Chapter Twenty-Five
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I keep my Dodgers hat low and my sunglasses on as I move through LAX.
I’m recognized by a few people anyway, who whisper and point, and I fend off some who dash up, taking pictures of me or filming themselves with me as they ask if I really am pregnant, ask if I know the twist of the next Marvel movie Grayson is going to star in, and ask where I’ve been.
I go through the delirious motions of arrival.
I wait in the long bathroom line, and, like many weary travelers, I see a sallow reflection I barely recognize, but in my case it’s uniquely unfamiliar.
I’m back to reality.
Thinned nose.
Sharp collarbone.
Plump lips.
Never has a girl been so disappointed to see that she’s twenty pounds thinner.
I wait at the baggage carousel, get my suitcase, and then wait on the curb for my driver to arrive.
I get in, thankful to find the back of the car empty—no Lisa Michele here to talk my ear off about some horrible new infrared beauty product or whatever.
It’s sunny and bright, warm with a cool breeze.
The car drives beneath blue skies with wispy white clouds.
Sparkling green palm trees wave in the morning sun.
The traffic is slow-moving because of the hour, but I don’t care.
I feel empty.
Like someone took an ice cream scooper to my insides.
The driver swears at the people who cut him off, lurching from lane to lane.
I realize, at some point, that I’m not tense.
I’m heartbroken, but I’m not electrified with fear like I usually am in the car.
Instead, I feel shrouded in grief.
The loss of Cillian.
The loss of Kiera.
The loss of Aimee, all over again.
I hadn’t even gotten to say goodbye.
I hadn’t had a real last moment with Kiera.
I never made up with Cillian’s mom, apologized for breaking her son’s heart and explained that my own heart was broken too.
I never met bloody Kay Donahue, tried her soup or listened to whatever gossip she’d have to impart.
I never thanked Cillian’s dad.
I forgot to tell Aimee about all the friends we had in high school and what they’re doing now, in my world.
I never got to tell Cillian all the ways he made me feel.
Because there’s not enough time on earth for that.
It’s so incomplete.
It’s as if my favorite show got canceled without wrapping up all the storylines.
But that’s what grief is, isn’t it?
Expectation and resolution slashed, leaving unfinished conversations behind.
Will it feel like this forever now?
It can’t.
I can’t.
These thoughts remind me uncomfortably of those days after Aimee died.
I couldn’t make sense of the loss.
It didn’t make any sense.
I kept thinking I could use logic to talk my way out of the reality I was suddenly facing.
The reality being that I would simply never have back the happiness that had fallen through my fingers and shattered on the ground beneath my feet, the shards of it lodging into my skin, past the calluses, and making me bleed.
Despite the traffic, we’re back at Grayson’s house sooner than I’m prepared for.
I melt unhappily out of the back of the car and walk up the driveway.
I don’t get inside before I hear the jingling of her collar.
Dido comes running toward me.
The one silver lining to all this.
“Oh, Dido,” I say, feeling my love for her spill out all over the temperature-regulated concrete we stand on.
I drop to my knees and greet her, kissing her a million times and taking in her familiar scent.
I go around the back, Dido staying right at my heels, unwilling to leave me.
I leave my suitcase on the porch and walk through the enormous open doors that lead to the living room, where I see Grayson sitting in front of an absolute cornucopia of junk food.
I may be in a state of misery and confusion, but even I can tell that it’s a pretty hilarious amount of trash.
He sits up, and I see that he’s eating cake straight out of the butter-yellow Porto’s Bakery box.
Really committing to the weight gain thing.
I wonder if he’s choosing to forget that they could do it with prosthetics.
On the screen before him I see that he’s watching Charade.
“Babe!” he says.
“Welcome home! How was it?”
Babe.
More confirmation that I’m me again.
Whatever that means.
“It was good,” I say, obviously not even getting close to the truth.
“Looks like the carbo-loading thing is going well.”
“I know, right? Look, I’ve got the belly goin’,” he says, pointing at what is inarguably still a very lean abdomen.
“Watching some Hitchcock.”
I glance at the screen.
“This isn’t a Hitchcock movie. Stanley Donen directed it.”
Grayson looks at me, confused, then back at the screen.
I sigh, go to the fridge, and pull out a bottle of green juice from Pressed Juicery.
