CHAPTER 11
HOLLYN
I sit up straight in bed with a jolt. My entire body feels like it’s going haywire and the remnants of the dream are still clinging to me at the edges of my consciousness. It’s a strange feeling, but it feels very real.
Just like the dream did.
Right now, I’m not entirely sure I can call it a dream without wondering if I’m lying to myself. That’s how real it felt.
There was a moment when I could have sworn that I was sitting next to Hillary’s bed, her eyes boring into mine as I wished like hell for another miracle. But miracles don’t always come twice in a lifetime, and my best friend had already been blessed once. I just didn’t want to believe it.
I certainly didn’t want to say goodbye to her. But it was coming and we could both feel it.
But for that moment, fleeting as it was, she was right there in front of me and still fighting.
The sun is just starting to crest the horizon, the soft light finding nooks and bends in the curtain which are perfect for exploitation.
My chest is rising and falling far too rapidly, and I find myself glancing over at Elwood and hoping I didn’t wake him up. He should sleep even if there’s no way I’m going to be able to get back to sleep tonight.
Not with the way I feel.
I’m unsettled.
I’m uncertain.
It’s been years since I’ve felt this way. The last time, I got a call from Hillary and she needed me. With a single act my best friend gave me purpose and set me on a clear path. I was going to be there for her no matter what.
But that time in my life is over now with her gone.
So where do I go and what do I do?
How do I find the right path for me when it was all kind of out of my hands before? How does anyone figure this shit out?
I’ve been pondering it all for far too long, the two weeks on the road helping me to feel the grief deeply and then start to look past it. My only goal was the road trip.
Well, first it was to ensure Hillary’s wishes were upheld for her funeral. Then it was getting through that day and putting my best friend to rest. Next came getting on the road and starting out on following through on the last promise I made her. I’ve been doing just that, until Storyville.
Until my car broke down.
Until I met Elwood.
I slip from the bed and pull Elwood’s hoodie, which is draped over the oversized chair next to the window, over my head. It still smells faintly of him—cinnamon and something that reminds me of Christmas.
The comforting scent of him wraps around me and I sink into it as I carefully pad out of his room and down the hall. When I pass the room where I was supposed to be staying, I snort out a laugh under my breath. Yeah, that didn’t work out very well for me.
Best laid plans, I suppose.
I couldn’t even tell you whether the bed in the guest room is comfortable or not. There hasn’t been a night when I’ve slept on it. Why would I when I sleep best snuggled into Elwood’s side with his arm wrapped around me like he never wants to let me go?
My movements are methodical as I make a cup of tea, needing the warmth of it to pull the last of my mind out of the sleep realm. It would have been far too easy to get lost there. Hillary was there. Grief wasn’t.
But it wasn’t real.
Right?
When my tea is done, I hold it between my hands and grab a cozy throw blanket before stepping onto the back porch and cocoon myself on the outdoor couch. The view is gorgeous, and I close my eyes, trying to hold onto the last of that feeling, the last of my dream.
I just know if I would have reached out and touched Hillary where she laid in her hospital bed, her fingers would have been cold. But her grip. Her fucking grip would have been tight to match the fierce fire in her eyes.
“Hollyn,” she murmured to me. Her tone told me this wasn’t a memory. Because there was never a time when she sounded as stern as she did in my dream. “You’re being an idiot.”
I scoffed and shook my head. I tried to deflect, “What are you talking about? I’m not being anything.”
Before I could take a breath to try and defend myself, everything around us shifted. We were no longer in the dreary hospital room which always felt far too stuffy for my tastes and could barely contain Hillary’s personality.
That’s when I knew for sure that I was dreaming. Because one moment we were in the last place I ever wanted to be again, and the next we were in one of the fields on the Connors family ranch. It was a place where we spent a lot of time growing up. We would pick wildflowers and make crowns.
It’s where our loftiest dreams were whispered about in hushed tones, as if speaking any louder would mean they wouldn’t come true.
It’s the same place where Hillary told us about the leukemia for the first time.
She told me about how her parents wanted to be there with her when she told us, but she said no.
She knew it needed to be in our field, in our place, where we could weep and then figure out a way to fight.
I wasn’t surprised to find me in that place again, when I felt so unsure. It was a place that always grounded me. Or was it the people who were there with me?
When I sunk my fingers into the soil, it felt so real as it gave way under the pressure of my touch, allowing me to burrow in and connect with the earth, with my home, with the place where solace didn’t feel so out of reach.
“Don’t lie to me,” Hillary’s voice which was softer but still had an edge had me snapping my gaze up to meet hers. “You’re being an idiot.”
She repeated those words, not apologetic in the least, while crossing her arms across her chest and giving me a look, a look I knew well. She wasn’t going to let this go.
I groaned and flopped back onto the grass which cushioned me while I stared up at the cloudless blue sky. The sun warmed me as I avoided the intense look from my best friend.
“It was never about the journey, Hollyn,” her words were whispered.
