Chapter Thirty-Two
I wake up with my face pressed to my pillow. My dress is crumpled on my body. I never changed into pajamas or brushed my teeth. My head is pounding and I feel drunk even though I’m dead-sober.
There’s a knock at my door. Henry.
I spring to my feet and head to the bathroom to wash up. My mascara ran down my face and my eyes are crusty and swollen. My cheeks are raw from crying.
“One second,” I shout as I throw some water on my face.
“Bennet? You up?” It’s a female voice. Not Henry.
I forgot I was meeting Andy for coffee.
I squirt toothpaste on my toothbrush and vigorously scrub my teeth. “I’m changing,” I shout. “One minute.”
I spit into the sink and rinse my mouth, and then I dig through my suitcase to find my denim shorts and a tank top.
When I look presentable, I crank the door handle open to Andy. She’s fresh-faced, wearing a white sundress, and holding two coffees and a greasy brown paper bag.
“Breakfast on the porch?” She smiles as she holds up her gifts.
“Sounds perfect.” I let her into my room, which looks like a tornado has recently passed through it.
“Classic Bennet. You could never keep your room clean.”
I kick a pile of clothes out of our path to the balcony. “I’ve actually been doing a pretty good job keeping my room clean lately,” I say. But clearly that hasn’t lasted.
“I got you a cappuccino,” she says, handing me the cup. I take a sip of the foamy coffee as we both settle into the hotel chairs on the balcony. It tastes heavenly.
“Thank you.” I wipe the foam from my upper lip. “I can’t believe you’re married.”
“It’s crazy, right?” She holds her ring out in front of her to inspect it. “Did you have fun last night?” She reaches into the paper bag and fishes out a croissant.
“I think the more important question is, did you have fun?”
She tears off half the croissant and hands it to me on a napkin. “I got to marry Theo. Nothing else mattered.”
I pick at the croissant in my hand, tiny flakes of pastry blowing off into the wind. “Andy, I owe you an apology.”
“What for?” She sinks her teeth into her half.
“That I wasn’t there. Through everything.”
She wipes a crumb off her chin, shaking her head. “I’m not upset with you, Bennet.”
“You could be. I ditched you and your family after everything happened. I feel so guilty.”
“That’s the last thing I would ever want you to feel.”
“I was so embarrassed that my life was a wreck and it seemed like yours was going so well. I felt like my presence would make everyone miserable.”
She laughs, her groomed eyebrows crinkling. “Bennet, what you never realized is that I’m just a hell of a lot better at hiding my mess than you are. Always have been.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” she says, crossing her legs, “I got so mad at you the day you left L.A. because I was mad at myself for not opening up to you, for not sharing my pain with you. You thought I was fine, but, god, I was not. And I wanted you to see through my act.”
I shake my head. “I didn’t.”
“That’s the thing,” she says. “I got so good at putting on this facade, being what the world expected of me, that when Sam died…I couldn’t drop it. If I could keep up the act, maybe it wouldn’t feel so awful. But of course it felt worse the more I pretended it didn’t hurt.”
My mind goes to Henry, how he said almost the same thing about being what the world expects him to be—outgoing, happy-go-lucky. And I still pressured him to be his charming self this weekend when I know he doesn’t feel like that person inside. I stare into the foam of my cappuccino, feeling more and more shame for how I handled this weekend.
“Thankfully I’ve been in therapy for a couple of years now,” she says, shifting in her seat. “Working on that. Among many other things.”
“You’re in therapy?”
She nods. “Every week,” she says. “But, yeah. I never got to tell you how sorry I was for acting like everything was fine when you visited me. Nothing was fine.”
“I should never have said the things I said to you that day, regardless. And I shouldn’t have disappeared.”
“Babe,” she says as she puts her croissant down on the table between us, “we all lost Sam. We all dealt with it in different ways. I knew you needed space. I could never be mad at you for taking it.”
I frown. “I had this whole story built up in my head that I was going to get here and you all were going to hate me. But the only one who hates me is me.”
“Would I have appreciated a call once or twice? Of course. But losing Sam…that’s bigger than either of us. You don’t need to hate yourself for dealing with loss the way you had to.”
“Andy,” I say, my hands gripping the paper coffee cup so tight it creases on one side. “If Sam never met me…he never would’ve been driving that night.”
Her mouth tightens into a thin line. “Bennet, don’t go there.”
“He was driving to see me because we were breaking up. It’s all my fault. Everything.” The truth. Finally. My hand trembles. She reaches across, takes the cup from me, sets it on the table, and replaces it with her hand.
“Every one of us has felt like we were to blame. My dad encouraged him to go talk to you in person that night. It took him years to feel like it wasn’t his fault.”
My stomach drops. “You all knew we were breaking up?”
“Sam couldn’t hide his feelings. Not when it came to you. It didn’t change how much he loved you, and I’m guessing it didn’t change how much you loved him.”
I shake my head. “No. I never stopped. I don’t think I ever will.”
She reaches to my face, cupping my cheek. “That’s what life is about. Never stop loving. No matter what.” A flicker of a smile flashes across her face. “We love you. We always will. And it is not your fault.”
