—ELEVEN—
Later that night, I’m lying on my parent’s rose-patterned sofa, my belly full and my thoughts scattered.
I love this couch. It’s the most hideous thing I’ve ever seen, but I love it anyway. It reminds me of tickle fights and drippy popsicles and sick days from school, where I’d spend the whole day lounging and watching Nickelodeon.
“I’m so glad you came by,” Mom says, hovering at the edge of the living room as I smile over to her. She dries her hands on a dish towel, returning the sentiment. “We haven’t seen you in weeks.”
My heart aches. “I’m sorry.”
My mother, Claire Dahlberg, is petite and pretty, the laugh lines and wrinkles around her mouth a testament to her perky disposition and a clear indicator that I’m her daughter. I look just like her with our matching smiles, green eyes, and light, light hair, our skin pearly and sallow. West looks more like our father, Lucas, his Swedish descent evident in his crystal blue eyes and tall stature. Dad had to work late tonight and won’t be home until close to midnight, so I make a mental note to swing by for another dinner date this week.
Mom props her shoulder against the wall, studying me with motherly worry. “West says you’ve been doing better.”
My hands are perched beneath my cheek as I rest atop a decorative pillow. Our dog, Marley, an old Dachshund, lies curled up at my feet. “I am doing better.”
I’m not great. I’m not thriving.
But I’m better.
And better is better.
“How are the meetings going?” she wonders after a thoughtful sigh.
My cheeks grow hot when the first thing that pops into my mind is Parker and our strange altercation this evening. I should be thinking about the starting points, or Ms. Katherine’s kind smile, or Amelia’s sad stories, or Robert’s brush with death when someone lost control of a Civic and almost flattened him.
But all I see are Parker’s flaming green eyes and the feel of his fingers curled around my biceps. All I smell is his earthy shampoo and body soap. All I hear are the thunderous heartbeats in my chest when I felt it.
The tingle.
Swallowing, I shift on the sofa and avert my gaze. I can’t tell my mother any of that. I don’t even understand it myself.
Parker is a jerk. A closed-off, emotionally-stunted jerk who probably spits on my cupcakes before tossing them to the ground and smashing them beneath his dirty boot.
It was just a fluke.
“They’re going good.”
So lame, but so safe.
Mom sighs again, a smile lifting—also safe—and shuffles back into the kitchen with a nod. Restlessness claims me within moments, and I pull out my cell phone. I’m prepared to Facebook scroll when I notice the little green dot by Zephyr’s name as I do a quick check of my e-mail.
He’s active.
I’ll take that as a sign.
Me: What are you doing tonight? Nothing too specific, obviously, but I need to know you’re out there killing it—unlike me, who is wallowing on her parents’ ultra-90s couch with food regret, mismatched socks, and an overwhelming desire to watch Are You Afraid of the Dark? reruns.
Not thinking he’s going to see my message right away, I set my phone down on the little side table next to the couch—the same old oak table I remember picking up at a garage sale when I was seven or eight.
There are rooster drawer handles.
Smiling to myself, I ponder whether or not Zephyr will even know what television show I’m talking about. I’ve been trying to figure out what the seventy-nine in his e-mail address alludes to, and birth year is statistically the most probable. That would make him… forty-two.
I’m startled when my phone instantly vibrates, and I snatch it up, my eyes scanning the reply.
Zephyr: I’ll sound a lot cooler if I lie to you.
A grin pulls at my lips.
Me: Fair enough. I’m expecting gold now, though… no pressure.
Zephyr: I’m fantastic under pressure. Picture this: Gloucestershire, England, UK.
Me: Fancy.
Zephyr: I know. But it gets better… there’s cheese.
Me: Cheese?
Zephyr: Yeah. A nine-pound wheel of double Gloucester cheese.
Me: The mental image is a bit unclear, and also bizarre. Go on.
Zephyr: It’s a race down Cooper’s Hill. There’s danger, intrigue, steep hills, stones, and sharp objects. The speed of the cheese is harrowing at best.
Me: The speed of the cheese? I thought you were eating the cheese.
Zephyr: No. I’m rolling the cheese. It’s a cheese-rolling race, and it’s highly competitive.
A laughter-infused snort escapes my lips, and it takes a moment to gather my bearings.
Me: I’m dying over here.
Zephyr: I hope not. Who will celebrate my victory when I become the cheese champion?
Me: Stoppp. I can’t stop laughing. What do you even win?
Zephyr: I’m not sure. Google hasn’t told me that yet. But I really hope it’s cheese because I’m suddenly crazy hungry.
My smile is so wide, my cheeks ache.
