Astor Hill

Chapter 25

25

Olivia

It feels like an eternity since Ben dropped me off at home. I roll over and look at the clock, for what feels like the hundredth time, and see it’s nearly 1:30 a.m. I feel hyper and giddy, my mind full of excitement, the way I used to after an amazing date. Like this burst of adrenaline is streaming through me and I just want to talk to someone who will examine the evening I had with Ben in thirty different ways without batting an eye. In the past, on nights like tonight I’d talk to Lily, force her to wake up and let me rant about every thought swirling in my brain.

I scroll through my contacts, quickly remembering I have no one.

Over the years I’ve learned these are the moments you take for granted after losing your best friend. The times she’d help scrutinize a reply I was sending a boy for over an hour. How she would watch me try on twelve different outfits before my college interviews to find one that was stylish yet professional. All the coffee runs in our pajamas or dinners in our favorite booth at our favorite restaurant, drinking Diet Cokes and talking about every detail of our lives. The silence used to be deafening in my room on nights like this, but tonight it’s something softer and for the first time since Lily’s death I don’t pull away.

I roll out of bed, my socks sinking into the plush, thickly padded rug on the floor. I’ve decided I’m giving up on sleep. Putting my kettle on the stove, I sit at the counter looking at the one photo of Lily and I that I have framed in my home. The one I’ve kept out just in case the day arrived that I wanted to remember, that I wanted to see my best friend. I stare at it for a long second, allowing myself to start to feel the precipice of things I have been actively avoiding for the past few years. My grief is like a storm, quiet but strong, begging to be let out, and for once I decide to feel a grain of what she meant to me— nothing more, nothing less. It’s so small, the emotion I allow to seep into myself, and yet I see how the longer I’ve kept this sadness inside me the more it’s grown.

In some ways, I’ve always known this. I’ve felt it in the shadows of everything I do. Even now with Ben, it’s here: that unbearable want for everything to go back to how it was before. I close my eyes breathing in through my nose, trying to will myself not to find a distraction but to allow this brief intermission of Lily into my thoughts.

My kettle begins to whistle so I take it off the burner and go toward the pantry, looking for the right herbal remedy to calm the inner plight inside me, when a box crashes to the ground as I open the closet sliding door. I freeze, my hand still clenching the door. I know exactly what it is before I even look down. My Lily box. I haven’t looked at the contents in years and yet here it is, crashing down in front of me like she’s here egging me on. I gravitate toward it. I quickly pick it up and dump the contents on the kitchen table.

Tears prick my eyes as the memories flood my table’s surface. Photos of two smiling girls getting ready for their debutante ball; another of us as toddlers with giant rollers in our hair and makeup that we clearly did with no supervision; pages of old journals we passed between ourselves with lists of crushes and gossip about the girls we didn’t like. Lily’s whimsical handwriting in the margins that are filled with quotes, lyrics, and all sorts of her favorite symbols from her favorite number thirty-two to her horoscope, Gemini.

I touch my fingertips together as everything starts rushing back, all the emotions I tend to clamp down with an iron like grip bubbling up. I push back against the wave swelling inside me. This is too much, too fast , I hear that inner voice, begging me to forget. I push it down and begin moving through the different items. It’s interesting what you deem worthy to save in those moments right after someone you love dies. These inanimate objects that make up who they were, all of them a reflection of how you interpreted their life to be.

My fingers trail a light pink measuring tape as I think back to the summer that Lily and I measured our bodies, comparing the inches to those of Victoria Secret models.

“ It’s okay Liv, not all of us have the genes to walk the runway, some of us have to be the brains behind the operation,” Lily winks.

My gut roils as I push the tape off the table. I find the deck of cards Lily used to teach me to shuffle during one spring break and the yearbook from seventh grade that I used a Sharpie to color my face out of instead of signing my name at our end of year celebration.

To my left is the beaded pouch she got at the beach our last summer together. I run my hands against it considering how it felt like everything changed that summer, how distant she was. She was sneaking out, not inviting me to any of the parties she was going to. Like she wanted to separate herself from me completely. My mind reels thinking about one of the nights I tried to go with her.

“Let me come with you.” I place my book down, moving to grab a dress out of my closet to go to one of the beach bonfires Lily has been sneaking out to over the past month

“It’s not really your scene, Liv.” She doesn’t glance at me applying lipstick in the vanity mirror.

“Cmon. We’ve barely hung out this whole summer… Why don’t you want me there?” I feel the flush spread against my face as I whine. I’ve really grown into myself this past year, I realize as I look over her shoulder into the vanity mirror. My hair is shoulder length but growing, my teeth newly straight from years in braces. I’m still tall, but my face and body have slimmed out considerably. I squint my eyes really trying to see what flaws Lily might be seeing.

“Olivia, chill.” She’s looking at me over her shoulder like I’ve just had some sort of outburst and not just asked her a simple question. Seeing what I’m sure is insecurity flickering over me she gives me a faux pout then quickly stands straightening her mini dress.

“Look— this has nothing to do with you. I told you I am on an independence journey this summer! Besides, I’m dumping someone tonight so the vibe will be off.” She saunters over and grabs my shoulders. “Liv, I love you, you know that.” I look down at my socked feet, embarrassment rolling off me. She nudges me, her voice softening. “Sometimes, I just need to be able to do my own thing. I’m always here if you need me, but I just need to know you’re going to be okay when I’m not around.”

I feel my stomach turn the same way I did that night, but this time it’s different. She needed to know I’d be okay without her and I never gave that to her. Guilt instantly washes over me.

Lily is gone— my Lily.

I glance over again at the photo of us as girls, rollers haphazardly in our hair, our makeup glittery and over dramatic, and I stare at it for a while. She was just a girl and so was I.

I decide to keep some of the photos out and open the beaded pouch to store them. Inside is a neatly folded piece of paper and a woven bracelet I recognize from one of the boardwalk vendors from that final summer with her. I throw the bracelet back in the box and am about to trash the paper but decide to open it, curiosity taking over. It’s a receipt.

You’re perfect, I love you.

The script is clean and neat, definitely not Lily’s, but I recognize her random doodling on the edges. I squint, re-reading the restaurant’s name: Albert’s on the Boardwalk. My eyes widen realizing this is the exact restaurant Ben was talking about earlier. I feel the corners of my mouth lifting in a smile as my eyes well with tears. In a weird way, I feel like this is some sort of sign from my friend. Like she wanted me to find this and know that all those details I needed to share about my date with Ben were heard. That she’s always been here when I’ve needed her. That she knows I'm going to be okay.