Chapter 3
Now
Bea
All the adrenaline from the night flees my body the moment I slide into Silas’s truck. I feel wrung out, muscles weighted and blood sluggish in my veins. I’m on the verge of tears again—for no good reason or maybe for all the reasons, I don’t know.
I realize my eyes have closed when I feel him slide into the driver’s seat.
“Thank you,” he says, deep and gritty in the enclosed space. I lift my million-pound lids to look at him. “For sticking up for me.”
“You’re welcome,” I say. Guilt lands a quick jab in my chest. I don’t know why I feel like I should explain myself, but I do.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have snapped at her like that, but .
. . a lot of our conversations go that way lately.
She just says so much shit, you know? Things that feel fucking hurtful and careless, and it’s like I can’t help it anymore.
Like I’m always primed for it now.” I blow out a frustrated breath.
“I hope it wasn’t too much. You probably didn’t need me stepping in.
I hope I didn’t end up making you uncomfortable. ”
“You didn’t. Promise.”
He starts the engine, and we head out into the night, quiet and stars blanketing us.
“You can talk about it,” Silas says. “If you want to. Whatever else is going on with you two. I might not have great advice, but I know it helps just to say stuff out loud sometimes.”
He’s right, I know. But I’m scared he might agree with her.
It took me a few months after learning about all of this, but when I eventually talked to Merritt’s family, her mom had been moved and supportive.
Bonnie had been excited, even. She’d cried, telling me how much she loved the idea of having something of Merritt live on.
Expanding their family, gaining another grandchild.
She’d thanked me vehemently. Despite living four hours away now, we do our best to meet up for an occasional lunch and stay caught up in between.
Merritt’s sister, Devin, had been a different story. She had nothing to say at all, but her face hadn’t hidden much. I tried to stuff her response to a far corner of my mind and held on to Bonnie’s instead.
I’d gone back to my mom feeling like I was cupping a flickering flame, and her reaction all but snuffed it out. I feel like I am barely clinging to my resolve.
“My mom thinks that Merritt leaving this to me was unfair for her to do,” I decide to tell him.
“That her asking me to carry a piece of her on wasn’t right.
” I may as well blurt out the rest. “She thinks I’m not considering that I might meet someone and how a kid will be an added obstacle—her words, not mine.
She also thinks that the grief is too fresh and I’m taking on too much.
Asking too much of my body. She said . .
. she said that I’m putting unfair expectations on a kid to fill a void.
” The last part comes out too high and strained.
I sneak a glance at him when he’s quiet for a beat, but I can’t make out his expression.
“Well,” he finally says, “do you think this kid is going to be some reincarnation of Merritt?”
“Of course not.”
“And you want a kid?”
There’s a blurry image that lingers in my mind—a little baby with brown hair.
A small piece of a person who unfailingly saw the best in others, who brought out the very best in me, back in the world and cradled protectively in my arms. Letting myself feel this want?
It’s almost as intense as my sadness. So, yes, I want a kid.
I want this kid. More than I’ve ever wanted anything, but I also feel like I have to qualify it.
To only allow myself to want it in measured, safe terms.
I consider it as I have a thousand times over the last year, holding it up against my mom’s argument.
Maybe the timing could be better, but in most ways, I do feel ready.
I’m executing a plan to help cover myself financially.
I just turned thirty. I have always wanted kids.
Even when I was younger, I thought more about my future children than I ever thought about marriage.
I enjoy flirting and (good) sex, and other than the last year or the times when Merritt was really sick, I’ve rarely deprived myself of either.
But romantically, while men have added some joy to my life, nothing has ever compared to the love I had for my best friend.
And maybe that’s me. Maybe I haven’t let it come close enough to compare.
Nevertheless, in Merritt, I had the kind of love that made me invincible and fulfilled, wholly myself and unequivocally known.
It just so happened to be platonic. I don’t feel like I need romantic love, so I don’t feel like I need a romantic partner before I can be someone’s mom.
And if romance were to come along one day, I would not be the least bit interested in anyone who’d consider a child to be an obstacle, anyway.
Like having a kid would make me something to be settled for.
“Yes,” I state with as much conviction as I can muster in a syllable.
“Then she’s wrong,” Silas replies. “You’re not trying to fill a void. You’re trying to move forward and honor your friend. And if you’re not avoiding your grief or sidestepping it, I think that’s brave as hell. It’s hopeful as hell.”
My breaths pick up speed, but there’s no hardening in my throat, no struggle against the tears. I simply blink and they’re there, alongside a smile that’s just as inexorable.
Truthfully, I’m not positive I haven’t been sidestepping my grief at times, or that I have been going through it like someone should. At least, not always. I’m not sure it’s possible to grieve perfectly. Still, his blunt support feels like an unexpected boost.
“And as far as timing goes?” he continues, and I let myself keep staring at his profile.
“As someone who’s lost my fair share of people .
. . the grief is never going to be gone, anyway.
It’s like . . .” He flips on his blinker before he makes a turn.
“Like weight training. The weight itself never gets lighter. You just get more accustomed to lifting it. Plus, I don’t know a single person who ever felt like it was the perfect, most ideal time to have a kid.
” He chuckles. “Maybe I don’t know enough people.
But I think wanting one, wanting to bring a person into this world, and wanting to give them everything, all that love you’ve got kicking around left over from Merritt?
Hell, I don’t know. Like I said, my advice is probably shit, but I think that’s as good a reason as any. ”
After an elongated pause, the best I can come up with is a choked “Thank you, Silas.”
I relax into the heated seat and fall into a shallow sleep after that, lulled by the gentle rock of the truck in the dark night.
