to wait for her inside?”

The news about the counselor unlocked some of my muscles, and I turned off the car. But still I sat there. And Peter stood there. Crickets were going bonkers in the long grass outside.

“I don’t want to talk to you,” I said.

“You don’t have to.”

“I don’t…I can’t forgive you.”

“I don’t expect you to.”

I rubbed at my eyes, my face. My beard was itchy as hell.

“You hungry?” he asked.

My stomach answered for me, growling in the cricket noise.

“Come on in, so—” He stopped himself just in time, before the word son came fully out of his mouth. “I’ve got food; you’re hungry. I’ll give you space.”

Space and food sounded like something I could handle from this guy, so I popped open my door and he stepped out of the way and he led me around the house to the back porch. To my total surprise, Pest was there, lying in the sun, and as I turned the corner, she looked up and saw me.

She jumped to her feet and charged me, a wiggling bundle of dog. I scooped her up and accepted her kisses, even the ones on the mouth, with a happy heart.

“I missed you, too, Pest,” I said. And I really had.

“Go on and sit. I’ll bring something out for you.”

I sat with Pest at the patio set, scratching her the way she liked, and Peter brought out another version of ploughman’s lunch. He laid out the tablecloth and the bread and tomatoes. He had sliced turkey this time, and when he put down the hard-boiled eggs, I felt my whole body stiffen.

“Sorry,” he said. “Habit.” He grabbed the edge of the platter to take it away.

“It’s all right,” I said. “You can leave it.” It was, after all, only food. Peter was true to his word, and he sat on the other side of the patio, reading his paper, while I ate two eggs and fed Pest all the turkey.

“I saw the video she made,” I said. “Bates did too. The debt is paid.”

“That’s good. You’re safe now?”

I nodded, looking out at the sun behind a cloud. It looked like the yolk of the hard-boiled eggs I’d just eaten.

“How is she?” I asked.

“She’s…dimmer.” I looked over at him, alarmed, because I knew exactly what he meant. “Some of the light that makes Beth, Beth is gone. But I don’t think it’s gone forever. She’s… working hard at fixing some things for herself. She wants to deserve you.”

I turned away, my heart in my guts.

Peter was quiet for a long time until we heard the sound of a car coming up the hill and parking on the other side of the house.

“That’d be her,” Peter said. “I’ll go on inside.”

“Tommy!” I heard Beth yell, and I closed my eyes. She came running around the side of the house, her shoes hitting the wood of the patio. In my arms Pest started wiggling. “Peter, is Tommy—”

She stopped, and I turned in my seat to face her.

She’d cut her hair. I had no idea why that was the first thing I noticed, but I did. It was all cut off at her chin, the bright red roots an inch long at her scalp. I must have been staring because she touched it, her cheeks red.

“I did it…I did it myself. I know it looks bad. My mom always kept my hair long. Made me wear those buns and ponytails, and I just kept the habit because it was easier to change my look when I had long hair. But after the video I couldn’t stand it anymore—”

“You look beautiful,” I said. “You always look beautiful.”

Her shoulders slumped forward. “What are you doing here, Tommy?”

“Bates saw the video. The debt is paid, but…I had to leave the city.”

“Oh,” she said, her voice a little cooler. “You just need a place to go.”

I stood up from the deck and set Pest down. She went running over to the other two dogs and lay down between them. One of the pack. Odd, sure, but she’d found a place where she belonged.

“I could go anywhere,” I said, stepping close enough that I could smell her. I could see all her freckles, the light golden flecks in her dark amber eyes. I could see all of her. Every flaw and every beautiful, radiant strength. And there were so many more strengths. “I want to be with you. You are where I belong.”

Her lips trembled, and she was blinking back tears. “I’ve messed up. I’ve messed up over and over again, and all I’ve ever done is hurt you.”

“I wish…” I said and her eyes closed. “No, look at me, Beth. Look at me.” I forced her to open her eyes. I put my hands on her shoulders, and I waited until she looked at me. “I wish you didn’t believe that,” I said.

“You don’t wish. You told me that. You said it was dangerous, and I didn’t believe you. But you’re right. It hurts.” Tears ran over her eyes. “It hurts to wish.”

“No,” I said. “Listen to me. Listen. You need to wish. Your soul requires it, and it was me that took that away from you. And it’s wrong. It’s so wrong. You know what happens when you don’t wish? You turn out like me. Stuck. Waiting. Accepting all the shit because you never learned how to want more. I want more, Beth. I want so much more. I deserve so much more. You taught me that.”

“But I lied—”

“You did. And I kidnapped you. And I almost left you in that house, drugged up and surrounded by assholes because I was too much a coward.”

“No, you saved me.”

“And you saved me. Don’t you get it? You’ve saved me over and over again. Every touch, every kiss—”

“Shhhh, shhh.” She grabbed my face, her fingers squishing my lips together like she could seal my words inside.

“Beth,” I said, the word all jumbled by her hand. She laughed. I smiled, my lips curling against her fingers.

I gathered her fingers in mine, kissing the tips. Kissing the palms and then closing her hands into fists like I could get her to hold on to the kiss. Hold on to me.

“We both screwed up. We were both scared. We lied and we kept secrets and we’re just…we’re going to stop.”

“We’re going to stop,” she said, taking my words and making them a vow.

“And you’re going to wish again,” I told her. “And I’m going to learn how to do it.”

“What do you wish for?” she asked.

“You. What do you wish for?”

“You.”

I couldn’t stop myself. I held her hands to my chest, and I kissed her. Beth and Tommy. Us. It felt like a first kiss, a beginning kiss. It felt like sunshine and a warm breeze and a home.

It felt like everything I ever wanted and was too scared to ask for in this world.

And it was mine now. Mine to have.

“I love you,” I said against her lips, breathing the words into her mouth so she would believe them in her body. “And I belong with you. And you belong with me. Everything else is just something we need to figure out.”

She leaned back, tears running down her face, over her lips. I tried to wipe them away, but they came too fast. “Every shitty thing in our past, it’s led us to here,” she said. “To each other.”

I nodded. My soul at ease. The past in the past. The future a bright, shining road ahead of us.