Me: That was great. I feel better about my inadequate life now.
Zephyr: I’m here to help.
Nibbling my lip, I debate my next reply. While I enjoy our light and witty conversations, part of me is craving more. I promised I wouldn’t ask him anything personal, but…
Me: Hey. Can I ask you something?
There’s a brief pause that has me fidgeting beneath Nana’s lime green quilt.
Zephyr: I never understood that question. Can you? Obviously. Will I answer to your heart’s desire? Inconclusive.
Me: Fine… I’ll ask, but no pressure to answer. I just wanted to know… how is your new heart? What’s it like?
I wait.
I wait some more.
Anxiety surges inside me, and I wonder if he’ll ever respond.
Shit.
Maybe I crossed a line.
“Did you want dessert?”
Shutting off my phone, I sit upright on the couch, watching Mom approach from the kitchen. “Oh, no thanks. I was actually going to head out. I’m drowning in my own desserts at home.”
That’s code for: It’s hard to be here. Conversations are difficult. Sitting in this living room without him makes me want to jump off the roof.
But I can’t tell her any of that, so I just smile my farewell.
I’m good at that.
I’m sitting in park, waiting for a freight train to pass through, when I notice my phone light up from the passenger’s seat. Thinking it might be Zephyr, a little zing of anticipation shoots through me and I snatch it up, checking my notifications.
Only, it’s not Zephyr.
My stomach drops when the name stares back at me: Eleanor March.
Charlie’s mother.
I haven’t spoken to Charlie’s mother since the funeral. Her heartbreaking wails still rattle my eardrums whenever it’s too quiet. I still see her swollen, lifeless eyes whenever I close mine. Sometimes I feel her stiff embrace as I collapsed into her arms in front of his casket, ambushing her with my grief and despair, soaking her dress with a cataclysm of tears.
And I still feel the way my skin prickled with goosebumps and dissolution when she let me go.
She let me go.
I needed her then; I needed her more than I needed air. Eleanor March was my final link to the biggest piece of my heart, and I think that’s why I never made any progress in my healing. Losing her was like losing Charlie all over again.
Every day that she shut me out was just another day he died.
My hands begin to quake as a torrent of rainfall blurs my windshield, the wipers hardly able to keep up. I open her text message, my throat burning, my ribs aching with the weight of my heart.
Eleanor: You’re a wicked girl
I blink, and then I blink again. I’m having trouble processing the four words glaring back at me. I don’t understand what they mean. Did she text the wrong person?
No.
No, these words are meant for me.
She hates me.
She hates me.
A sob pours out of me, and I don’t even notice the train has passed, even when cars begin to honk from behind me, demanding I move. But they don’t know that I’m frozen, suspended in disbelief, so I just reread her message over and over again, crying harder, sinking further into darkness and self-loathing.
I’m a wicked girl.
Horns blare, people yell through their windows, cars swerve around me, but the only thing that registers is my cell phone vibrating in my grip when her name lights up the face.
She’s calling me.
And I know I’m in no state to answer. I’m parked in the middle of a rainy highway at nine P.M. with vomit in my throat and ice in my lungs, but I answer anyway, because emotion is always mightier than logic.
“H-Hello?”
My voice is a pathetic quiver, and Eleanor’s is slurred and spiteful. Her hate rings out through my Bluetooth and buries me alive. “I wish it were you,” she rasps.
I clasp a hand over my mouth to keep the sobs from pouring out, but all they do is erupt inside me, turning everything to ash. “Me, too,” I croak.
Me, too.
She’s drunk—I think she’s drunk, but I’m not sure if she’s intoxicated from alcohol or grief. Eleanor lets out a painful moan, then goes quiet for a beat before repeating, “Oh, how I wish it were you.”
Her confession blankets me in heartache, so I curl up and lay my head. “Why are you saying this? What did I do?”
“You stole from me, Melody, and I hate you for it.”
I sniffle and hiccup, trying to understand, trying to comprehend why she feels this way.
My relationship with Charlie’s mother was always strong—or so I thought. She made me feel warm and welcome, just like her son had. But something changed that day, the day the sun died, and everything shifted. I felt her animosity towards me. I felt her blame like I felt his loss.
It was all-consuming.
I just never understood why. It wasn’t my fault. It was a horrible, unfair accident that debilitated me just as much as it destroyed her, but it wasn’t my fault, and I would take Charlie’s place in a heartbeat if I could.
God, I wish I could.
I’m about to counter her words, tell her that makes no sense, insist that I did nothing wrong… but all I can do is mutter a weak, “I’m sorry.”
