I bite down and taste it all, the heartbeat of the world.
Forty-Five
THE COMPLETE HISTORY OF JACK O’DONNELL
I find it in the woods, in the crook in O’Dang!, right where he left it.
June,
If you find this, it means you see them too: the ghosts, the memories, all of it. It means they tortured you like they tortured me, with pieces of our story.
Baby, I’m sorry, for everything. I’m sorry I gave him fodder to hurt you. I’m sorry I messed up enough that when you saw the truth, it was always going to hurt. I never wanted you to stop looking at me like I was the sun, but now you know how things really happened. At least, as well as a series of moments can tell it.
I always meant to write the truth down, June, and here it is. This book has all you need to know about me. The things that mattered. The important things.
I love you, June, always. Always.
I lean into the crook of the branch and tuck the note into my pocket. I take a deep breath and push a cherry between my teeth, sunlight and warmth and dirt rushing over my tongue, a million glimmers of Jack, both sweet and bitter. I open the book, THE COMPLETE HISTORY OF JACK O’DONNELL III.
This is all you need to know about me. Not every moment, not the things I saw or the places I went. You need to know where my heart was.
That the most important thing I ever did with my life was love you, and my favorite sound was your snorting laugh. I don’t have time to tell you any more bullshit stories, and I wouldn’t tell you even if I did.
Here, so close to the end, all that means so little.
When I was a kid, I dreamed about exploring pyramids and riding on elephants’ backs. I wanted to sail across the world and climb Mount Everest and look down over everything. I thought that was the life I’d lead and that the moments of mine that were closest to that would be the ones that made me.
The truth is, I stopped dreaming about those things, June, the day you were born.
Here is what I’ll take with me from this world: a thousand moments spent watching you sleep, tracing the freckles over your mom’s eyebrow as she Windexed a mirror, rubbing her wrists when the cold made them sore, combing your hair when it got tangled, a deep hurt in my belly from the way it hurt you.
I am very small, and I don’t find myself wishing I were any bigger.
All I want, with my one tiny moment, is to love you.
If you remember anything about me, remember the truest thing: I will love you after all the stars have burned out, after the sun has died and ice has covered the earth, after the last human has taken her last breath.
I’m happy, so happy to be a tiny fleck of a thing alongside you. We may just be moments, June, but to love a handful of people very well, that’s a good life.
I was just a blip, a spark, the blink of God’s eyes. Because of you, it was more than enough. It was everything.
I was just a moment, and you gave me a million Junes.
I was just a moment, and you made me forever.
Thanks
FIRST, I need to thank my incredible parents (and grandparents) and promise my mother (and grandmother) she will get a book dedication, just as soon as I write the right book. I am so lucky to have spent my life with two loving parents in my corner, and I wouldn’t trade you for anything or anyone.
Thanks to my brothers and sisters, for always coming through for me and for each other. If I ever move to a deserted island, I hope you’ll come too. (This includes you, Megan and Noosha.)
Thank you to Brittany Cavallaro, Parker “Charker” Peevyhouse, Anna Breslaw, Jeff Zentner, Janet McNally, Katie Kennedy, Lindsay Eagar, and anyone else I am traitorously forgetting who offered early (and late) reads on this book. I am so, so lucky to have friends with brains and hearts as brilliant and beautiful as yours.
Thanks also to Kerry Kletter, Jack Sjogren, Hallie Bateman, Matthew Baker, Shannon Parker, Roshani Chokshi, Kathryn Purdie, Erin Summerill, Julie Eshbaugh, Margot Harrison, Ashley Blake, Dahlia Adler, Katherine Locke, Sara Taylor Woods, Tristina Wright, Meg Leder, Adriana Mather, Riley Redgate, Jeff Giles, Tehlor Kinney, Cam Montgomery, Eric Smith, ALL the Sweet 16s, and everyone else who makes my writing and reading world so much brighter on a daily basis.
To my Hope College family, you are the best. Always.
To all my book blogger, bookstagram, and bookseller friends: You’ve made this whole process so much less daunting and more fun. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
To my agent, Lana: You have been my rock this past year. Thanks for all that you do to keep me going and to make everything I write 300 percent better.
To my editors, Liz and Marissa: Liz, I am floored by your generosity and kindness. I, and this book, owe you so much. Neither would be the same without all your hard work and passion. Marissa, thank you for stepping up and kicking you-know-what in the eleventh hour. You are a master slicer and dicer (of words), and your support has meant so much to me.
Anthony Elder and Corina Lupp: I don’t think anyone deserves a cover as a beautiful as the one you’ve given me, but I’ll gladly accept it.
Kim Ryan and Jennifer Dee, thank you for being such wonderful advocates for A Million Junes. You are empresses. Thanks you, Kate Frentzel, for fixing my many randomly capitalized phrases and so much more.
To Ben Schrank, and everyone else at Razorbill and Penguin Young Readers Group, thank you for all that you’ve done for me and for this book. I’m so grateful to have landed among you.
Thanks also to Hermione Granger, without whom probably none of us would be alive.
And finally, thank you to Joey: Every moment that I’m loved by you is an incomprehensible gift. You’ve already given me a million Junes.
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Emily Henry, A Million Junes
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