37. Thirty-seven
Thirty-seven
“You look like shit.”
My attempt at giving Scotty a glare as I walk into Happy Endings only results in more ugly crying. Instead, I lean into her, sobbing loudly against her too-perky Taylor Swift T-shirt.
“I fucked up, Scotty,” I stutter out, not lifting my face from her chest. Taylor Swift’s voice belts out the lyrics to “Love Story” around us and I cry harder. “I can only imagine what he thinks happened with Reed, but it was nothing. And-and-and Lyra thinks I’m the worst.”
My sniffles and shallow breaths push me to the cusp of hyperventilating.
Scotty smooths my hair and takes my hand in hers. “I want to show you something.”
She leads me through the cozy witnessing room into the sterile cremation room in silence.
I pause, somehow more gutted than I was a second earlier, and bring a hand to my gaping mouth. Tears falling faster as I take in the woman, peaceful and quiet, somewhere around my age. Could be younger or older. In all my years coming in this room, I’ve never once been with someone so young. So real.
“You’ve been coming in here since—”
“I know how long it’s been,” I snap, cutting her off with my echoing voice.
She studies me, expression unwavering.
Ten years. A whole decade of me harboring the hurts that started with the lost ones.
“I’ve listened to every conversation you’ve ever had—I know you’ve never said it outright, but I’ve seen it, Joo. The guilt you’ve carried, the blame. The way you tried to, I don’t know, fix it by changing every piece of you.” I stare at the woman in the casket as intensely as I feel Scotty staring at me. “And, regardless of how different our unique shades of fucked up are, I know just as well as you how hard it is. To carry it alone.”
I glance at her, hating the hurt of it all and how right she is.
I take a step closer to the casket and stare at the beautiful woman, wishing she’d just open her eyes and walk right out of the room.
She’s blonde, thin, by all appearances, healthy. Wearing a yellow sundress and a turquoise necklace. There’s a beaded friendship bracelet around her wrist and a simple gold band on her finger. Gone just the same.
“Name’s Katie. She had a brain aneurysm. Out of nowhere, the husband said. The kids found her on the kitchen floor,” Scotty fills in the blanks. “Forty-two.”
Me in a year and a half. I picture it. The boys six, Lyra just coming into her own. Missing it. Camp on a ballfield. Them without me.
“Some days I’d give anything to have your troubles, Joo.”
At the confession, I look at her. Seeing my best friend—beautiful and confident and fiercely independent—through a new lens. For one of the few times in our three-decade-long friendship, there’s a deep sadness in her eyes.
When I open my mouth, she shakes her head. “Not today.”
I blow a breath, steadying myself. “I talk to them because they don’t judge me.”
“They are the least judgmental group I know,” she says, lighter than before, taking my hand in hers as she stands next to me.
“I didn’t talk to Camp, I see that. Part of it was because I loved him—love him. I wanted him to be happy. Wanted Lyra to be happy. And-and-and when”—I pause, unable to say the words—“I didn’t want to bring him down with me, you know?” She nods; I sniff. “And I just thought if he really loved me—if we were really so good together—he would have just known. Like I shouldn’t have to say it all.” A fresh shot of tears pour down my face. “Now . . . now it’s too late. I never told him how hard it all was. He’s gone and Lyra hates me.” Another wave of garbled sounds and sniffles erupts out of me.
She gives me a tissue.
“It’s not too late,” she says, matter-of-fact. “You’re still here, Joo. There’s always time if you’re here and they are too. Talk to him. To Lyra. They might judge you, but they might listen. Say something back you need to hear. Make changes before it’s too late.”
I look at her, knowing that last line is not just for me, it’s for her too.
Another nod.
Wipe of my cheeks.
Slow exhale.
“Can I have a minute in here?”
She squeezes my hand before releasing it. “Always.”
When the door clicks closed, I study Katie’s face—fair skinned and beautiful and wonder if I ever met her. If her kids would have been friends with mine. If in mere weeks, she might have a kid that’s graduating too.
Instead of sitting on the chair to word vomit like I usually do, I drop to the concrete floor. It’s cool beneath the skin of my thighs and cheek as I splay out on my belly like a starfish, my pulse ricocheting between the floor and the boundary of my skin.
My own mortality clings to me between breaths. If I knew I would be where she was in two years—what would I do? What dreams would I chase?
I think of the boys, destroying the house.
The dog, destroying everything.
Lyra, hair colors like a mood ring, mouth like a whip, lighting up every room she walks into.
And Camp. Catching every dream he chases, no matter how big.
A tap on the window lifts my head. Scotty’s familiar five-minute warning signal accompanied by eyebrows raised high on her head.
I nod but stand, not needing any more time.
I look at Katie, the friendship bracelet that was probably made by a kid, and grief undulates through me like the hills I’ve grown up in. “I’m sorry you won’t see what’s next.”
Out of the room, I wrap my arms around Scotty. “I never talked to you because I didn’t want to bother you, and you’re a bossy bitch when you’re right,” I say into her hair, making her vibrate with a laugh against me. As I pull away, I add, “And sometimes, I feel guilty complaining about the kids and a husband. Like I’m rubbing salt in the wound or something.”
“You got the family, Joo,” she says, smoothing my hair with a serious look on her face. “But I got the better personality and looks. Nobody has it all.”
I snort a laugh, hugging her again, tighter this time. “You can always talk to me, you know?”
“I know. But go fix your own shit, first.”