There’s a prolonged pause, riddled with so much left unsaid. So much baggage and loss and irreparable damage. So many things I wish she would say. But she only whispers, “So am I.”
And then the line goes dead.
I sit there for a moment, staring out through the rain laden window, listening to the wiper blades squeak against the glass. My throat feels raw, my skin crawling with penitence.
Am I responsible?
Am I to blame for Charlie’s death?
I chose the restaurant that night. I chose the time. I chose to stay for dessert, even though Charlie was eager to get home and celebrate in the privacy of our own bedroom.
I didn’t run fast enough. I didn’t scream loud enough.
Maybe I didn’t give him enough reason to hold on.
I decide to mull over my impossible regret at a local dive bar a mile up the road, sucking down shots of tequila as if they might fill the empty holes inside of me. They don’t, of course, but they do numb the pain, and that’s a start.
Hobbling off the bar stool over an hour later, I teeter on both feet, slinging my purse strap across my shoulder.
The bartender eyes me warily, swiping up the cash I left for her. “You have a ride, right?”
I blink, her question registering like slush.
She leans forward on her arms. “Do you have a ride home, honey? Want me to call an Uber?”
“I, um…” I shake my head, and the action prompts little stars to dance behind my eyes. “I have a ride. Thanks.”
Not waiting for her reply, I traipse out of the bar, swaying as I push through the doors and head out into the rain. I slip into the driver’s seat of my Camry, trying to find the keyhole and missing multiple times. My brain is foggy, my movements sluggish.
This is stupid. Call an Uber.
Hesitation seizes me, and I close my eyes.
Stupid or not, I do it anyway, because the alcohol and anguish are screaming at me to drive, telling me that nothing fucking matters.
Nothing. Fucking. Matters.
I step on the gas and peel out of the parking lot, tires and heart screeching in my ears. My vision is blurred by the downpour and pool of tears coating my eyes, headlights resembling little lightsabers as they zoom past me. Grasping for a semblance of reason, I jerk the steering wheel onto a desolate dirt road and take the long way home in an effort to stay away from other vehicles. It’s just me and my sadness now, fighting off rainclouds and regret.
As I speed down the deserted road, gravel kicks up, clanking against steel, and a tall tree comes into a view a quarter-mile up. It’s big and solid. The impact would be devastating.
It probably wouldn’t even hurt.
My shoe pushes on the gas pedal, the engine revving and careening towards the tree.
You’re a wicked girl.
I hate you.
I wish it were you.
Her cruel words push me forward, and I scream out, loud, hysterical, desperate, gaining speed, getting closer…
And then I feel a shift. My thoughts mutate into something else.
I can almost make out an orchestra of violins playing in the distance.
I feel water lap at my skin as I dance in the murky lake.
I hear my father’s laughter rumble through me as Unchained Melody sings through the record player.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I slam on the brake so hard, the car spins out, tires squealing out of control, until I come to an abrupt stop, half-stuck in a muddy ditch.
I’m not ready.
I’m not ready.
I’m not ready.
My frantic breaths mingle with the sound of rain against glass, and I feel a breakdown crawling up my throat, ready to combust.
So, I do what I’ve been trained to do.
I call Amelia. I reach out to my Lifeline.
My fingers are violently shaking as I scroll through my contacts, eyes stinging with hot tears. I’m weeping, wilting, as I call her number over and over again.
Straight to voicemail.
No.
An ugly cry tears through me, frustration mixing with fiery rage, and I think about contacting my parents.
West. Leah.
Zephyr.
But… God, I can’t. I can’t let them know how broken I still am. I can’t let them see me like this, so pathetic and lost, so stripped down to almost nothing.
Just cowardice and bare bones.
Heaving in another rattled breath, I keep scrolling through my contacts until I settle on his name. My thumb hovers over the six letters that are bleeding together through my tequila haze and near-death adrenaline spike. But it’s the combination of those things that has me doing the unthinkable. I click his name.
It rings. And rings. And rings.
And then…
“Hello?”
There’s a familiar annoyance in his tone, gruff and gritty, and it quiets me somehow. My angry tears fade into whimpers, my breath hitching as I try to catch it.
“Melody?”
It occurs to me that he’s never said my name before. He’s never properly addressed me, and I’m not sure what that means, or why it even matters. I swallow down a dry lump and force out, “Amelia didn’t answer.”
A few silent beats go by, and I wonder what he’s thinking—what he’s piecing together from my elusive response. I’m about to explain, to let him know I’m reaching out, to tell him how pathetic and wilting I truly am, but his long sigh filters through the Bluetooth.
He understands.
He knows.
“Text me your location.”