Chapter 27 Spencer
SPENCER
EIGHT YEARS AGO
Graduation comes and goes with no pomp and circumstance—since to my mom’s dismay I refuse to have a party or do anything. I have other friends, sure, but T.J. was my best friend. I don’t want to celebrate without him.
“Did you not like the movie?” Harlow asks, sipping the last dregs of her soda and tossing it in the trash on our way out. “You seem annoyed.”
I wince. “I’m sorry if I’m coming across that way. I’m just…”
She stops me with a gentle hand on my elbow. “It’s okay. You don’t have to explain.”
“But I want to,” I say as we reach my car. I open the passenger door for her, and she climbs inside.
Sliding in myself, I crank the engine, but I don’t make a move to back out.
“I can’t stop thinking about T.J.”
She reaches over and rubs the back of my neck. “He was your best friend. Of course you’re still thinking about him.”
I swallow the lump lodged in my throat. “I’m not sure I want to go to college anymore.” I finally voice the thought that’s been plaguing me. “T.J. wouldn’t be there. We were supposed to go together and I…” I pause, gathering my thoughts. “I feel like such a different person now.”
Her fingers softly caress the hair at my nape. “Trauma changes people. I’ve seen it with my sister. But Spencer, don’t you think he’d still want you to go?”
I grip the wheel until my knuckles turn white. “Yeah,” I croak out. “He would.”
She rests her hand against my cheek, and I turn my head to kiss her palm.
“If you go and you really don’t like it, then it’s okay to decide from there. But I think T.J. would want you to try.”
I know she’s right. T.J. wouldn’t want to see my wallowing. He’d snap his fingers in front of my face and tell me to get the fuck out of this funk. But grief is a hard thing to navigate, especially when the death was entirely unexpected.
“What time do you have to be home?”
She checks the time on my dashboard. “Not until ten-thirty.”
I back out of the parking space and head toward one of my favorite spots. I haven’t brought her here yet so now feels as good of a time as any.
“Where are we going?” she asks as I drive down the coast.
“It’s a special lookout spot. Not a lot of people know about it. It’s where I go when I need to think. I want you to see it.”
She smiles and looks out the passenger window as I zip down the highway. When I reach the area, I exit the highway and turn onto a sandy dirt road. It barely looks like a road even though it is one.
At the end, I turn into the small parking lot and back into a spot. The sun is long gone, but the full moon is bright in the sky along with the stars.
Popping the trunk, I climb out and motion for Harlow to follow me. We sit in the open trunk, and I grab a blanket I keep there, wrapping it around her shoulders. It might be summer, but the nights are cool by the ocean.
“This is your spot, huh?”
The waves churn below, crashing against the shore. It’s a small beach, not a place a lot of people know about or even come to. It’s mostly only known among surfers since it has some great swells.
“Yeah.” I swing my legs back and forth. I don’t know why I feel nervous. “It’s quiet here and the ocean always helps me think.”
“It does me too. I’m lucky our house is on the beach. When it gets to be too much I sneak out on the beach and sit for hours.”
I smile over at her and press a kiss to the corner of her mouth.
“You know you can talk to me about things, right?” she probes, eyes wide and serious. “I’m never going to judge you for your thoughts and feelings.”
I take a deep breath. “I just keep wondering why him and then I feel horrible for thinking that, because then I feel like I’m wishing for some stranger to die in his place and that’s not it at all.” I hang my head. “It feels like a nightmare I’m just waiting to wake up from.”
They left an empty chair for him at graduation. It made me want to throw up seeing it. I know it was a kind gesture and probably meant something to his parents, but to me all it did was symbolize the emptiness that lives inside me now.
“Life feels that way a lot of times,” she whispers. “I remember when Willa first got her diagnosis, she would cry at night. I’d hear her through the wall, and she’d beg for it to be a bad dream that she could just wake up and be fine.”
“I’m learning life tends to be cruel. I feel like I was living with rose-colored glasses before and now they’ve been yanked off and I … I’m seeing things for the first time, and I don’t like it.”
She reaches over and takes my hand, squeezing it. I turn my hand palm up and wrap our fingers tightly together.
Harlow leans her head against my shoulder, and I rest mine against the top of hers.
I close my eyes and soak in the feeling of her. It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell her I love her, but I swallow the words back because I’m afraid of scaring her off. But I see it all with her and I hope she sees it with me too.