When I feel us park and open my eyes, I find Silas leaning onto a hip, seemingly in no hurry for me to leave.
I’m not rushing to leave the warmth of this cab, myself.
I follow the path of his gaze and spot the guesthouse to the left and behind my parents’.
A wild, unbidden sequence of thoughts catapults through my head.
They start with I felt so good tonight and keen right into I want to keep feeling good, culminating with Tell him to come inside, to keep making you feel good.
Make him feel good, too. Each one is superimposed onto a memory, some moment I’ve fought to suppress.
His opened mouth dragging wetly across the base of my spine.
His teeth against my collarbone. My hair wrapped around his fist. My mouth judders open at the shock of it, at the jolt of my body coming back on line in that way. I cough to cover my small gasp.
I’ve got no right to make demands of him. Not when I’m the one who pushed him away before and has held him at arm’s length since.
“Not that I don’t think you’ve considered all your options already or anything,” he says, hardly above a whisper. I still twitch when he breaks the silence and have to act like I’m adjusting in my seat. “But you’re sure you have to rent out your place?”
I will my heart to regulate and force my thoughts into submission.
Sigh so long and deep it leaves me hollowed out.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” I tell him. “Um. Merritt froze her eggs before starting chemo the first time eight years ago, and they expire after ten. So, I’m already tight on time, and I needed a way to get the money, and .
. .” I’m surprised how much I don’t mind explaining this to him, actually.
How un-judged I feel. “And I took so much time off when she was sick, plus—after. So, I’ve been building that back up, planning on needing more than one round in case it doesn’t happen the first time.
With tourism picking up, renting out my place is the quickest solution.
” It’s not only the cost of getting pregnant; it’s the safety net I’ll need for a baby and me, plus enough of a cushion to take leave before that.
Not having a partner puts that responsibility solely on my shoulders.
“If there were something cheap enough to rent for me to still clear a profit, I would.”
An idea occurs to me, then. “With Wren back with Ellis, is she renting out her other place?” I ask.
“Micah’s already renting it.” He smiles apologetically. “You know, you’re welcome to stay with me.”
It knocks me off balance. My head tilts to the side before I shake it. “Silas. You know I can’t do that.”
“Why not? It’s a big house. I’m gone for days at a time. Even more during peak fire season. You could have the whole second floor to yourself.”
“It’s not that I don’t appreciate it. I .
. .” I look away and focus on the window to my old room, somewhere I have an abundance of memories with Merritt.
“We both know I haven’t exactly been a great friend to you, so you’re generous—too generous—to offer.
But I can’t. I’ll be okay. I’ll make up with my mom.
She’ll come around.” I sound like I’m trying to convince myself.
He’s so quiet I think I hear his jaw flex. I risk looking at him again.
“Promise me this, at least,” he says. “You’ll call me if you need help. With anything. Packing anything else, moving anything else. A ride. Ideas on what to make for dinner.”
“That last one is specific,” I whisper back.
“I spend an annoying chunk of my days trying to think of what to feed myself,” he explains. “Sometimes I think it’d be nice to have someone help me decide.”
I blink against a new confusing burst of emotion. “All right,” I croak. “I can do that.”
I’ve got my door opened and one foot planted in my driveway when he adds, “It’d be nice to be friends again, Bea.
Actual friends. Not just orbiting in and out of each other’s lives when there’s some piece of town news or when .
. . when something terrible happens. I mean, I’ve been trying to get a haircut for, like, three years. ”
“Silas, I’m—”
“Fuck, please don’t be sorry,” he rushes to say.
“Forget I mentioned the haircut, obviously I’ve had my hair cut, I just meant I’ve tried getting in to see you for it.
But that was stupid, doesn’t matter, just—just let me be there, please.
I know this might not seem helpful now, but I’ve done this before. ”
“Done what?” I ask over my shoulder.
“Lost someone. Grief, the stages of it. I could help, if you want. If you’d let me, I mean.” I hear him shift in his seat. “It’d be for the best,” he tacks on, like maybe seeming aloof will Trojan-horse me into the idea.
I turn a bit more and look down at the big hand he’s got planted on the center console between us.
Shadows make all the grooves of his scars stand out.
I reach over and touch his pinkie before I’ve considered doing so.
I would love his help. I would love to feel less isolated and lonely in this thing.
Which is probably why I shouldn’t accept.
“Thank you for tonight,” I say, still looking at our hands.
“For what?”
“All of it. Making me laugh. Letting me cry and not making it weird.” It’s easier when I’m at work, probably because of whatever phenomenon it is that makes people want to off-load to their hairstylist. I’m engrossed enough in their lives that it’s easier to keep mine in the background.
After Merritt, I learned early on that letting my emotions surface made people uncomfortable at best, or panicked at worst, not unlike the case with my mom.
Silas is the first person to openly encourage me to cry.
I don’t check to confirm it, but somehow I know he’s smiling, like that smile of his is so electric it charges the air. “Listen, I’m always happy to make it weirder, but I’d be fucked if I tried to stop myself from crying whenever I needed to.”
The corner of my mouth kicks up against my will.
I have seen Silas Byrd cry a dozen times over the years—when I wasn’t supposed to be noticing him at all.
But those tears have always been happy. I wonder if he lets himself feel the unhappy stuff in that same big manner. “Yeah? That so?” I tease, anyway.
“Yeah,” he says. “Huge weeper here.” He traps my forefinger under his pinkie. “Which is why you should call me. Seriously. Whenever. Always.”
Always. The word lands like a boulder.
Can’t be. I had my always person, and now she’s gone.
“Good night, Si. Thank you again,” I tell him before I haul myself inside.