Chapter 58
FIFTY-EIGHT
Blakely
“Thank you so much, Blakely. This room has been bugging me since I moved back in here,” Shelly said. She swung the spare bedroom door open to reveal boxes and boxes of… stuff .
“Oh, wow,” I mumbled. When she’d asked for my help going through and organizing the contents of the spare bedroom, I hadn’t imagined there would be enough belongings and boxes to actually fill the room. They were lining the walls and stacked several high.
“I know.” She sighed and walked the few steps she could into the room. “When we sold my old house, Devon put anything he wasn’t going to use in here. Then, when I moved back from Houston, a lot of that stuff piled on top of the other stuff.”
She lifted the lid of a black plastic box and peered inside for a second before shaking her head and replacing it. “I’m not sure where to even start. Maybe you take that side, and I’ll take this one. We’ll see how far we get.”
I eyeballed the nearest box, which was spilling over with papers and books, and as much as I loved Shelly, I wasn’t organized enough to be helping someone else .
But she tossed a trash bag my way with a grateful smile, and I couldn’t say no to the only woman who had ever treated me as a daughter.
I opened the trash bag and removed the lid from the first box. I set the lid to the side and accidentally knocked over a stack of papers that cascaded across the floor with a soft swish.
“Well, shit.”
We both stooped to gather the pages. “Looks like you found a bunch of my old hospital paperwork. How fun!” She handed me the paperwork, and I organized it in a neat stack. “So, I’ve been wanting to ask you how you’re doing, Blakely?”
“I’m fine,” I said, the response automatic.
“Oh, no, no, no,” she chastised. “Don’t ‘ I’m fine ’ me, Blakely Warrier-West. Tell me how you really are.”
Setting the papers back in the box, I moved on to one that was less cluttered. “I’m more okay than I thought I would be.”
“I guess that’s the best you can ask for right now,” she said. “Devon said something about hiring an investigator to help?”
“Yeah, he hired a PI, Marie.”
Sifting through the contents of the box, I started pulling everything out and making piles of like things—books with books, CDs with CDs, office supplies with other office supplies.
“Has she come up with anything yet?”
“Nope, and I’m not holding my breath.”
She clicked her tongue and dropped one box on top of another. “So, we’re a little pessimistic, are we?”
I glanced over my shoulder and tried to ignore her unimpressed, knowing expression. Her red eyebrows almost touched her hairline, and she pursed her lips, tossing another box down.
“It’s been over a year and a half, Shelly. Yes, I’m a little pessimistic,” I said, then added, quieter, “I think I deserve to be.”
“If you keep frowning like that, your face is going to stay that way.”
I stopped, turned around, and found Shelly staring directly at me, arms crossed over her chest. She was so stern, so serious, that laughter burst out of me. It was so sudden and light, I couldn’t swallow it back down. Then Shelly was laughing with me, too, and the boxes and boxes of shit were forgotten.
Moments like that were happening more and more often. Where I forgot how chaotic my life was and how impossible it all felt sometimes. Where my mind wasn’t riddled with disjointed, chaotic thoughts that made me want to disappear.
When those moments did push through, as they always did and likely always would, they were fleeting. Like little blips that disappeared as quickly as they appeared. Only a breath between each thought, each moment.
Minutes later, we both finally recovered, wiping our eyes and trying to catch our breath. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d laughed so hard that I’d cried.
We both went back to weeding through the chaos, talking about everything and nothing in particular. Shelly disappeared for a few minutes and came back with mocktails, which we were sipping as she helped me sift through the largest box of photos I’d ever seen.
“So, there’s something I wanted to talk to you about, actually,” she began hesitantly, and I was quiet, although my anxiety climbed. “I’m moving out.”
I whipped my head in her direction. “What? When?”
She nodded and sipped her drink, sorting the photos into neat piles. “I decided about a week ago. I started…seeing someone when I moved back. And we’re going to move in together.”
Unsure what to say, I gaped like a fish out of water. It was the last thing I expected to hear.
“That’s really exciting, Shelly. What’s he like?”
