Chapter 48
Rayne
How Do I Say Goodbye—Dean Lewis
What am I doing here? What the hell am I doing here?
I shift my weight from one foot to the other as I stare up at Grandma’s house, just like I stared at Easton’s house the other day.
I have no idea what I’m doing or why I’m here.
It’s been months since I’ve been here, and since I last saw my grandmother.
She hasn’t been in touch and neither have I, and I think that pretty much says it all.
We have no relationship and we’re not family.
It makes no sense for me to be standing here because she can’t help me make the decision I need to make.
I need to decide whether to stay in Boston or to go to LA with Easton, that’s what it’s coming down to. One or the other.
Except my grandmother isn’t the kind of person who can help me with this. She doesn’t know me. She has no idea who I am or what I should do.
We did it! They want us! We’re supposed to move to LA as soon as possible so we can start recording an album. And they want you too. They want us to write songs together.
Easton’s voice has been echoing in my ears for hours and I can’t think of anything else.
He left a message on my voicemail while I was still in class.
I should have called him back the second I heard the message, but I didn’t.
I hate myself for it. He deserves an answer, one full of pure joy.
But instead of joy, all I feel is a growing knot of fear in my stomach because I don’t know what to do.
Stay or go. I have to make up my mind. It’s not just a casual “you could come with me” anymore.
It’s no longer just a possibility that the band will get signed; it’s a reality.
They’ve made it, and they want me to join them to write songs with Easton.
Part of me wants to say yes to everything so badly that it hurts.
And the other part . . . doesn’t know anything anymore.
With a soft sigh, I turn around to go back to school but stop immediately when I see Grandma walking toward me.
“Rayne,” she says, a little surprised, but still with the same cool and distant tone she always uses.
“Hi, Grandma.” I raise my hand awkwardly and wave to her, then immediately wish I hadn’t.
“What are you doing here?”
“I was just in the neighborhood and thought—” I stop when Grandma’s neatly plucked eyebrows go up. Well, if I were her, I wouldn’t believe a single word I said, either.
“Would you like to come in?” She points to the house.
I hesitate for a second and then nod, following her up the stairs to the door.
Nothing has changed here in the months since I moved out; everything is exactly as it was before.
There’s even a bouquet of flowers on the dining table that looks identical to the one she had at the beginning of the year.
Grandma’s house still feels strange to me, even though I lived with her for six months.
When she tells me to sit down at the dining table, I realize that I’ve always felt like a guest here, not like this was my new home.
Not like the New England School of Ballet felt from the very beginning, including the dorm, my room there, and the people I live with.
Grandma disappears into the kitchen and returns a few minutes later with a tray holding a teapot and two cups.
“So why are you really here?” she asks after sitting down across from me, gracefully lifting the dainty cup. I haven’t touched mine yet.
I open my mouth. I want to tell her, but something else comes out instead. “Why didn’t you ever reach out to me? You said you would that day we saw each other on campus. But you never did. Why not? Don’t you care about me?”
She doesn’t bat an eyelash. Instead, she sighs heavily. “Rayne,” she says, setting the teacup down with a delicate clatter. “I do care about you. I just don’t know you.”
“But you could have gotten to know me. After all, I was right here.”
“Yes, you were here, hiding in your room all day. You weren’t interested in getting to know me.”
For a minute her words leave me speechless. “I was trying not to lose my mind,” I manage to say, my stomach clenching. This is all going in the wrong direction. “I’d just lost my parents. I didn’t know how to—”
“And I lost my daughter,” she replies, a very familiar pain flashing in her gray eyes.
“I know,” I reply quietly. “But—”
“No, you don’t know,” she says. “Losing your only child is . . .” she stops and shakes her head. Her shoulders are tense, her back as straight as a board. “It’s even worse when you realize you already lost that child much earlier.”
My eyes burn, and suddenly I wish I hadn’t come here. But I’m here now, and I can’t just leave.
