Suddenly his tone is fierce. “Do you think we could start over?”

Part of me wants to. Desperately wants to. I would love to give us a chance to put aside everything that’s happened and see where we could end up. But another part of me knows that the wounds we’ve inflicted are too deep. We can’t pretend they don’t exist.

And I need to leave. If I stay in Sweethaven to be with him, I will be putting him first. Substituting Blake for Carey. I can’t do it. I need to be first for once.

He can read my answer on my face and sighs. “I had to ask. I should go.”

He stands, and I notice his T-shirt for the first time. In cursive writing, it reads Third grade lied, I never use cursive. I smile and shake my head, climbing to my feet on the step above him. I really do love him.

“Blake?”

He turns to face me, and I kiss him, surprising him. With sudden strength he pulls me closer, squeezing the breath out of me. And then he holds me for a long time with my head on his shoulder. Another good-bye.

My heart breaks a little more.

Finally he steps back and walks to his truck, opening the door. I call out, “Why did he tell you now? Carey, I mean. Why confess he’s gay now?”

Blake shrugs. “I don’t know. Something about a message you gave his father. He said he’d let you down by asking you to cover for him. And me.”

Before he climbs into his truck, he gives me one last, long look. “I’m going to miss you, you know?”

“No, you won’t,” I say lightly. “You’ll forget all about me.”

He shakes his head. “Never. I love you, Sophie.”

He says it like a promise, and closes his door before I can respond. I watch his truck disappear around the corner, and when he’s gone I rise, brushing off my skirt.

I find my father standing in the open doorway. I think he’s overheard enough to guess the truth when his shoulders drop. He knows what I did for Carey. He knows I’m not who he thought I was. And I didn’t have to break my promise to tell him.

I wait for him to say something, and when he does, I’m stunned.

“I’m sorry,” my father says, his voice cracking. “I was wrong.”

And the world turns upside down and everything I think I know about people flips end to end once more.

Sometimes people can admit when they’re wrong.

I hear George’s voice. You’re the one in control here. Be kind.

I walk into my father’s arms, and he says, “Please forgive me, Sophie.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Since Carey came out to his family and friends two months ago, everything has changed.

My “friends” crawled out of the woodwork, calling me to commiserate about what I went through. Few of them apologized for their part in it, including Nikki, who reprimanded me for not telling her the truth. I hung up on her.

Angel, on the other hand, wouldn’t stop apologizing. Pragmatically I asked, “How could you have known what I couldn’t tell you?”

My own response came as the biggest surprise. Released from lying, I do not feel the urge to scream the truth from the mountaintops. The people I care about are the ones who believed in me all along—like George. The rest of them no longer matter. And I’ve come to realize something: George was right; I was the one in control all along. I kept Carey’s secret, but nobody really forced me to do it.

As for Carey . . . he hasn’t called. At first, the media swarmed around him. The MIA Marine found alive after months of torture. For weeks, daily reports shared how he was recovering, until one day it seemed like the world outside of Sweethaven forgot he existed.

Then, about a week before I’m to move to Boston, Mrs. Breen calls. Before I can say more than hello, she launches into a breathless plea.

Carey isn’t recovering at all. He’s refusing to do his physical therapy, and the doctors say he won’t walk if he continues on that way. Days, he sits in his room, staring at the walls. Nights, he wakes screaming from nightmares about things he won’t speak of. He’s dying in front of her, and she doesn’t know what to do, God help her.

She’s sorry, she says. Carey needs me, but he won’t let anyone call me. She will get down on her knees and beg if it will help. Please, please, she says, and she sobs.

And I tell her I’m on my way.

*   *   *

It takes more than six hours to drive from North Carolina to Bethesda, Maryland.

My mother didn’t want me to make the drive alone. She fussed over me, pointing out every car accident or carjacking that had been in the news in the past five years, until my father finally told her, “Sophie, let the girl alone. If anyone can take care of herself, she can.”

They do not get along well, but they try for my sake. My father still won’t talk to Uncle Eddy, and I can’t say I blame him. I don’t talk to Uncle Eddy much, either, despite living in his house. But if I’ve learned one thing this last year, it’s that anything’s possible.

George has made the unimaginable a reality for me. His lawyer had all of his photos and equipment delivered to my mother’s over the summer. Upon opening the boxes, I discovered thousands upon thousands of negatives and prints. The majority were of wars in different countries, covering several decades. Most were of soldiers in varying states of weariness, heartbreak, joy, and despair.

I’ve decided to gather them into a book. I’m not sure if anyone will be interested in publishing it, but I feel like George has left me with this enormous responsibility to tell the stories of the sacrifices our service men and women make for our country. My father has agreed to help me, and we are working on it together. With his knowledge of military history, he’s able to help me piece the images together in some kind of order.