40. Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty
“H ow are you?” Jess’s voice was cautious as I sat curled up on my parents’ screened-in porch. The earthy smell of rain permeated the air as light sounds of soft rock music trickled through the speaker.
Four weeks.
That’s how much time had passed since I last saw Grey, and I’d spent my time since then finding comfort in either writing or with my parents and John and Jess.
“Here you go. Peanut butter and honey, your favorite,” Mom said, returning from inside. She took the seat next to Jess, a steaming cup of tea in her hands.
“Thanks, Mom.” I angled my body toward both of them. “I’m doing better. It still just hurts, you know? And I’m not really sure which part hurts the most. The part where Grey was Liv’s heart recipient, the part where Grey’s gone, or the part where now it feels like I’ve lost them both.”
“I’m betting it’s a little bit of everything,” Mom said.
“I just have to keep reminding myself that Grey’s life was driving a million miles per hour, and I was just getting used to being in a car again,” I said.
“You’re definitely right about that.” Jess entered the chat. “He told John and me that he’d been spending the summer working to acquire a few different businesses, hoping to one day create his own story.”
“Speaking of getting in the car again, what are you going to do next, MJ?”
Mom’s question was so straightforward, it threw me off-kilter. Normally my parents were hesitant to ask me anything too specific, but not today. Today she got right to the point.
I stared at her, unsure what to say.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to come off as pushy. I’m just afraid if you sit around too long, you’re going to lose the fire that sparked alive inside of you this summer.”
“I agree with your mom,” Jess chimed in. “You need to go after what you want, no matter how scary or uncertain that feels. We all know life’s too short.”
“What do you want?” Mom asked.
The question wasn’t hard, and neither was the answer. I’d just never taken the time to say it out loud. Looking between Jess and my mom, the words poured out.
“I want to finish this damn book. I want to move to New York. I want to become an author. I want to chase my dreams.”
They peered at one another before looking at me, considerable grins displayed on their faces.
“So what’s stopping you? Wasn’t that a big reason you ended things with Grey in the first place?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Yeah, but you didn’t plan on him telling you that he’d received your best friend’s heart, is that it?” Jess asked.
The bluntness. She and Mom were in rare form.
I nodded. “Right.”
“But if anything, shouldn’t that fuel your desire? You found a piece of Liv, or rather it found you. Yes, it was in the shape of a tall, dark, handsome man, but nonetheless, you can’t deny that maybe it was her way of making sure you never gave up on your dreams.”
“I guess I never saw it that way. But then again, Liv always did have a way with the theatrics, didn’t she?” I teased.
“Yes, she did,” they said in unison, chuckling.
It became abundantly clear that they’d decided this was going to be an intervention of sorts. Their words were calculated, and they had a response for everything I said. I could’ve been bothered by it, but looking at the two of them, I was just really damn grateful to have humans who cared about me that much.
Mom went on. “Remember when you told me that whenever you felt uncertain about what to do next, you asked Liv, and she had a way of pushing you to do it each time? If you’re so unsure now, why don’t you ask her?”
“I—” I went to respond, but then something indescribable happened. “Wait, Mom, what’s that song playing?”
I grabbed the remote from the table, turning the music louder, and chills raced up my arms.
“Tears in Heaven” by Eric Clapton sifted through the air around us.
A sliver.
This was the one and only song that played at Liv’s funeral, the one song that would always be hers.
“Looks like you don’t even need to ask her,” Jess said.
We all started laughing even as tears poured down our cheeks.
The song played, all three of us sitting in silence except for little sniffles here and there. As I contemplated the new perspective that Jess offered, with Eric Clapton as my soundtrack and Liv as my witness, something clicked.
For the longest time, I had allowed the sadness to consume me, ruminating on the fact that Liv was gone. That she’d been taken too soon. The sadness made me believe I wasn’t worthy of happiness. That I didn’t deserve it. It had forced me to think that I’d lost Liv forever, that without her, I was no one. But then Grey stumbled into town, bringing a piece of Liv with him. A piece that over the course of a summer allowed me to see I’d never really lost her at all. That regardless of where I was, she’d always be with me, and because of that, I was capable of anything.
“Jess, do you mind if I run by your house? There’s something I want to get from Liv’s room.”
“Of course not. Take whatever you need.”
I popped out of my chair and grabbed my stuff. “Thank you, you two. I love you both, big.”
“And we love you,” they said back.
Even after their move, John and Jess’s house was only a short walk from my parents. I approached the pastel yellow door, to which Liv had given me a key a million years ago. John and Jess insisted I keep it, saying their home would always be my home too.
I took the steps two at a time, the old wooden floorboards creaking with each of my movements. Finding myself standing in front of a familiar door that wasn’t so familiar anymore, I pushed into Liv’s room.
