her an apology. He'd been just as innocent as her in all of it. She wasn't the only one who lost somebody. He'd lost a brother, too.
"We should do something," Matty said. "Whenever we stop, we should do something for him. I know it won't be the same as having a funeral, but you deserve to be able to say goodbye to your brother."
"What, like tip a forty for the homies or something?"
Matty laughed. "Sure, why not?"
"Dante would find that funny," Genna said. "Well, I mean, he would've, you know…"
"I know."
Paris, Texas, it turned out, wasn't like the city in France. It was a quaint little town with not too many people and pretty much nothing to do. In less than an hour, they'd seen all there was to see. Genna stood in a parking lot beside the Honda, in front of the small replica Eiffel Tower, and stared up at the massive red cowboy hat on top of it. She hadn't expected glitz and glamor, but she was less than impressed.
She felt Matty's eyes on her. He stood just a few feet away, watching her as she stared at the tower. Slowly, her gaze shifted his direction.
"Do you think the real one is as underwhelming?" she asked.
He shook his head, not breaking eye contact. "I think it's impossible not to be in awe of something so magnificent. From the top, everything looks so small, like any problems you might have are trivial, because you're trivial, compared to what's around you. That's beautiful, I think... even almost a thousand feet in the air, it has a way of making you feel grounded."
"You speak like you've seen it."
"I've seen most of the world. It kept me out of the way, out of New York."
Sighing, Genna once more surveyed the fake Eiffel tower.
"I'll take you someday," he said, "if you want to see the real thing."
She did, but she didn't want him to make promises she wasn't sure he could keep. He was trying, though. He was really trying. And that, to her, meant everything.
"Okay, let's do this," she said, waving at Matty.
"Here?"
"Sure, why not?" she said. "I mean, come on… can you think of a better makeshift headstone than a tower wearing a cowboy hat? That's some Billy the Kid Regulators type shit."
"Uh, okay."
He grabbed her hand as they approached the tower, walking along the brick path, and stopping a few feet away.
"Oh, Dante," Genna said, staring up at the thing. "I don't even know what to say."
"You tell him how you feel," Matty suggested. "You tell him how much he means to you."
"He was my best friend." She paused before laughing lightly. "He is my best friend, I mean. You are my best friend. You always will be. I don't know what happened to you… I don't know where you went after you dropped me off that day, what happened those hours before you didn't show back up. I just… I don't know. I wish I did, though. No matter what it was, no matter what happened or what you went through, I just really wish I knew."
Tears stung her eyes, and she tried to hold them in, but they streamed down her cheeks.
"I wish I knew. I wish I could've done something. I wish I could still do something. I wish you were here, so I could tell you how sorry I am for everything that's happened to you. You spent your whole life taking care of me, but who was taking care of you? Who made sure you were okay? Who was making you happy? Somebody should've been, because you deserved it. You deserved so much you didn't get. And I know you did bad stuff, and I know you hurt people, but you were a good person. You were the best person. You spent every minute of every day trying to make things okay, and maybe you just made it all worse, but the point is you tried to make the world better for us. So thank you, for that, because I don't know if I ever thanked you. I don't know if anyone ever thanked you, but they should've. I should’ve. Thank you."
Matty grabbed ahold of her, pulling her to him as she sobbed, choking on those words. Thank you. God, how she wished she could've thanked him in person.
"I'm not supposed to give some eulogy for my brother," she said. "This is… bullshit. This isn't supposed to happen. And I know you'd say it was