She set her glass on the only clean spot in the room and cut her eyes in my direction. Flipping through photo after photo, she didn’t look up as she said, “Well, she’s amazing. The best person I’ve ever met.”
Never mind, that was the last thing I expected to hear. But I was excited for her. After the crap she’d gone through with Devon’s dad and Sydney’s dad, she deserved love, and I was over the moon happy she’d found it.
“What’s her name?”
“Sabrina.”
“Ooo, Shelly and Sabrina, how perfect.”
She cracked a small smile and sighed. The sigh of someone thinking about the person they love. I knew that sigh well, I’d heard it from my own lips a time or two.
“I can’t wait to meet her,” I said, then stopped, thinking a little longer about it. “Have you told Devon or Sydney yet?” If Devon knew, he would have mentioned it, it wasn’t something he’d keep to himself.
“I haven’t,” she confessed. “I’m a little nervous about how they’ll react, especially Devon. He has a hard time letting go of things, including his watchful eye over me. I think he’s scared I’m going to get sick again, but it may happen whether I live here or not. And if I do get sick, I want to live a full life for as long as I can.”
“All of that is completely understandable, and you’re right about Devon. It’ll probably take a little bit for him to get used to, but he wants you to be happy, and if this makes you happy, then that’s great. I just…”
My words faded on my tongue as I thought better of it, but Shelly gave me a reassuring look and silently encouraged me to continue.
“He was just so scared, which I know you know, but when you moved to Houston, that was the first time he’d ever admitted to me that he was scared.”
A nostalgic smile played over Shelly’s lips as she showed me a photo of Devon and Sydney when they were younger. They were both in swimsuits, eyes squinting against the sun in what I guessed was the middle of summer.
She added the photo to the pile of family photos.
“He’s always been my gentle giant. So quiet and stoic, you know there are a million things happening in that head of his. I know he’ll be happy for me; I just need to find the courage to tell him. And I know he’ll be okay either way, no matter what, because he has you.”
She handed me a few more photos, and I hid my smile behind my drink, taking a sip.
“You’ve always been special to him, I noticed it the first time he brought you home when y’all were still in college.”
“We were so young back then.” I laughed.
“You were, but I’m telling you, a mama always knows.”
Her words sat in the air around us. We continued sifting through photos, a companionable silence settling, but for the occasional comment about a photo she found more intriguing or a memory it sparked. I loved hearing her stories, especially about the man I loved before I knew him.
I found myself staring longingly at a photo of Devon right after he graduated college. He was clutching the diploma in one hand, raising it high above his head, while the other pointed directly at the camera. He was beaming with happiness.
“This is a good one,” Shelly said. I forced myself to put the photo down but in a separate pile of ones I wanted to take with me. Shelly was pointing out people in another photo she’d taken during her hospital days. “This is Randy, and Tanya is next to him. Louise is beside her, and the one on the end is Pete.”
She handed over the photo, and I glanced at their smiling faces.
I began to set it down but had a nagging feeling that I should look at it once more. The group was standing in a cafeteria or a break room of sorts. Round tables were lined up behind them, with party favors sitting in the middle of each. There were red and blue balloons in a corner, and streamers hung on the walls.
Others were caught in the background, milling about and cleaning up the party that had just taken place.
“Was this after a party?” I asked.
Shelly peered over my shoulder. Her eyebrows drew together, eyes narrowing, before she nodded. “Yes, it was Tanya’s sixtieth. I remember she had chocolate cake that I was so excited for. Turns out, it was a boxed cake and the worst I’d ever had.”
She made a halfhearted gagging noise, and I laughed at her dramatics. But it was a lackluster laugh that was impeded by the sinking feeling in my gut.
There was one person I couldn’t stop staring at. My mind was reeling, trying to place them, but I kept coming up blank. The photo was of their side profile and was slightly blurry since they weren’t in the foreground.
“How long ago was this?”
“Oh, that was right after I got there.”
The feeling grew stronger, and my body began to react in a way that my mind couldn’t keep up with. Like my body knew what was happening before I’d registered it.
“Do you know who this man is?”
A quick glance at the photo was all it took. “He was a volunteer. I can’t remember his name, but he was nice. Kind of quiet and a little weird, but nice nonetheless.”
