Wish You Were Mine

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Also by Tara Sivec

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1: Everett

  Chapter 2: Everett

  Chapter 3: Cameron

  Chapter 4: Cameron

  Chapter 5: Everett

  Chapter 6: Everett

  Chapter 7: Cameron

  Chapter 8: Cameron

  Chapter 9: Everett

  Chapter 10: Everett

  Chapter 11: Cameron

  Chapter 12: Cameron

  Chapter 13: Everett

  Chapter 14: Everett

  Chapter 15: Cameron

  Chapter 16: Everett

  Chapter 17: Cameron

  Chapter 18: Everett

  Chapter 19: Cameron

  Chapter 20: Everett

  Chapter 21: Cameron

  Chapter 22: Everett

  Chapter 23: Cameron

  Chapter 24: Everett

  Chapter 25: Cameron

  Chapter 26: Everett

  Chapter 27: Cameron

  Chapter 28: Everett

  Chapter 29: Cameron

  Chapter 30: Everett

  Chapter 31: Cameron

  Chapter 32: Everett

  Chapter 33: Cameron

  Chapter 34: Everett

  Chapter 35: Cameron

  Chapter 36: Everett

  Chapter 37: Cameron

  Chapter 38: Everett

  Chapter 39: Cameron

  Chapter 40: Everett

  Chapter 41: Cameron

  Epilogue: Everett

  Acknowledgments

  TeaserOpener

  Prologue

  Chapter 1: Shelby

  About The Author

  You Might Also Like…

  Newsletters

  Also by Tara Sivec

  The Story of Us

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by Tara Sivec

  Excerpt from The Story of Us © 2017 by Tara Sivec

  Cover design by Elizabeth Stokes. Cover copyright © 2017 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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  First Edition: November 2017

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  ISBNs: 978-1-4789-2017-5 (print-on-demand, trade paperback), 978-1-4789-2016-8 (ebook)

  Printed in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For my husband, who I’ve loved since I was twelve years old.

  Thank you for showing me every day that falling in love with your best friend can be a wish come true.

  Prologue

  Dear Everett:

  If you’re reading this, I’m dead.

  Sorry, that’s probably not the best way to start off a letter to my best friend, after my sudden and horribly tragic death. You’ll surely never, ever be able to move on, because I was such an amazing person, but there it is. You know I’ve never been one to mince words. And while we’re on that subject, you’re an asshole.

  It’s been four years since we’ve seen you. FOUR. I get it, believe me, I do. The first time I met you, when we were ten years old, you told me you wanted to be a doctor. For sixteen years I listened to you talk about how you wanted to do something with your life you could be proud of. We’re all proud of you, Everett. Proud that you accomplished what you set out to do, proud that you took charge of your life and made something of yourself. But you can’t stay away forever.

  I don’t know what happened between you and Cameron the night you left, but I know she hasn’t been the same since. Neither one of us has. The Three Musketeers has been missing one of its members for four years, and if you aren’t here already, it’s time for you to come home.

  Yes, I’m guilting you into coming home because I’m dead.

  Finished.

  Gone.

  Never coming back from the Great Beyond.

  Do you feel guilty yet? You should. Because Cameron misses you, even though she won’t admit it. I’ve tried my best to make her happy without you here. She puts up a good front about not giving a shit that you’ve been gone for so long, but I know she’s lying. She needs you now, more than ever. She needs you to get that stick out of your ass, suck up the reasons you’ve stayed away from us, and come home.

  I’m not going to be there to make her laugh, wipe away her tears, or cheer her on when she does something amazing. I am officially passing the baton over to you. It’s your turn now. You’ve traveled around the world, you’ve saved lives, you’ve become a goddamn hero to strangers. Now it’s time to be a hero back here at home, where you belong. It hasn’t been the same without you. We haven’t been the same without you, and now that I’m gone, you can make it up to me by GETTING YOUR ASS BACK WHERE YOU BELONG.

  And just so you know, I read your box of wishes. You know the ones we swore we’d never, ever read until we were all old and gray. Dude, I’m dead, so you can’t be pissed at me for that. But I am so pissed at you from beyond the grave for never telling me about that shit. I mean, I knew, of course I knew. I’m not blind or stupid. But all these years when I thought you were just being an idiot and refusing to admit how you felt, or figured you must have changed your mind and moved on, you were actually admitting everything to those fucking stars! I’m your best friend and you didn’t even tell me. Is that why you stayed away for four years? If it is, you’re an even bigger asshole than I thought. It’s time to stop wishing on those fucking stars every year and make your dreams come true by actually doing something about it.

  Brace yourself, because I’m going to say a few things now that will make me sound like a pussy. Just remember, I’m doing this for you and I’m still a manly man.

