Chapter 31

I woke up with my legs intertwined with his—inside the lighthouse. It wasn’t until I’d extracted myself and felt my way through the darkness to step back outside that I realized: It was still nighttime. The moon was high in the sky.

The lighthouse had been built on a jut of rocky land that hung out over the ocean. Coming to stand on the point, I could hear waves crashing against the rocks below. If it had been high tide, I might have felt the spray, but as it was, all I felt was the weight of what I’d done with Harry and the fact that I couldn’t banish the image of his face, his body, his scars from my mind.

Had I hurt him?

Did I care?

I leaned back against the aging lighthouse, letting out a shudder of a breath and taking in the moon and the stars and the darkness and the cost of not being alone. In the sky, one star glowed brighter than all the rest.

“Well, well, well,” a voice said behind me. “Who’s doing the walk of shame now?”

That wasn’t Harry. It wasn’t Jackson. It was a voice I knew as well as I knew my own, and she sounded like she was enjoying herself.

“Kaylie?” That wasn’t possible. I didn’t turn around, because it wasn’t possible.

“I’m so proud, you beautiful, saucy, audacious little minx, you.”

I turned. I couldn’t help it. And there she was. Kaylie.

She’s here. The fire. She didn’t—I reached for her, and my hand passed straight through her body.

“Neat party trick, huh?” she said, smiling like there was no tomorrow.

My throat stung. “You’re…”

“Everything I ever was,” she told me.

Not possible. “This isn’t possible,” I said, the words ripping their way out of me like a beast from a cage.

“Anything is possible,” Kaylie said, “when you love someone with no regrets.”

She’s not really here. This isn’t happening. I was imagining this, imagining her—or else it was a dream, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t, because she looked so real.

She looked like my Kaylie. “I am nothing but regrets,” I said.

“I am Kaylie Rooney,” my sister replied, putting her hands on her hips, “and I do not approve that message.” She was so very… Kaylie. “You’re my sister, bitch. No regrets.” Her smile was infectious now, an on top of a pool table, on top of the world kind of smile. “Dance with me, Hannah.”

I hadn’t, the night before she died. She’d wanted me to dance, but I hadn’t.

I wasn’t going to make that mistake twice.

“You call that dancing?” Kaylie tossed her head back, lifting her arms over her head, the movement of her hips so natural it made it seem like dancing was her default state. “Just let go. Feel the music.”

“There is no music.” I was the logical one. The rational one. Our dynamic, so familiar I ached with it, brought tears to my eyes. I wasn’t in the shower, and I only ever cried in the shower—but I couldn’t help it.

“Less crying,” Kaylie ordered imperiously. “More wild abandon.”

Let go, I told myself. Feel the music. In my heart I knew: She was the music. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be, but I danced the way she did, like I’d been born shouting my joy and my fury to the moon.

“Now say it,” Kaylie told me. “No regrets.”

Anything is possible when you love someone with no regrets. I couldn’t say a damn thing.

“No regrets, Hannah. Not about me. Not about him. Not about finally letting go. I need you to say it.”

My throat closed in around the words. “I can’t.”

“Don’t stop dancing, okay?”

I didn’t want to stop. What if I stopped, and she disappeared? “I’m not going to stop.”

“I’m going to hold you to that, you glorious thing, you—and not just about the dancing.” Her hair was going wild in the wind. How was it that the wind could touch her, but I couldn’t?

How was any of this possible?

“Don’t stop,” Kaylie told me fiercely. “Living. Loving. Dancing. Don’t you dare stop for me.”

I thought about Harry. About the lighthouse. About his lips on mine, the touch of our skin. “He killed you.”

“It was an accident.”

I felt the dam inside me break. I couldn’t stop dancing, couldn’t risk losing her again, so I let everything I felt—everything I’d been trying so hard not to feel—out into the dance.

“I always knew,” Kaylie said. Her movements were slowing, like gravity couldn’t touch her quite so much, like she was dancing on a different plane. “I knew that I was going to burn bright and fast. And, Hannah? If you loved me, you won’t waste a second of your life regretting a damn thing.”

I love you, I thought, present tense.

“No regrets,” Kaylie told me, her voice rising over the wind. “And, for the record, I like him.”

Him. Harry. “You would,” I scoffed.

“He sees you.” My sister had absolutely no mercy. “He makes you feel.”

I couldn’t form a single word, and the ghost of my sister went silent in a way that made me afraid that she was fading.

“Promise me,” she said, her voice fainter, “that you’ll keep dancing.”

Tears were streaming down my face. “Every day.”

“I’m sure you’ll get better at it eventually,” Kaylie said with faux seriousness, her voice solid again for the moment. “And don’t miss me too much, okay?”

This felt like good-bye. No.

“Absolutely no naming your children after me,” Kaylie continued, twirling, her arms held wide. “I mean, I guess a middle name would be okay—an homage, not Kaylie exactly.”

I couldn’t bear to lose her again.

“No regrets,” Kaylie whispered. I could nearly see through her now.

I repeated her words back to her, hoping to pull her back to me: “No regrets.”

And just like that, she was gone. Just like that, I was alone, looking up at a sky where one star shined brighter than all the rest.

And just like that, I woke up.