I always feel depleted after a flight, but obviously, this time, I feel weirder than ever.
“I’m going to sit by the pool for a bit,” I say.
Apparently melancholic sunbathing is my go-to activity when grieving.
I go upstairs and put on my bikini, feeling startled once again by my slimmer physique, my unfamiliar face.
Dido pants beside me.
I stop at the freezer on my way to the pool and pull out a tub of Grayson’s Van Leeuwen ice cream.
I grab a spoon, but don’t bother with a bowl, and leave the green juice behind.
I sit outside, eating the vanilla ice cream in the warm sunshine, in a beautiful life that no longer feels like my own and that maybe never did.
I look up Cairdeas Pub and only find results related to the two words individually.
When I type in Avalon at the end, I still get nothing relevant.
Avalon has different businesses than the ones I would recognize.
I do this with every imaginable combination of things I saw and experienced there.
Looking for the needle in the haystack that tells me what I found was real.
But I find nothing.
I knew I wouldn’t.
How can it be?
How can any of it be?
I hate myself for the fact that it’s all already starting to fade away like some vivid dream I swore I’d never forget.
The same thing that happened when Aimee died.
She already felt like a memory, even a few days later.
My mind adapting too fast to the new reality.
How quickly the past tense needs to be employed.
I sit out there until the ice cream is completely gone and the wind turns too chilly.
Then I go inside and find Grayson, now watching Vertigo .
“Hey, Grayson?”
“Yeah, babe.” He doesn’t take his eyes off the screen.
“I think we should break up.”
His face falls and he turns to me, sitting up.
“No, really? Why?”
I shake my head.
“It’s not right. This isn’t real.”
He lets his gaze fall to the floor and then shakes his head.
“Man. That’s a bummer.”
“I think you’re in love with Elsa. You should ask her out.”
“Oh, come on, is this about that again? I’ve told you—”
“No, no. I’m not accusing you. I believe you. I believe you didn’t cheat on me. But I think you love her.”
He furrows his brow.
“What happened, Lana?”
“My name is actually Meg. I know you know that, but… yeah, that’s my name.”
“I know, I—you introduced yourself as Lana, you introduce yourself as Lana to everyone. I thought that’s what you wanted.”
“It was. It was. But. I’m Meg.” I lift my arms, then let them fall against my lean thighs.
He nods and then stands, crumbs falling off of him.
“Nice to meet you, Meg.”
He cocks a little smile, and it melts me a little.
He’s sweet.
If dumb.
Gorgeous, if completely unattractive to me.
“Yeah. Look, I’m not mad at you. You didn’t do anything wrong. You’re actually really great. Especially for an actor,” I say, giving him the hint of a smile back.
“But we were set up to be together, and we were lucky we actually liked each other. It worked for a while.”
“I understand. I’m really disappointed about this, but… I mean, I can’t change your mind?”
“I know what real love feels like, and this isn’t it. We both deserve to find it.”
He looks really serious for a moment.
“Okay.”
“Okay. Well.” We both seem to think I’m going to say more, but then I don’t, only, “Well, I’ll see you.”
And then I go upstairs, find one of my overnight duffels, and pack it with the things I like, grabbing the boxes that hide my personal things.
I fill a backpack with some clothes.
I throw on my sweatpants and a sports bra, tie a sweatshirt around my waist, and then go through the bedroom closet, looking for my tatty old Hopper print.
I find it rolled up with the hair tie.
I grab Dido’s favorite toy, leash, food, bowl, and dog bed.
I don’t see Grayson again on my way out to the garage, where I unlock my big, stupid, ostentatious Land Rover and get in, tossing my bags and Dido’s in the back and letting Dido jump in after them onto her bed.
I go back for the suitcases I’d packed for Avalon and never reopened, then decide to leave them.
I can’t look at them.
I don’t care about anything inside.
I’m leaving California with less and more than I came with.
I start the car, open the garage, and peel out, knowing that it’s the last time I’ll ever be here.
I don’t know where I’m going when I start driving, but by the time I hit the 10, I do.
At the next traffic slowdown, I type in my parents’ address and settle in for the forty-hour drive.
I put on the Revolver album, roll the windows down, and drive away from the sunset.