  I know what it’s like to look at a woman and, suddenly, everything makes sense.

  I know how it feels to love someone so completely that you have no idea how you survived before her.

  I’ve had that love returned tenfold, and even though I know I don’t deserve it, I’ve done everything I could to make sure I don’t fuck it up. You know, aside from the whole dying thing, but what can you do?

  Don’t fuck this up, man. Cameron has been hurt enough. She’s going to be hurting even more after I’m gone and I need you to pick up the pieces and put them back together. I need you to give her everything I won’t be able to anymore.

  I’m sorry I won’t be there to see Cameron kick your ass for staying away for so long. Be careful, she’s developed a mean right hook over the years. But go easy on her, man. She’s going to pretend t
o be okay, pretend like everything is fine and she’s fine and her whole damn life is fine…you know how she is. Always more concerned about everyone else than she is about herself. But she needs you now, more than ever.

  I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was sick the last time we talked on the phone, but what would have been the point? It’s not like you could have done anything about it, aside from sitting here and watching me die. I don’t want you to remember me like this. It’s bad enough Cameron has to have this picture of me in her head for the rest of her life—I won’t do that to you, too. I want you to remember me as the devastatingly handsome, perfect specimen of man that I was. I want you to remember the good times, the laughter, growing up together at the camp, and me being full of life instead of confined to this fucking bed with barely enough energy to write this damn letter. Don’t you dare feel guilty about not being able to save me. I know you’re an amazing doctor, but sometimes, cancer wins.

  Come home, Everett. Come home and finally do something about those wishes.

  You can’t save me, but you can come home and save our girl.

  Aiden

  Chapter 1

  Everett

  How do you know when you’ve reached your breaking point?

  Watching children die right in front of their parents’ eyes?

  Telling someone that they’re sick, but you don’t have the resources to help them?

  Seeing countless people get infections from unclean water and live in horrible conditions, and the only thing you can do is hand them pills and wait for them to get sick again?

  Trying your hardest to travel to every third world country you could possibly think of to avoid going home, only to find out your best friend since you were ten years old died of pancreatic cancer?

  And because you didn’t even know he was sick, you weren’t there to help. Never got a chance to apologize for being such a shitty friend. Never got a chance to say good-bye.

  How much is too much?

  I take another swig of vodka and let my head thump back against the wall, wondering how much more I can take. I’ve been trying to numb the pain with booze since I came back to the States. It works for a little while. The blur of vodka when it pumps through my veins makes me forget about everything for a few minutes.

  A few minutes of peace.

  A few minutes of not hearing the cries of babies or the pleas of mothers begging me to save their children.

  A few minutes of not seeing Aiden’s face in my head, smirking at me and calling me an asshole.

  A few minutes of not thinking about her.

  One-hundred-and-eighty seconds when I can close my eyes and feel nothing.

  With my ass on the floor and my legs sprawled out in front of me, I close my eyes and let the quiet oblivion take over, but it’s gone too soon. It never lasts long enough. Not anymore. Not after that letter he wrote.

  That fucking letter.

  I open my eyes and my body breaks out into a cold sweat when I see it crumbled up and tossed a few feet away from me. The letter I’ve been rereading for the last three months, ever since it showed up in my mailbox in Cambodia, exactly two weeks after Aiden died.

  My eyes stay glued to the ball of paper, Aiden’s shaky and uneven handwriting peeking out of the crushed page. I bring the vodka back up to my lips and try to drink away the pain and misery swirling around inside of me. It doesn’t even burn anymore when it goes down, and I can almost fool myself into believing the water bottle I poured it in really contains just water. I don’t know why I bother trying to hide it at this point. My brother, Jason, has seen all the empty vodka bottles I’ve hidden under my bed and out in the garage behind shelves and boxes. In the trunk of my car yesterday, he found an entire box of empty liter bottles, which I’d meant to take out to the garbage dump and get rid of, but never got around to it. Probably because I was too drunk to drive there.

  I laugh when I think about the intervention he had with me yesterday morning. He went in my trunk to borrow my jack for a flat tire he needed to change before he left for work, and saw that damn box of bottles. He made me promise to stop drinking. He made me promise to get help. Of course I agreed. He’s my baby brother. I live here with him in our grandparents’ old house until I can get back on my feet. A house my grandmother left to me when she moved away, the place Jason was forced to stay in and take care of while I was always gone. And he’s still here, taking care of the house and taking care of me instead of moving out and getting his own life. He puts up with my sorry ass day in and day out, and he deserves so much more than having a drunk for a brother who can’t get his shit together.