“You mean when Mom went to LA with Dad?” I ask.
She nods. “I was against it. But your mother always had a mind of her own. She threw away everything we had built up over the years: her career, her life. She gave it all up for your father.”
“And for me.” The words come out as a whisper. Mom was already pregnant when she dropped out of college and went to California with Dad.
“Yes. Laura had a great career ahead of her. She was the best dancer in Boston. You should have seen her.”
“I did see her,” I reply, my voice trembling. “Every day. She kept dancing.” She was beautiful, and above all, she was happy.
“But she never made it on stage, even though she had so much talent.” Grandma sighs again. “Be that as it may, your mother made many decisions I didn’t agree with.”
“Is that why you stopped talking to each other?”
She avoids my gaze. “I’m afraid it’s not that simple.”
“Why not?”
“Rayne.” Another sigh. “It was all so long ago. We were both far too stubborn. We made mistakes, and eventually so much time had passed that they couldn’t be undone.”
“Do you wish they could be?”
“It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Yes, it does. I’m still here,” I say, even though I don’t know why. There’s complete chaos in my head. I didn’t come here because of Mom. Or maybe I did.
“You remind me a lot of Laura, do you know that?” Grandma says, as if she hadn’t heard a word I said. She smiles faintly. “You look so much like her. Other than the purple hair, you look exactly like her when she was your age.”
I don’t answer because I don’t know what to say. It’s not true. I don’t look like Mom. My eyes are the only thing I got from her.
“I do care about you, Rayne,” she continues. “I’m just afraid I’m not able to give you what you need.”
I bite my lip to keep from crying. It’s stupid. What did I expect? That I would show up here and we would just magically become a family? No.
“I think I should go now.” I stand up, feeling sick. My legs feel like they’re about to collapse beneath me.
“Yes, that sounds like a good idea.” Grandma gets up too. I can’t believe that’s her reaction. But if I’m honest, I wasn’t expecting it to go any other way. Neither of us made an effort. We’re strangers, and it looks like we’re going to stay that way.
“I’m thinking about leaving school and going back to LA,” I blurt out when I reach the door. I don’t know why I say it, or what I expect to gain from it. I don’t know if I expect approval or rejection. Or that by some miracle her reaction will help me to decide if this is really what I want.
Grandma just smiles a little. “I told you, you’re just like your mother,” she says and then closes the door. That’s all. Then I’m alone.
I should feel something—anything. But instead, I just feel empty. All I know is that I want to go home. I want to talk to Mom and Dad because they would know what I should do. They would know what I want to do, even if I don’t know it myself. They would know, and I have no idea.
* * *
I stare at my phone, knowing I should call Easton. He’s still waiting for me to respond to his message. I haven’t done it yet because I don’t know what to say.
You could come with me.
I get out of bed and reach for my headphones.
I have to get out of here. I can’t think.
Laughter drifts out of the common room as I leave my room.
It’s Friday, and Zoe mentioned earlier that a few people were planning a movie night.
She asked if I wanted to come along to take my mind off things and stop thinking about Easton all the time.
It was a kind offer, but a movie isn’t enough for that.
I leave the cheerful voices behind me, walk down the stairs, and leave the dorm. There’s a lot going on tonight on campus. The lights are still on in the practice building, but for once, I don’t want to go there.
The door to the administration building is unlocked, so someone must still be here, but when I enter the lobby, there’s no one around.
My steps slow, my heart beating faster with every second.
It’s pounding so hard against my ribs that it almost hurts.
I haven’t been here since my first day of school.
My gaze automatically falls on the photos hanging on the walls.
In all the time I’ve been here, I haven’t come back to look for Mom’s picture.
Maybe I was afraid I wouldn’t find it and what that would mean.
I probably shouldn’t attach so much meaning to a picture. But there are a lot of things I shouldn’t do. Slowly, I walk past the portraits, looking at the dancers in their poses, and finally find Mom on the right-hand side. It’s the second-to-last photograph.
