I tried to think back to the restaurant, but I couldn’t even remember ordering the burger, let alone cutting it. I just remembered half of it was gone when the waitress asked if I wanted a box. I’d said no. As for the clothes, today was the first time I’d actually paid attention to what I was wearing in years. I usually just put on clothes and left, not caring to see how I looked.
“Well, what do you want me to say, Graham? I’m trying. You have no idea how hard it is to lose someone who has been a huge part of your world for over half your life. Who has owned your heart for most of that. Who you were supposed to marry days before they passed! You don’t understand what I’ve been through,” I seethed, and wiped at my wet cheeks. “I finished school, I’m living, what more do you want?”
“I want you to live, Grey.”
“I just said—”
“You’re existing,” he barked, cutting me off. “You’re existing, not living. You’re going through the motions you’re supposed to without realizing that you’re doing them, or why.”
“That’s not true!” I screamed. “You can’t judge me based on what you’ve seen of half a day. A day that is a horrible reminder of what happened.”
He grabbed my hand and squeezed, and when he spoke again, his voice was calm. “Kid, I’m not saying any of this only based on what I’ve seen today. Janie’s worried about you—”
“Janie? Janie?! You’re having my friends keep tabs on me, Graham?”
“Grey—”
“How often do they check in with you? Huh? Do they only see me now so they can tell you how I’m doing? Because I don’t see them very much, but then again, who the hell would want to be around someone who is just existing?”
“Grey!” he snapped when I opened the passenger door and jumped out of his truck.
“Screw you and your existing bullshit, Graham! I’m fine! I’m dealing the only way I know how, and I. Am. Fine.”
I didn’t care that there were tears streaming down my cheeks. I didn’t care that I was overreacting. I was overreacting because I was terrified that he was right, and I didn’t want him to be. I was tired of everyone looking at me with sympathy or pity. I was tired of rooms growing quiet when I walked into them . . . still. I was tired of the way everyone seemed to walk on eggshells around me. And I was tired of feeling like I was giving them a reason to.
I took off for my building, ignoring Graham’s voice as he followed me from his truck. Grabbing my keys from my purse as I ran toward my apartment, I fumbled to find the right key so I could get in there before he could catch up with me. The keys slipped from my hand, and I reached out for them at the same time as I tripped out of my sandals and hit the concrete on my hands and knees.
Ignoring the spilled contents of my purse, I rocked back so I was sitting on my heels and let my head hang as hard sobs worked their way through my body.
Two large hands grabbed at my upper arms to help me up, and I swatted at him. “Leave me alone, Graham!” I cried.
“Shhh. It’s okay,” a deep voice crooned. I lifted my head enough to see Jagger before letting him pull me into his arms. “It’s okay.”
I pressed my forehead into his chest and shook my head back and forth. “It’s not. This day won’t end, and the way everyone is looking at me or talking to me is making me feel like I’m failing.”
“Failing?” he asked, and tipped my head back, a soft smirk playing at his lips. “Hardly, Grey. I told you, you just gotta keep moving, and you are. You have been. You’re strong, not everyone sees that because they’re waiting for you to break. Just because they’re expecting you to not be handling this doesn’t mean you’re failing.”
“But they won’t talk about him, they won’t talk about what happened. Graham said I’m not eating, and I’m losing weight. He said Janie’s telling him that she’s worried about me. He said I’m just existing and going through the motions.”
“Fuck Graham. He’s wrong. He’s not with you every day to see how you’re improving.” Jagger’s green eyes bored into mine. “Your family hasn’t seen you much this year while you’ve been getting better, so they don’t know how to handle the situation—especially because of what today is and the fact that you are upset. He’s your brother, he’s going to be worried about you; but, Grey, don’t let him make you feel like you’re not doing better than you should be. Today is an exception. And he just happened to see you on an exception, all right?” His arms tightened around me, and he leaned back until he was pressed up against the wall. “You’re doing fine, I promise.”
He held me until I stopped crying, and released me when I pulled back.
“See? Fine.”
Today was making me question everything; I didn’t think I could agree with him on that. “What are you even doing here?”
“I thought you could use some company since it’s an exception day, but I’m gonna go so you can spend time with your brother,” he said, jerking his head at something behind me.
I looked over my shoulder to see Graham standing against the wall opposite us, his arms crossed over his chest, a strange look on his face. “How long has he been there?” I whispered to Jagger when I turned to face him again.
“The whole time.”
“So he heard you . . .” I had the sudden urge to stand up for Jagger. Graham had hated him ever since we’d become friends when we were nine. But, then again, he hadn’t really ever liked Ben until right before the wedding was supposed to happen, so it could have been an overprotective big-brother thing.
“Yeah, but he knows I’m right.” Jagger’s eyes moved to look behind me, and one eyebrow rose in silent challenge, but Graham never said anything. “Go hang out with—”
“I don’t want to,” I said quickly, cutting him off. “I need to either be alone, or be with someone who knows what it’s like to force yourself to keep moving.”
He looked down at me for a few seconds before nodding. “Okay, let’s go.”
“We’re not staying here?” I asked when he bent down and started shoving things back into my purse.