  And I kept my promise. For almost twenty-four hours, I didn’t touch the one last bottle of Tito’s I had stashed on the top shelf of my closet. I gritted my teeth through the pain of withdrawal, and I threw up every ounce of water I tried to get in my system, but I did it. I pushed through it for Jason. I sucked it up for my little brother, who’d survived the same shitty childhood I had, but never got to escape like I did. I dealt with the shakes and the headaches and the puking and the fever so I wouldn’t have to see that same tired, disappointed look in his eyes when he got home from another day of work while I just sat my useless ass on his couch.

  “You weren’t supposed to die!” I scream at the letter, still lying a few feet away, taunting me to crawl over to it and read the words inside again. “Why in the hell didn’t you tell me sooner?!”

  The water bottle of vodka crinkles in my hand when I squeeze my fingers around it and angrily bring it up to my mouth, chugging it until it’s almost gone.

  Aiden’s voice is buzzing in my ear like an annoying housefly you can’t swat away. It just keeps coming back and coming back, pushing me over the edge until I want to cover my ears and make it stop. The alcohol isn’t working. His voice just won’t go away.

  You’re an asshole.

  I hope you feel guilty.

  Come home.

  Come home.

  Come home.

  I am an asshole. I do feel guilty. And I’m home. I got on the next flight out of Cambodia as soon as that damn letter arrived, not even bothering to call home, just wanting to get back here before it was too late. I acted without thinking and of course I was too late. Two weeks too late to say good-bye, too late for the funeral, too late to make amends, too late to do anything but pick up a bottle and try to forget all the mistakes I’d made. It’s been exactly three months and two weeks to the day my best friend died in his sleep when his body just couldn’t fight anymore. Three months and two weeks to the day that he stopping existing.

  I’ve spent every waking moment since I got home trying to forget about the pain Aiden’s death caused, and then a few hours ago a box of photos fell from the top shelf of my closet when I was looking for something. It came crashing to the floor, spilling memories of Aiden all around my feet. Aiden laughing at me during a game of basketball when we were ten, Aiden smiling at the camera with his arm wrapped around one of his many dates when we were in high school, Aiden smirking as he holds up his college diploma. Every memory of him seeped into my brain and squeezed the life out of my heart until that fucking letter I’d shoved into the back of my dresser drawer started taunting me to read it again. I could almost feel Aiden standing next to me, telling me I deserve to be miserable for the shit I’ve pulled. I was trying to do better and he just shows up in my brain, provoking me and pushing me to fuck it all up, make me forget about the promise I made to my brother until nothing else mattered but taking a drink so I could make it all go away. I came home, just like Aiden wanted, and all I want to do is leave.

  “Do you really want me to take care of our girl now, Aiden?!” I shout toward the ceiling. “I bet she’d be really happy to see me show up at the camp like this.”

  I laugh at my words, wondering if it’s the booze or my fucked-up head that’s made me start talking to myself like a crazy person.

  “You weren’t supposed to die. You were always supposed to be here
,” I mutter, my throat clogging with tears when I look over at his letter again.

  I took everything for granted, and I have no one to blame but myself. I walked away from my two best friends and never looked back because I was a coward. I always thought in the back of my mind that one day I’d be able to get over my shit, get over how I felt about Cameron, come back home and they’d both be waiting for me, ready to forgive me for being an idiot. But now that’s never going to happen.

  Aiden is never going to be there with a smirk on his face and a sarcastic comment at the ready. Cameron is never going to forgive me. For not being there while Aiden was sick, for not doing everything I could to try and save him, and for not going to her right when I got home.

  I should have gone to her. We should have been able to mourn Aiden together, but I couldn’t deal with my own pain, let alone hers. I still can’t deal with my own pain.

  No one understands what it’s like to come back home after you’ve been on the other side of the world, experiencing horrors no one back here sees or even realizes is happening. People here live in their happy little worlds, going about their happy little lives, and they forget there are men, women, and children without basic necessities, like clean water, so they, too, can have those happy lives.

  Jason doesn’t understand, even though he tries to.

  No one understands what it’s like to be back here. What it’s like to have nothing to do with your free time but think and feel guilty about the people you couldn’t save in another country, or the person you should have saved right here at home. To feel like you’re constantly living in a nightmare where every thought and every memory is a film reel of all the ways you fucked up.

  I’m so tired of feeling this pain. I just want relief. I just want to feel nothing at all. My eyelids grow heavy and my vision starts to blur as darkness and the sweet bliss of numbness covers my body like a warm blanket.

  “Goddammit, Everett! Son of a bitch…”

  I hear my brother’s voice, and even though it sounds muffled and far away in my drunken brain, I can still hear the anger in it. I don’t even realize I’ve slumped over onto my side until I feel Jason’s arms come under me and slide me back upright against the wall.