She’s young and beautiful. She’s wearing a black leotard with a black practice skirt, her hair pulled back into a strict bun.
The pose looks simple, her back arched slightly backward and her head tilted upward, her arms outstretched.
She’s standing on the tips of her toes on one foot, the other leg bent.
It looks simple, but it’s special. No complicated leap, no extravagant costume. Just my mom.
Tears fill my eyes as I look at her, and my heart aches. She was so beautiful.
“Hey, Mom,” I say quietly, sinking to the floor and putting on my headphones. A moment later, I hear Dad’s soft voice in my ear for the first time in months. I take a breath, my whole body trembling.
He sounds so much like home. I cry because I can’t help it. Everything hurts. Why does missing someone have to hurt so much?
“Hey, Dad,” I manage to say, choking back a sob. I wipe the tears off my cheeks. “I don’t know what to do.”
No one answers. Of course they don’t. Dad keeps singing. I’m listening to “Mockingbird” because it’s the only song that makes sense right now. The song that started it all.
“Is it crazy that I’m talking to you guys here? Probably, right? Talking to yourself is a little crazy.” I pull my knees up and wrap my arms around them. “How do you know what choice to make? How am I supposed to know what to do? Whether to stay or go with him? How is that supposed to work?”
The song fades and starts again.
“I wrote a song, Dad,” I say. The memory of that night on the beach, Easton and me in the van, pen and notebook in hand, fills me with a painful longing.
“I wrote a song with Easton, and he asked me to go to LA with him. The guys got an offer, and he asked me to come. And I want to. I really do, but I don’t know if I can.
I mean, it’s crazy, right? What would I do in LA?
Easton and I have only been together for a few weeks.
Leaving with him now is totally crazy. I mean, who does that?
You would have killed me if I’d made a decision like that just for a guy. ”
For a moment I almost believe he’s going to answer, just for a split second, because I need it so badly. But of course he doesn’t.
“But I want to go with him, Dad. I want to go with him because he’s my best friend, and because what we have is . . . real.” I suppress a laugh.
You and I are real, Rayne.
“If he goes and I stay, it just won’t work.
But how can I leave here now? I came because of Mom.
I wanted to be like her because she wanted that so much, you know?
She was always a little sad that I loved music more than ballet.
I know she didn’t really mind, though. She just wanted us to have something together, and I wanted that too.
I still want that. God, I miss her so much.
” A tortured sob breaks out of me, and I cover my face with my hands, even though there’s no one there to see my tears.
“I’m afraid I’ll disappoint her if I go back, you know? ”
Hearts can break from time to time. Fragile little souls, Dad continues singing, and I can’t breathe anymore. Everything hurts. Easton should be here; I need him to hold me and tell me it’s okay. It’s okay to break down, to not want to decide, to be afraid.
I want him to tell me what Dad would tell me. Because Dad would say that no matter what I choose, I wouldn’t disappoint Mom. The most important thing to her was that I was happy. And that’s why I should do exactly what makes me happy.
Ballet doesn’t make me happy. It never did, and I think deep down I knew that all along. Every day in every lesson, I fought so hard to achieve something that just wasn’t right for me. I knew it then, but I pushed it away because I had no idea what else to do, where to go, what to dream of.
But my dream was actually there the whole time. I just didn’t dare to let it in. It was already there before Mom and Dad died, back when I was just texting Easton. He asked me what I wanted to do, and my answer was simple.
“Do you think I can do it, Dad? Can I write songs?”
You can do anything, little bird.
He said that so many times, every time I doubted myself.
“I want this. I think I really want this. Everything else here is nice, but it doesn’t feel right. It feels like a part of me is missing. And I don’t think I’ll find it here,” I say. Suddenly it’s easy to make a decision, with Mom’s picture in front of me and Dad’s voice in my ear.
Spread your wings, untie your chains
Let your voice be heard
We’ll be dancing in the rain
My lovely mockingbird
I have to be brave and fly.