I came here a lot after the accident, in the beginning. Being around her stuff and in her space gave me a sense of comfort. Frozen in the center of her room, I realized that I hadn’t been back in years, and even with all the time that’d passed, everything had remained exactly the same. Almost as if it was being preserved.
Her white-framed bed was scrunched up into the corner of the room. Her ceiling was lined with fairy lights that she and I hung up when we were thirteen in an attempt to be like the “cool girls” in the movies. Her walls were covered, floor to ceiling, in band posters, magazine cutouts of famous actors that we were convinced we’d marry, and tiny polaroid images of her and me.
From the time we were ten up until our sophomore year of high school—when we started carrying cellphones instead of cameras—we took thousands of pictures with our polaroids, and the majority of them had made their way onto her wall.
I grazed my fingers over a few of the images, my touch seemingly pressing play on a memory from that exact moment in time. I landed on Liv’s desk last. Her beautiful, white wooden desk that sat right under a window overlooking her mother’s garden.
On top of her desk sat her sketchbook, the leather binding embossed with two golden letters.
O.M.
Olivia Mitchell.
Barely poking out from the top was yet another picture. Opening her journal, two bright young faces stared back at me. It was Liv and me from the last Christmas we had together, with the biggest smiles on our faces as we held up our heather gray New York sweatshirts. The anticipation that bubbled between us at the thought of living in the city was enough for you to think our parents bought us an apartment there, not some cotton sweatshirts.
Teetering toward her closet, I turned the handle and shifted to my knees. “Liv, please tell me you didn’t throw it away,” I said out loud, pushing boxes out of my way and throwing a few random blankets over my shoulder to clear the bottom of the closet. There, behind three shoe boxes, I spotted it.
Pulling the two-foot by two-foot, natural-colored bulletin board out into the daylight, I couldn’t help but smile. At the top, in all different fonts, sizes, and colors, it read: Liv & MJ’s Dream Board .
It was littered with Sex and the City scenes, the NYU campus, Liv’s drawings of what our future apartment would look like, coffee shops, cute little restaurants, and right there in the center was another picture of the two of us. This one we’d specifically taken for the bulletin board. Liv and I sat crisscross on her bedroom floor, our thumbs pressed to our lips, our pinkies intertwined.
That night, we’d made a promise go to New York, no matter what.
This was my no matter what. No matter how hard it seemed. No matter how scary it felt. No matter how crazy sounded. I was doing it, because as I stared at that worn-out bulletin board, it hit me that Liv never got the chance to chase her dreams.
Her dreams would always be pictures pinned to a wooden board.
I, however, still had time to go after mine. To chase them fully with no regrets. I couldn’t keep sitting around this town, letting my dreams collect dust in this closet. I had to keep my promise to Liv and to myself.
And that was what I was going to do.
I would go to New York, and I’d take Liv with me. Grabbing the bulletin board, I bounded down the stairs and out the front door, turning only to lock the door behind me.
The dewy grass and wet leaves left a crispness in the air. I took a deep breath before boosting into a full-blown power-walk. Rounding the corner, the bulletin board still in my hand, I spotted Dad’s truck in the driveway.
As I got closer, I heard voices still echoing from the back porch and was grateful everyone was here. I busted through the screen door and found four wide eyes.
“I want to move to New York.”
The silence between us was loud, but not loud enough to drown out the sound of my own heartbeat.
Dad took a long, drawn-out breath, and the anticipation of his response made me anxious.
“I never thought those words would leave your mouth,” he said nonchalantly.
The breath I’d been holding audibly left my mouth as relief flooded through me. “Me neither, but I think I’m ready. I want to do this. Not just for me, but for Liv too.”
They stepped toward me, embracing me in a massive group hug before each one of them took their turn giving me a squeeze.
“And before you ask me what my plan is… the answer is I don’t know. I might’ve toyed with this idea for a little while now, but I never thought I would actually go through with it.”
“MJ,” Dad said.
“But I’ll be fine. I can figure it out.”
“MJ,” Mom butted in.
“Yeah?”
Dad spoke again. “I was just going to ask you if you needed help with anything.”
“Oh… I-I haven’t really gotten that far. I just know that I’m going to go to New York, and I’m going to finish this book.”
“Well, we are all here to help you in whatever way we can. Don’t forget, this has always been your dream. It just took some time for you to understand that you’re brave enough to go after it,” Jess said confidently.
“I’m proud of you, Miller Jean,” Mom said, the most genuine look on her face.
“We all are,” John added.
My emotions bubbled to the top, spilling over into a plethora of tears. “Thank you. Seriously. I’m the luckiest girl in the world to have all of you in my corner, constantly supporting me.” I smiled. “I love you all so much.”