The Virgin’s Bucket List – Episode 27
Wayne wanted to abandon practice and search every street in Maple Hill. Mike stopped him long enough to organize the team into groups, reminding him that panic wasted time. Evelyn remained at the house in case Jamie returned.
Lindsay studied Jamie’s note. The phrasing echoed the online comments accusing him of distracting Wayne before the championship. He had not left because he rejected his family; he had left because strangers convinced him his presence caused harm.
She remembered how isolation had once made Alyssa’s insults sound true. Jamie would seek somewhere anonymous and quiet, not the bus station everyone expected. Lindsay drove toward Starlight Lake.
The trail remained closed, but footprints crossed the damp ground beyond the barrier. She followed them to the fallen twin oak and found Jamie sitting beside the empty place where the blue box had waited.
He told her to go back. Wayne had spent his entire life building a future, while Jamie arrived carrying lies, grief, and scandal. Leaving seemed like the only gift he could offer.
Lindsay sat beside him without asking permission. She explained that she once believed love had to be earned through achievement—getting a boyfriend, winning a dare, becoming someone impossible to mock. That belief allowed Alyssa to control her.
Jamie argued that Wayne’s scholarship could disappear because of him. Lindsay replied that Wayne deserved the right to choose what risks mattered. Protecting someone by vanishing only transferred the pain to them.
She showed him Wayne’s messages, which contained no concern about the game and only repeated pleas for Jamie to answer. Jamie’s eyes filled, though he turned toward the lake to hide it.
Lindsay also told him about Jean’s confession. The photograph had been exposed deliberately, and none of the resulting cruelty belonged to Jamie. Shame should remain with the people who chose to weaponize his life.
Jamie admitted Mara’s final months had been lonely. After her death, he learned to leave before anyone else could abandon him. Meeting Wayne and Evelyn threatened the rules that had kept him functioning.
“Rules can keep you alive and still keep you alone,” Lindsay said. Mike had taught her that without meaning to. Jamie looked at the empty hollow beneath the tree and finally agreed to return.
Wayne reached the trailhead as they emerged. He crossed the distance at a run and pulled Jamie into a fierce embrace. Jamie stiffened, then slowly held on.
Wayne told him that no game, scholarship, or university mattered more than knowing his brother was safe. He also made Jamie promise never to decide on Wayne’s behalf whether he belonged in Wayne’s life.
Jamie promised to try. It was not the effortless reunion childhood stories might have offered, but it was honest. Lindsay watched both brothers and felt Catherine’s unfinished promise settle into place.
Back at the house, Evelyn apologized for allowing Jamie to believe love required disappearance. She had modeled that lesson when she left Wayne ignorant and James hidden. Repairing it would take more than a single reunion.
Jamie agreed to attend the championship but asked Evelyn not to sit beside him. She accepted the boundary with visible pain and gratitude. Wayne began to understand that patience could be an expression of love rather than a delay of it.
That night, Lindsay received an email from the university Mr. Russell represented. Her public video and writing samples had impressed an admissions officer, who invited her to apply for a competitive summer journalism program.
The program began immediately after graduation and lasted three months on the opposite coast. Lindsay stared at the dates, realizing that pursuing her own future might separate her from Wayne just when they had finally found each other.