They danced along the tops of the wildflowers. They slipped around me until they could tangle in my hair. They felt like gossamer. Something close and still, somehow, out of reach.
My heart was pounding in my chest and as much as I desperately wanted to look at Hillary, to say goodbye because I could feel the edges of my dreams collapsing, I couldn’t. She would see too much. She would know too much.
“It was always about the destination.”
As those words fell from Hillary’s lips, I jerked awake.
And I knew.
But I’m not ready to admit it.
It feels like defeat. Like I’ve failed her somehow. It doesn’t really matter if it’s true or not.
When I open my eyes and take a sip of my tea, the first flake falls. And then another and another. The snow is light, but it is there, nonetheless.
It makes the scene even more special. The moment becomes a snow globe. Fragile. Beautiful. Worthy of a memory.
I feel a stray tear slide down my cheek, but I don’t bother wiping it away. No one is here to see it, and I can admit, if only to myself, that the cracks in the walls I’ve spent years fortifying around my heart are much larger than I’m comfortable with.
Another blanket, this one heavier, lands on my shoulders and is wrapped around me.
I look up at Elwood and watch as his clear blue eyes soften as they roam over my face.
I have no idea what he sees there, but the way he looks at me makes me feel like maybe I don’t have to keep searching and can, finally, call a place my own.
But it’s far too soon to have any of those feelings. Right? People don’t fall in love with a look, and they don’t upend their plans. Not to stay in a place they only know because they broke down. It’s not normal.
“Are you okay, Sweet Girl?”
Elwood’s question as he settles in the spot next to me has me swallowing hard. It shouldn’t feel like a loaded question. But it does.
Where do I even begin?
As if he can sense my turmoil, Elwood bumps my shoulder with his and smile softly. “Tell me something about Hillary.”
He doesn’t ask, not really, but his words don’t quite feel like a demand either. I look out over the land behind Elwood’s house and get lost in the flutter of snowflakes.
“She loved snow,” I whisper and find myself smiling. “She was fascinated with how every flake was different and unique and, yet, together could be so much more.”
Elwood makes a humming sound and wraps an arm around my shoulders before pulling me against his side.
Our bodies fit together in a way that doesn’t make any sense.
His chest is so much larger than mine and he’s so much taller.
It should feel awkward and like we’re just too different when he holds me like this, but that’s not the case.
It feels perfect. It feels right.
“There were a lot of days when the treatments were almost too much for her to handle. They made her so tired and destroyed her appetite. Making her eat wasn’t easy. There were times when I would joke with her and make those airplane sounds as I spoon fed her.”
The memory of those moments, of when her weakness was on such stark display, hit me hard. I hated those moments. If Hillary did though, she never said a word about it.
“She had to feel so ridiculous and small, but she never complained. Even when the treatments stopped and she accepted her fate, she didn’t complain.”
“It sounds like Hillary was one tough chick,” Elwood’s words are a gentle prompt, and I find myself nodding before he even finishes the sentence.
“In the middle of a really bad day, when she couldn’t keep anything down and was barely able to hold her head up, she grabbed my hand with a surprising amount of force.
When I looked into her eyes, I could feel mine fill with tears.
She looked so lost.” I wipe the tears on my cheeks away angrily.
“It was a moment when I would have happily traded places with her.”
Elwood sucks in a breath but he doesn’t say anything. His grip on me does tighten though and I almost chuckle.
“But you can’t do that, you can only deal with what life gives you as it comes,” I whisper the words.
“That day,” I swallow hard, “her words were broken while pleading with me. She told me that one day I’ll fall in love and to not push whoever captures my heart away.
She warned me about how big everything will feel and to not be afraid. ”
I look up at Elwood to find his eyes already on me. I swallow hard, the words right there between us. Invisible, but real all the same.
“She told me not to worry about the destination that day, to focus on the journey instead of the end.” I look away from him, unable to see the way he yearns for something I’m not entirely sure I can give him.
But, fuck, I want to. “She didn’t want me only worried about the sad ending.
Because we both knew the end was coming.
Instead, we talked about a road trip without a goal.
In doing so we ignored how death loomed over her and how much it hurt to watch. ”
“I’m glad she had you at her side, Sweet Girl.”
The words from my dream echo through my head again.
It was always about the destination.
Because the ending always matters. Who we become is just as beautiful as the growth. The experiences along the way shape us, but the result matters, the culmination, the way it produces something greater.
“Not everyone gets a love like the one you shared with your best friend,” he murmurs the words, and I jerk back from him in surprise.
“I hadn’t thought of it like that,” my words are thick with sadness and etched with grief.
“You should. It matters. The beginning. The journey. Who you meet along the way and give parts of yourself to. The destination. It all matters.”
Elwood’s arms wrap around me and warm me up better than the blankets draped over my shoulders. It all matters.
And now I need to decide what the destination looks like to me.
Maybe, just maybe, it should be snuggled in the arms of a man I wasn’t expecting on his back porch while watching the snow fall and thinking about my best friend who I will always miss.
It was always about the destination.
Could this be mine?