“No. You want to keep moving, Grey. We can’t do that if we sit in that apartment all night.”
I took my purse from his hand and turned to follow him out of the breezeway, Graham behind us the whole time. Jagger opened the passenger door of his car and shut it behind me after I’d slid in, and I met Graham’s stare from where he stood a few feet from the front of the car.
Graham’s hand shot out, gripping Jagger’s arm as he went to pass him, and I opened the door—ready for who knows what. It’s not like I could stop them if they went at it.
“Make sure she’s okay,” Graham demanded, his gaze hardening when Jagger ripped his arm free.
“What do you think I’ve been doing for the past two years?” Jagger hissed. “She is okay, she’s better than okay. Today sucks for her, but you can’t treat her like she’s made of porcelain because it’s a bad fucking day. She needs to talk about him; she needs to talk about what happened. She doesn’t need the way you all stood there at the graduation staring at her like you had no idea who she was.”
“Do you see her?” Graham asked, getting closer. “Do you see how thin she is?”
“Yeah, I see her. I see her every day. She lost a lot of weight; she’s also put on weight in the last few months. Give her some fucking credit, Graham. Don’t just take Janie’s word for it—Janie isn’t around enough to give you updates on her. You want to know how your sister is doing, ask her yourself. Don’t tell her how she is.” Jagger didn’t wait for him to say anything else; he stalked around the hood of the car and slid into the driver’s seat.
Graham looked like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to stop me from leaving with Jagger or was relieved I was leaving. When I shut my door, he put a hand over his chest in our silent I love you, and kept his eyes trained on mine until I put my hand over my chest as well, nodding once as Jagger backed out of the spot.
Jagger
May 10, 2014
I LET MY phone fall to the table and sighed loudly as I rubbed my hands over my face. After driving around with the music blasting and windows down for a few hours, we’d come to one of the places we used to always go to before Ben died. They had live music on the weekends and the best diner food in the area.
“Graham?” Grey guessed, and I grunted in confirmation.
“He just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“You haven’t,” she began, but paused for a few seconds. “Have you been giving him updates too?”
“Seriously, Grey? Your brother hates me; I didn’t even know he had my number until a few minutes ago. Besides, if I had been giving him updates, he probably wouldn’t have said all that shit to you, and your family wouldn’t have acted like statues at the graduation.”
“I heard you say something about that to him before we left. So you noticed it too, huh?”
“Wasn’t hard to. My sister wanted to see you, but after we found you and saw the way they were all just staring at you, she was afraid to say anything.”
“Charlie was there? Were your mom and brother there too?”
I stopped myself from rolling my eyes and just shook my head instead. “No. Mom was probably busy with her new boyfriend or husband.”
Grey rolled her eyes at the mention of my mom’s boyfriends, and her lips tilted up in a soft smile. “I doubt that was the reason she didn’t show. But I wish Charlie had said something. I’ll have to call her this summer, or something. I haven’t seen her in forever.” Grey’s mouth fell into a frown for a second before she turned to look at the stage when everyone clapped.
I hadn’t set foot in here in two years, and it felt strange, but good, to be here again. Almost like I could see Ben sitting on the opposite side of the booth, right next to Grey. But just as soon as the memory hit me, it was gone. “Do you ever feel like he’s disappearing?” I asked suddenly.
Grey’s head shot up, her eyes wide as she took in my words. “What?”
“Ben. Do you feel like his memory is disappearing? Everywhere, all around us.”
“All the time,” she murmured, and nodded absentmindedly for a few moments. “I forced myself to stop buying his cologne, and there are times I don’t remember what he smelled like. When I realize that, I panic. I’m afraid I’ll forget forever, and I want to go buy another bottle. But I know I can’t, I know it’ll just make it harder to move on. I don’t—” She cut off on a quiet sob, and covered her mouth with her hand as tears filled her eyes. “I don’t remember what his laugh sounded like. I don’t remember the way it felt when he held me. I’m afraid to go back to Thatch, Jag.”
“What? Why?”
“I don’t want to see his parents’ house and know that Ben’s been completely erased from it.”
I sagged into the booth and blew out a heavy breath. “Yeah, I’d forgotten about that.”
Six months after Ben died, his parents had moved. Not just to another house, not just out of town. They’d moved across the country to get away. They hadn’t been able to handle all the memories of Ben when their only child was now gone. And in a town the size of Thatch, there were memories everywhere.
I’d felt the same, but now I was in the same spot as Grey. I was terrified of forgetting him, and now I wondered if his parents regretted leaving.
“So what are you going to do?”
She blinked a few times, like I’d just pulled her from somewhere else, and after a few seconds she shrugged. “I’m still going back. The apartment here isn’t much better. He’s the one who picked it out, and all I ever think about when I’m in there is that he’s supposed to be in there too. It’ll be hard at first, but I need to go home. What about you?” Grey’s lips curved up in a rare smile, and I felt myself smiling back at her until she spoke. “I always pictured you just taking off. No one has ever been able to hold on to you, and I feel like towns and cities are no different. I don’t see you ever finding a place where you’ll want to settle down forever.”
