Chapter 2
Ellie
It took me a minute to remember where I was when I woke up in an unfamiliar bed the next morning. I’ve spent so long shoving thoughts of Larkspur down as far as they would go that it didn’t register that I was really and truly here.
Beams of the early morning light stream through the lacy curtains, bathing the room in a pale glow I’ve only ever seen in a Texas sunrise. Boston is beautiful in its own right, but without even seeing it yet, I just know the sky is bigger here.
I feel like I can breathe again.
Before I have time to enjoy it, my chest clenches, because being back home means I have to confront things I’ve been avoiding like the plague.
Memories of the last time I was in this town–when everything went to hell–crawl to the surface, and from the moment I decided to come back, they’ve been getting harder and harder to ignore.
Pressing the heels of my palms into my eyes, I give myself thirty seconds to feel the crushing weight of anxious dread before forcing it back down, dragging myself out of bed.
I follow the smell of coffee to the kitchen and find Abby sitting at the table, engrossed in whatever romance novel she’s reading this week.
“Good morning,” I say with a yawn, opening and closing the cupboards until I find a coffee mug. I pour myself a cup and take the seat across from her, smiling as she holds up a finger in a silent command of “hold on, let me finish this page.”
“Good morning sunshine,” she says, placing her bookmark and setting it down on the table. “Sorry, I wanted to finish that last night, but once it hit 2 AM, Aaron made me put it down and go to bed.”
“Well don’t let me interrupt you, I just needed coffee.”
“No way, Jo and Ellis can wait,” she says, waving her hand impatiently. “I can’t believe you’re here.”
“Me either, to be honest,” I reply with a shrug.
“How have you been, Ellie Bellie? Like, really been?”
I stare into my mug, contemplating the lies I’ve been telling myself for years–Everything is fine, work is great, I’m really happy in Boston, I don’t have time to date, and no, I’m not lonely. For once, I decide on the truth.
“It’s been kinda bad lately, Abs,” I admit in a quiet voice. “I’m not doing…well.”
She reaches across the table, squeezing my hand.
“Tell me what’s going on, my love.”
“I just…haven’t felt like myself in a long time. Most of the time it’s not so bad, but some weeks it feels like I’m going through the motions in a daze, like everything is simply happening to me and I’m not an active participant. Sometimes it feels like I’m watching my own life from the sidelines.”
“Are you still seeing Dr. Kelsi? Are the meds helping?”
Kelsi, my therapist, who is not a doctor by the way, decided about a year ago that I would benefit from an antidepressant in tandem with our weekly sessions. Best decision I’ve ever made. Maybe the only good one, actually.
“Yes and yes. It’s been so much better than it was before, but sometimes the lows get excruciatingly low again, and I just sort of have to ride it out,” I explain, drumming my fingers absentmindedly against the side of my mug. “But it gets easier every time.”
“I am so proud of you,” she says, voice shaky, eyes watering. “You’re the bravest, strongest, prettiest girl I know.”
I reach up to stroke her cheek, wiping away the errant tear that broke through. “Well, thank God I’m still pretty,” I say with a chuckle. “Who knows where I’d be without my devastatingly good looks.”
“You’d still be running circles around those jackasses at your firm,” she grumbles. “I mean what do they even do around there? It feels like you’re never not at the office these days.”
She looks up, her face guilt-ridden.
“I shouldn’t have made you come back,” she says, her voice wobbling again. “I should have told them we can do this without you.”
“I’m glad I’m here, Abby,” I say emphatically. “It’s going to be good for me, I can’t hide from it forever. I made my bed, it’s time for me to lie in it.” When she opens her mouth again, I cut her off. “C’mon, let’s get ready. We have a party to plan.”
“God, it’s going to be so weird to see everyone,” she says, grabbing both of our mugs and setting them in the kitchen sink. “Obviously I run into some of them around town, but being all together again in the school cafeteria?” She shudders. “It’s going to feel like we’re fifteen again.”
“What a nightmare,” I tease, heading to my room to change. Our first reunion committee meeting is today, and despite the nausea climbing its way up my throat, I’m determined to make the best of it.
This will be fun. It’s one party, and then I can leave again. There’s no reason to panic.
Like hell there’s not.
***
Wind whipping through my hair, I take in the familiar town around me as I sit in the passenger seat of Abby’s car, windows rolled down and breathing in the crisp autumn air.
Flashbacks of driving these streets in a different passenger seat, with a different person behind the wheel, knock the wind out of me like someone punched me in the stomach.
“You want to remind me how I got roped into this?” I yell over the sound of the air rushing past us.
“That’s what you get for becoming an East coast hot-shot,” Abby yells back. “People here don’t know the difference between ‘project manager’ and ‘party planner’.”
“This is stupid, I’ve never planned a party in my life,” I counter. “You told them that right?”
“Well I would have, but that would be a damn lie,” she says, a wide grin spreading across her face. “Everyone knows you planned the best wedding this town has ever seen.”
Now those are some memories I could re-live over and over.
When Abby and Aaron got engaged, I threw myself into their wedding the way I do with any project–meticulously, wholeheartedly, obsessively, like my life depended on it.
I mean really, planning a wedding couldn’t be that much different than architectural project management, right?
News flash–it is, in fact, wildly different. But that didn’t stop the entire town showing up, invited or not, and not to toot my own horn, but it was the best wedding Larkspur has ever seen.
“That still doesn’t mean I’m the right person for this,” I argue, but only halfheartedly. I know deep down that out of all our former classmates, I’m absolutely the right person for this. Determination to manage something flawlessly quickly overrides the painful reminiscing from a few moments ago.
“Shut your mouth,” she says, whipping into a parking spot at the front of the school. “You’re going to kill it, and everyone is going to worship the ground you walk on.”
“That’s a bit dramatic,” I say, rolling my eyes.
Looking up at the stately brick building, a mixture of warm nostalgia and haunted what-ifs washes over me.
So many things happened within these walls, good and bad.
These days, it’s hard to untangle the two.
Even the good memories are tainted now–they only serve as a reminder of everything I lost.