Chapter 42
FORTY-TWO
Lainey
Present Day
M y phone buzzed on the counter in my kitchen as I was washing the collection of glasses in my sink. Just glasses—no plates, no silverware. The last few days, I’d been drinking my dinner and skipping lunch.
That was something that needed to come to an end—and it would. But there were times in my life that were just about survival.
I knew those periods well.
I was in the middle of one.
I wiped my hands on my jeans and lifted my phone.
Unknown
So … how about date two? Are you game?
I had absolutely no idea who this text was from.
Unless it was Rhett.
But how would he have gotten my number? And would he have considered our meetup at the high school a date?
Me
Who is this?
Unknown
Are you going out with that many people that you don’t know who I am?
Me
No.
Unknown
This also tells me you didn’t save my number or our previous text exchange.
It’s Charlie. From the gym. You know, the guy you had dinner with last week.
Oh.
Him.
A date I’d almost canceled because I didn’t want to go. That dinner had proven we had zero chemistry; the evening had been dull, the conversation as uneventful as a trip to an empty mailbox.
I needed to find a new gym.
Crap.
While my fingers hovered above the screen, I contemplated an excuse. Work, travel—anything. It was too much for my brain. I was just going to give him the truth.
Me
Hi, Charlie. I’m just going to be honest and tell you that I’m in a very weird place in my life. I’m grieving many things, and although I thought I might be ready to date, I’m not. I just can’t mentally handle it. I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t mislead you. You’re a nice guy, and you’re going to find someone amazing.
Unknown
Wow. A woman who is finally honest about her feelings. I respect that. Best of luck, Lainey.
Me
Best of luck to you too.
That had gone better than I’d thought.
I slipped my phone into the back pocket of my jeans and finished washing the rest of the glasses, remembering the dream I’d had of Penelope, when we talked about Charlie and Rhett.
“He wanted a second date. Can you believe that, Pen?”
I wiped my hands on a dish towel, laughing at how often I talked to my sister. How, in my head, it felt like a completely normal thing to do. I wasn’t looking for a response. I certainly never heard one.
But in some wild way, it gave me comfort to say my thoughts to her out loud.
I walked out of the kitchen and into a mess of a living room. Boxes that I’d shipped from London were stacked against the wall. Pictures and art still needed to be hung. A dining room that had no table and a living room that needed a rug.
I sighed, bypassing the disaster and heading into my bedroom. There were more boxes in here. Fifteen years’ worth of clothes and memorabilia and things I’d collected during my travels had made its way across the pond.
“One at a time, right?”
The boxes were in stacks of four, and I grabbed one, placing it on the dresser—a homecoming gift from my parents, along with my bed, two nightstands, and a chaise lounge. They’d wanted me to feel cozy in my new apartment, ensuring I’d stay in the States and not move back abroad.
I pulled the tape free from the box and reached in, my hand digging past the paper that I’d stuffed in for protection. My nails hit something hard. I took out the small wooden jewelry box and set it in the center of the dresser. I’d bought it in India at one of the markets. It was hand-carved, the design along the top an intricate swirl of raised wood. I ran my fingers over it, tracing the dips and curves, and when I opened the lid, those same fingers went over my mouth.
With the jewelry box now in my hands, I backed up until the edge of the bed hit my legs, and I took a seat, holding it on top of my thighs. There were earrings and rings, necklaces, and bracelets filling the entire interior. None of them were overly expensive, just items I’d collected over the span of my life.
All except for one necklace that sat in the middle.
The diamond R that Rhett had gifted to me.
There were times in the past when I’d tried to toss it or leave it in my old flat before I moved to a new one, making it someone else’s treasure.
But I never could.
That man would always be a part of me, and getting rid of the necklace wouldn’t change that.
Oh God, Rhett.
We were tied together by ropes and binds that were far stronger than the pain that had separated us.
I lifted the necklace out of the box and held it in my palm, remembering the day I’d finally taken it off.
It wasn’t on the plane to Spain or within the first few months of living in the apartment my parents had rented me, lost in a city, because I’d crawled from one dark life to another. It happened during the first week of school when a classmate asked me who R was.
A question that had completely thrown me off guard.
A question I couldn’t answer because saying the love of my life and my ex-boyfriend in the same sentence was far too much for me to bear.
“I love him, Pen. Every day. He’s all I think about.” I turned the initial around. “My heart wasn’t broken the day you died. It was taken from me. And when I saw Rhett in Bangkok, I heard it beat again for the first time in a long while. And when I saw him at the track of our high school, I watched him hold my heart out to me as if he was returning it.”
My chin tilted up, my neck reclining. “Pen, what am I doing? Why am I holding back?”
Love wasn’t stopping me.
There was more than enough of that.
It was always him—there was no question.
“Have you seen the way he looks at you? Because I have, and I can tell you right now, he’s obsessed with you.” I could hear Pen whispering those words even though she’d said them fifteen years ago.
I could see her in my bedroom at our parents’ house, telling me to put on the dress to impress Rhett at the party.
“You’re forgetting, as your twin, I have the ability to feel everything you’re feeling. When you’re nervous, I know. When you’re happy, I know. When you’re doubting yourself, I’m doubting myself.”
“What am I feeling now, Pen? Like an emotional train wreck?” I let out a small laugh. “That would be an accurate description.”
I watched the way the sunlight hit the diamonds in the letter.
“Do you blame him for what happened?” I clasped my fingers around the necklace while I stared at the ceiling. “Now that I know everything, I don’t. I’m not sure I even did then …” My eyes closed.
My mind returned to the dream, to when she’d said, “Why does it need to be the end?”
God, that had felt real.
“Let’s say I’m rooting for the guy.”
A statement that had surprised me even though she’d adored Rhett. I couldn’t yet process the way she’d acted with him—the flirting, the touching. One day, I would, but right now, I was at capacity.
“Love is what’s missing from your life.”
But that was where she was wrong.
Love wasn’t missing. Love was there. Love had been there. Love had never lightened for even a second.
“You wouldn’t blame him, Pen. I know you wouldn’t.”
So, if she doesn’t blame him and neither do I, why am I not with him?
My eyes opened, and a single tear from each side fell down to the center of my cheeks. I took a deep breath, holding in the air, waiting to see if it made me feel different. If a second pause would change my mind.
But it didn’t.
I reached into my back pocket and took out my phone, pulling up the Camera app. With my other hand, I put the necklace back in the box, and I positioned the phone over it, snapping a picture, the light capturing the diamonds even though it was surrounded by wood.
I tapped my Instagram app and loaded the photo. I didn’t add a filter—the picture didn’t need one—and under the caption, I typed, Unpacking memories.
As I filled my lungs, there was a thumping in my chest.
A feeling.
A realization.
I was getting back what I’d lost, and for the first time in a very long time, the smile wasn’t there because it should be. It was there for him.
I hit Share and posted the photo.