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“Most people have”

Jack wondered if Taylor ever had She was a good, decent person He couldn’t i truly bad

“I’lad you stayed in touch with Duffy”

“Stayed in touch?” Jack scoffed “He wouldn’t leave me alone He made me his pet project or the son he never had or whatever he likes to call it Regardless, he has been there at every raduation, and then o he ith me to scatter Courtney’s ashes”

He could tell by her face that she wondered what he’d done with theure out where

“We flew to Hawaii, hired a guide, went to the top of a volcano, and tossed her in”

Taylor’s eyes widened “What?”

It probably did seerets Not for that

“For years I tried to figure out where she’d want to be scattered Ale into the Grand Canyon once, but it didn’t feel right” He shrugged, then half s thrown into a volcano, that she would not only have approved of but she’d have loved it”

At Taylor’s look of uncertainty, he took a deep breath then tried to explain

“When a volcano blows, bits of ash are scattered through the atmosphere, even thousands of miles away She’d be everywhere” A peace ca everything and slowly drifting down to beco” His voice lowered as he said, “She’d be everywhere The volcano blew a year or so ago She is everywhere”

When she spoke, Taylor would probably demand he take her home He wouldn’t blame her No way could she have anticipated his elaborate anshen she’d asked who Courtney was

He didn’t talk about Courtney

Never with anyone other than Duffy on the rare occasion That he so freely spilled out the horrid details to Taylor shook hiirlfriend from when he’d been seventeen and left it at that Taylor probably thought him crazy