Prologue

Grayson

“Desserts are for after dinner,” Mommy tells me as she smiles and takes away the box of chocolates her friend Mags sent from the United States of America.

“But, Mommy...” I whine, sticking out my lower lip and pouting slightly. This usually works, as long as Daddy doesn’t know. He doesn’t like us to eat chocolate. He says it’ll make us fat.

“But, Grayson...” She smiles, mussing up my hair then placing a kiss on my nose. “After dinner.”

Then she’s gone, but the chocolates, they are sitting on top of the refrigerator. I know I’m going to get in some trouble, but I just can’t help myself.

Pulling out the bottom drawer, I step onto it. Then I pull myself onto the counter, reaching up to grab the box off the refrigerator. Once I have the box, I sit on my bottom on the counter then slide off, shoving the box under my shirt as I run down the hall, up the stairs, and into the bedroom I share with Garrett. We have our own rooms, but now I stay in his.

A few months ago, when I heard him crying at night, it scared me, so I went in and saw he was sleeping under his bed. I laid next to his bed and held his hand. He didn’t cry anymore, and he didn’t tell me to leave, so now I stay in there every night.

Today I heard him cry and it’s not even dark. Chocolate will make him happy, I think as I walk in.

“What?” he asks, wiping his nose, his eyes angry.

“I got chocolate.” I pull the box out from under my shirt and show him.

“Just go, Gray,” he says, burying his face in his knees. “Chocolate doesn’t fix everything.”

“But—”

“Just go!”

I run down the stairs, out the door, and toward the big barn, the one with all the equipment. I want to cry, too. I want to because my brother, my best friend, he’s mad at me and I didn’t even do anything wrong.

I slide under one of the trucks and open the box. I don’t care if I get in trouble. I just don’t care. I eat a piece of the yummy chocolate, and then another and another. They are delicious.

“Hey!” I hear Gage, my big brother, and cringe. I’m going to be in trouble.

I peek out and see him throw a stone. I watch it fly through the air as if it’s in slow motion. Then I cover my mouth when I see it getting closer and closer to Mr. A. Then it hits him in the side of the head and he falls. He falls a long way before he lands on the ground.

I look at Gage, who has a weird smile on his face. A mean one. One I have never seen before.

He walks over to where Mr. A. lies, kicks some dirt on his face, and then spits on the back of his head. Then he squats down, his fists balled at his sides, as he sneers, “Told you not to come back. Should’ve listened.”

He stands up and walks away, kicking dirt behind him as he does.

I see blood. Lots and lots of blood. It’s coming from Mr. A’s head, his mouth. It’s getting closer and closer to me.

Terrified, I scurry out from under the opposite side of the truck and run toward the trees.

Mandee

Sitting next to Mom’s bed, I held her hand. They said it wouldn’t be long now. I didn’t believe them.

Since I found out about her cancer in ninth grade, I had heard that so many times. Too many times. And every time, she made it. I attributed it to many prayers, and the promise the trees made me one night.

Yes, the trees.

“Be strong, Mandee. She needs our strength.” Dad’s eyes would never shed the tears I knew were there, not ever. And neither would mine. Well, not in front of them, anyway.

When I was sixteen, it had been bad, really bad. I had gone to the store to get some things Dad had asked me to get, knowing I was being sent away because Mom couldn’t hide the pain any longer and neither of them had wanted me to see her cry.

On my way, while driving, I had heard a song on the radio I had heard a million times. “If I Die Young” by The Band Perry. I cried so hard I couldn’t see. I cried so hard I couldn’t breathe. I cried so hard I swore my heart would break.

I had to pull over to the side of the road by the lake, and then I ran into the woods so that no one could see me break down, so no one could see me being weak. After all, everyone would tell me how strong I was all the time.

I wanted to be. I wanted to be as strong as they thought. Hell, I had been.

Then, when I was quiet, I heard the song “Hallelujah.” I didn’t know the song, but it was beautiful. And it seemed to calm me...the chorus, the voice.

Later, when I googled the words, I realized it had been the voice that was calming; the lyrics, hauntingly beautiful.

A year later, when she was gone, I returned to that spot for the hundredth time. I heard the most beautiful sound, one I had yearned to hear every time I had returned. I had told myself it wasn’t real. It was a figment of my imagination, words whispered in the woods.

I was wrong. This time, the song was much more uplifting.

I walked through the woods, trying to find it, all the while listening to whoever was singing “It’s a Great Day to be Alive” by Travis Tritt.

When I came upon him, his back was to me, black hair curled up under a backward Yankees hat, the material of his gray Henley stretched over his back. He had the sleeves pulled up to his elbows, his arms covered in tattoos, the muscles beneath the ink bulging as he played the guitar in his hand. He was sitting on a fallen tree with a fire going in front of him. My heart skipped a beat, several beats.

As awful as that day was, I will always remember the first time Mom, my angel, sent me to the woods to listen to this man whisper a promise that things would be okay.