“He volunteered the entire time you were there?”
Shelly shrugged like she didn’t realize how much weight that question held. How life-changing her answer would be. Because, of course, she didn’t. She didn’t know the crisis I was having while standing right next to her.
“No, actually. He was only there a month or two after I got there, and if I remember correctly, he only came in a couple times. Maybe I scared him off.” She laughed, but I couldn’t hear it.
My world had shrunk to the small part of the photograph in my hands. The centimeter-by-centimeter piece that made my legs nearly give out. It came crashing down over me then, whose face I was seeing and why my gut was so persistent.
Except my gut was years too late.
“Can I take this one?” I asked before I could no longer speak. Because I figured that was next. My throat felt swollen, and it became increasingly hard to swallow the longer I stared at his little fucking face.
Shelly answered an agreement of some sort, but I didn’t hear the words. They were muffled by the blood pounding behind my ears.
“I’m so sorry,” I muttered. “I…umm…I have to go.”
Shelly looked up at me, and I knew I should have made an excuse for my sudden departure. But I couldn’t. My thoughts were too disjointed, and I had to get out of there as quickly as I could.
“Okay, sure, sweetie. Are you okay?”
My answering nod was shaky and choppy and nowhere near as believable as I hoped.
With the picture safely held in my clammy hand, I stepped around her and all but ran from the room. Through the living room, I didn’t stop until I was throwing open the back door and charging into the blinding sunlight.
It was like a bullet to the heart, stopping me clean in my tracks.
Each breath felt like a knife to my lungs. My entire body was shaking. The world was imploding under my feet.
I’d been so stupid and blind. Swiping away sweat gathering on my forehead, I managed to lift the photo for another look. It was just as nauseating as the first time.
My vision swam, and my stomach turned.
The taste of betrayal was tart and bitter on my tongue.
How could he? How could he? I thought over and over again. The question was punctuated with moments when I should have figured it out earlier. So many moments when it should have been clear.
But my focus was elsewhere; it was anywhere else.
How could he? How could I?
Before I’d consciously decided, my feet were carrying me up to Devon’s room. I stumbled and almost fell several times, but I finally pushed open the door. Tato was resting on the end of the bed. I didn’t wake him.
I grabbed my purse and shoved the photo in the front flap of my journal. Each entry tainted with the truth of it.
A second later, I ran back down the stairs. The metal gate creaked as I pushed it open. The keys fell from my shaking hands twice, and each time I bent to pick them up, dizziness slammed into me again.
But nothing felt real anymore.
Finally, I managed to get in my car, turn it on, and back out of the driveway. My white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel was all I could feel. Except for the panic that was seconds from boiling over.
I rolled the windows down, but the wind whipping through the car did me no good.
Just like last time.
There was one of those thoughts. Except it didn’t disappear as quickly. It lingered for several seconds.
It would feel so much better if you just went a little faster.
I ground my teeth and sped through an intersection. I was already going too fast. So fast, yet my mind was still spinning.
Why don’t you just ? —
I cut the thought off before it took hold and swerved to the side of the road. Slamming on the brakes, I put the car in park. I removed the keys from the ignition and tossed them into the back seat.
Everything around me was spinning. I leaned my forehead against the steering wheel and breathed. It was surprising how something as innate and natural as breathing felt like the hardest task.
I kept track of each breath for a long time—several minutes at least—but then I lost count and realized my breathing had returned mostly to normal.
Raising my head, I glanced at my surroundings. I knew exactly where I’d been going. Adrenaline and betrayal and anger propelling me forward and to him. Because he still had that hold over me. Control over my emotions and actions like only he could.
I considered that and shook my head like it would dislodge the thought.
The control he held was feeble and easily breakable. A control he only held if I let him.
Not anymore. Never again.
And suddenly, a new, unsettling wave of calm enveloped me. A plan as clear as the cloudless mid-day sky forming with each passing second, fueled only by revenge and rage. It was a terrifying combination, but not for me, for him.
As it formed, I knew it needed to be the definitive, unequivocal end. And it would be.
He wanted me beaten and broken. But I’d never felt so whole.