The Last Song(130)

“You’re saying Marcus did it?” Ronnie could barely get the words out.

She nodded. “He set other fires, too. At least I’m pretty sure he did—he always loved fire. I guess I always knew he was crazy, but I…” She stopped herself, realizing she’d been down that road too many times already. She sat up straight. “Anyway, I’ve agreed to testify against him.”

Ronnie leaned back in her chair, feeling as though the wind had been knocked out of her. She remembered the things she’d said to Will, suddenly realizing that if Will had done what she’d demanded, Scott’s life would have been ruined for nothing.

She felt almost ill as Blaze went on. “I’m really sorry for everything,” she said. “And as crazy as it sounds, I did consider you my friend until I was an idiot and ruined it.” For the first time, Blaze’s voice cracked. “But you’re a great person, Ronnie. You’re honest, and you were nice to me when you had no reason to be.” A tear leaked out of one eye, and she swiped at it quickly. “I’ll never forget the day you offered to let me stay with you, even after all the terrible things I had done to you. I felt such… shame. And yet I was grateful, you know? That someone still cared.”

Blaze paused, visibly struggling to pull herself together. When she had blinked back her tears, she took a deep breath and fixed Ronnie with a determined look.

“So if you ever need anything—and I mean anything—let me know. I’ll drop everything, okay? I know I can’t ever make up for what I did to you, but in a way, I feel like you saved me. What’s happened to your dad is just so unfair… and I would do anything to help you.”

Ronnie nodded.

“And one last thing,” Blaze added. “We don’t have to be friends, but if you ever see me again, will you please call me Galadriel? I can’t stand the name Blaze.”

Ronnie smiled. “Sure thing, Galadriel.”


As Blaze had promised, her lawyer called that afternoon, informing her that the charges in her shoplifting case had been dropped.

That night, as her dad lay sleeping in his bedroom, Ronnie turned on the local news. She wasn’t sure if the news would cover it, but there it was, a thirty-second segment right before the weather forecast about “the arrest of a new suspect in the ongoing arson investigation relating to a local church burning last year.” When they flashed a mug shot of Marcus with a few details of his prior misdemeanor charges, she turned off the TV. Those cold, dead eyes still had the power to unnerve her.

She thought of Will and what he had done to protect Scott, for a crime that it turned out he hadn’t even committed. Was it really so terrible, she wondered, that loyalty to his friend had skewed his judgment? Especially in light of the way things had turned out? Ronnie was no longer certain of anything. She had been wrong about so many things: her dad, Blaze, her mother, even Will. Life was so much more complicated than she ever imagined as a sullen teenager in New York.

She shook her head as she moved around the house, turning out the lights one by one. That life—a parade of parties and high school gossip and squabbles with her mom—felt like another world, an existence she had only dreamed. Today, there was only this: her walk on the beach with her dad, the ceaseless sound of the ocean waves, the smell of winter approaching.

And the fruit of the Holy Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.


Halloween came and went, and her dad grew weaker with every passing day.

They gave up their walks on the beach when the effort became too great, and in the mornings, when she made his bed, she saw dozens of strands of hair on his pillow. Knowing that the disease was accelerating, she moved her mattress into his bedroom in case he needed her help, and also to remain close to him for as long as she could.

He was on the highest dosages of pain medicine that his body could handle, but it never seemed enough. At night, as she slept on the floor beside him, he uttered whimpering cries that nearly broke her heart. She kept his medication right beside his bed, and they were the first things he reached for when he woke up. She would sit beside him in the mornings, holding him, his limbs trembling, until the medicine took effect.

But the side effects took their toll as well. He was unstable on his feet, and Ronnie had to support him whenever he moved, even across the room. Despite his weight loss, when he stumbled it was all she could do to keep him from falling. Though he never gave voice to his frustration, his eyes registered his disappointment, as if he were somehow failing her.

He now slept an average of seventeen hours a day, and Ronnie would spend entire days alone at home, reading and rereading the letters he’d originally written to her. She hadn’t yet read the last letter he’d written to her—the idea still seemed too frightening—but sometimes she liked to hold it between her fingers, trying to summon the strength to open it.