Of course you don’t. I looked down so she wouldn’t see anything she wasn’t supposed to. There was truth to her words, and at the same time she was so wrong. No one had ever been able to keep me because I’d only ever belonged to her. I’d dated a handful of girls in the first two years after leaving Thatch . . . if you could call it dating, and had only ever had one girlfriend back home—and that had been in hopes that it would get a reaction out of Grey as much as it had been a distraction for me from the constant in-my-face relationship of Ben and Grey. If Ben hadn’t died, and if they’d gotten married, leaving is exactly what I would’ve done. It was one thing to stay back, not saying anything to her, hoping one day she would see in me what I’d seen in her since we were kids. It was another when I had to finally acknowledge she would never be mine.
But even though I wasn’t sure she would ever get to a point in her life where she was ready to move on, there was no way I could leave her now. She wasn’t mine, but she needed me. And I would be there for her as long as she did.
“So where do you think you’ll go?” she asked, and I looked back up at her.
“Thatch,” I said, my voice low and gravelly. “I belong in Thatch.”
Chapter 2
Jagger
May 16, 2014
FLIPPING THROUGH MY keys until I found hers, I unlocked the door to Grey’s apartment and stepped in. Using my foot, I pushed aside a stack of two boxes so I could get past the entryway, and called out for her. “Grey?”
“Bedroom!” she yelled, and I made my way back there.
“How’s it coming, you al—” I cut off abruptly, and a sharp laugh burst from my chest when I found her.
It’d been almost a week since graduation, and today was the day we left Pullman to go back to Thatch. We’d spent the majority of the last two days packing and putting all our furniture in a truck we’d rented so we could just load up the last of the boxes and leave today, but Grey being Grey . . . she had to do everything at the last minute. And apparently that had failed. She was sitting on the floor next to the sleeping bag she’d been sleeping in, her legs spread out as she grabbed at all of her bathroom stuff scattered on the floor around her. The biggest pout I’d seen on her face since we were in middle school.
“Did you forget to tape the bottom of the box?”
“Shut up, Jag,” she huffed as she dropped more into the box.
“I’ll take that as a yes. Did you tape it this time?”
Her hand paused in the air above the box, and her shoulders slumped as her head dropped back, so she was looking at the ceiling. Mumbling things too low for me to hear.
I choked back another laugh and walked into the room, bending down to help her pick up everything that had fallen. “It’s okay. We’ll just fill this up and tape the top, and then we’ll very carefully tip it over. All right?”
“I swear to God, I can’t focus on anything today. Or pack, apparently.” She continued grumbling to herself, and I couldn’t help but smile.
I’d been afraid today would be too hard on her—leaving the apartment that was supposed to have been her first place with Ben, but even through her annoyance with the packing and the boxes, I could tell today was a good day for her.
“Did you know—” She’d pointed at me with a box of tampons, her eyes widening when she realized what was in her hand. Dropping the tampons into the moving box, she cleared her throat, and I pretended her face wasn’t as red as her hair. “Anyway, did you know that I packed all my clothes yesterday?”
“Yeah, Grey, I was there.”
“No. I mean, all of them. Which means I didn’t have any clothes when I got out of the shower this morning.”
My eyes flashed over to her before quickly going back to the floor, and I tried to concentrate on picking up everything so I wouldn’t sit there thinking about her in the shower.
“Thank God I didn’t let you put all those boxes in the truck. So after finally finding a box that had my clothes in it and cutting into it, I took out s
ome clothes and taped it back up, only to realize I’d taken out two shirts, nothing else. That is how my morning has been. All morning. I should not be allowed to drive today.”
A smile spread across my face as I reached behind me for the tape sitting on top of another box. “Let me guess, no coffee this morning?”
“I packed that yesterday too!” Her horrified tone let me know she’d been kicking herself all morning over that. She fell back until she was lying on the floor, and groaned. “This is why I don’t do anything until the last minute.”
“We’re going to pass a ton of coffee shops, we’ll get you something on the way out. And you don’t do anything until the last minute because you wouldn’t know what to do with yourself if you were actually on time for something. Your world might implode or something.”
Raising one arm to flip me off, she let it flop back to the floor before sitting up. “Okay, let’s finish this.”
“How much do you have left?” I asked when I slowly tilted the box, waiting for her to put her hands on the bottom so the flaps wouldn’t open again.
“Just packing up the truck, this was the last box.”
“Truck is full, these will have to go in your car. And look at you trying to be on time,” I mumbled, and she laughed.
“You would’ve been so proud of me. I was running around here like mad packing up everything I saw left out.”
Glancing up at her, I smirked. “And you still failed.”
She made a face, but didn’t say anything else.
I taped the box shut and stood up, extending an arm to help her up as well. “All right, well, let’s get started and get on the road before you go into severe caffeine withdrawal.”
I grabbed that box and stacked it on top of another. Lifting them both up, I walked into her living room and looked at the counter. A frown tugged at my lips, and I turned in a slow circle, seeing only boxes. “Grey, where are your keys?”
“In my purse,” she called out from down the hall.
“Yeah. Where’s your purse?”