I let out a huge breath. “Thank you, Andy.” I hook my arms around her neck over the table. “I didn’t know how badly I needed to hear that.” She settles back into my shoulder. Andy Chase, holding me. I could fall apart right now and she’d keep me together.
When we come apart, I wipe a tear from her cheek. She takes a deep breath. “So tell me about Henry. He’s not just your friend, is he?”
I knew she knew.
“No.” I lean back in my chair. “Well. I don’t know.” I puff out a breath of air. “Not anymore.”
“Why?”
I take a bite of croissant. “He overheard me tell your mom that I’ll never love anyone like Sam again,” I say.
“Holy shit,” she says, her eyes wide.
“And when he was upset about it…I couldn’t lie to him. I couldn’t tell him that wasn’t true. Not when I haven’t moved on. Not really.”
She takes a deep breath. Her red hair blows gently in the breeze. “Moving on doesn’t mean we don’t love Sam or miss him every day, because, trust me, I do. It’s that we open ourselves to love and to all of the things life has to offer to us. Sam would want you to live. I want you to live.”
“It’s easier said than done.”
“I know,” she says. “But you’re not doing yourself any favors by self-sabotaging like this. You have to try. And I don’t mean half-assed, Bennet. I want a full-assed try.”
“What if I can’t?”
“You can,” she says. “You are not defined by any of the choices you made with Sam, or even the mistakes you make with anyone else. If you’re really not ready to be with someone new, that’s perfectly okay. But if you are ready, Bennet, that’s okay too. You don’t need my permission, but if you thought you did, there you go. Permission granted.”
I let out a shaky laugh, grabbing my coffee and taking a sip. “Okay,” I say.
“Okay,” she says.
I look out over the water, at the crowds laid out on beach towels, kids hunting for seashells. In this moment, I feel it. I miss Henry so much. I miss his hair, his eyes, his voice. I miss his laugh, I miss his glass-half-full attitude, I miss the way he talks to people and really listens. I miss the way I am when I’m around him. I miss it all.
I look down at my lap, at my grip around my coffee cup. “I love him,” I say, mainly to myself. After a moment, I glance up at Andy, who’s got a huge grin plastered across her face.
“I knew it,” she says.
“How?”
She shrugs, looking at me under glittering eyelids. “I know what you look like when you’re in love.”
I sink into my chair, hugging my arms to my body. “I don’t think he wants anything to do with me.”
“I think you’d be surprised. You didn’t think I wanted anything to do with you, and I love you a fuck-ton, Bennet Taylor.”
“I love you a fuck-ton, Alexandra Brightwood.”
She bats me away. “Chase. I’m staying a Chase.”
“Thank god.” I smile. I make a silent promise here and now never to let her get away ever again.
The seat on the plane next to me is empty, where Henry should’ve been. I flop my bag on it so it doesn’t remind me that I’m flying back to a city that doesn’t even feel like home without him.
Some of the contents of my purse spill out, my headphones and sunglasses and a pack of gum slide onto the seat. I shove them back inside. Something in my bag catches my eye, something new I don’t recognize immediately. But when I do, the air is sucked out of my lungs.
I curl my fingers around it, feeling the familiar weight of the ball—the soft leather, the bumpy stitches running down its round surface.
Andy must’ve slipped it into my bag before she left my room this morning.
I pull the baseball out, turning it over in my hands. Through blurry vision, I see her handwriting. I’m sorry. I love you , in faded red Sharpie.
My lips quiver as I hold the ball to my heart, breathing through the emotion building in my body.
She kept it. After all this time, she kept it.
I’m holding something in my palms that not only Andy and I held, but Sam also held—it’s the most cherished gift she could’ve given me. A relic from the past, a totem of forgiveness.
All those nights in the batting cage together, all those mornings in Sam’s bed, all those breakfasts and dinners and tears and smiles, they all come swooping in, each memory like a bird fluttering under my skin.
The tears dry up and my throat loosens as I smile thinking about him. I smile remembering the first time he kissed me, in the arboretum. I smile remembering the sound of his laugh. I smile remembering how jealous Andy got when we would leave her out of our plans.
The realization that I’ve been avoiding Sam just as much as I’ve been avoiding everyone else in my life punctures my heart. He feels like a part of me, yet when was the last time I really welcomed his memory?
This is all about forgiveness. I’ve been asking it of so many people this summer—Andy, Sonya, the Chases, Henry…but I haven’t asked it of myself. I haven’t asked it of Sam.
And I want it so badly. I want to heal. I want to grow and flourish and see my future as something that could be happy. I want to go back to school. I want to go to therapy. I want to learn more about people, about grief.
And I want Henry by my side as I do it. I want my love for him to be just about him. Just about us. I want it more than anything I’ve wanted in a very, very long time. It’s simple. It’s so simple. Because he is a love of my life. One of two.
I clutch the ball in my hands through the entire plane ride home. I hold it as I walk through the airport and take the AirTrain back to Manhattan. I’m barely thinking, just moving, the baseball almost guiding me toward my destination. I clutch it the entire subway ride to Yankee Stadium.