Chapter 4
Chapter Four
LUNA
T he rest of the day is more subdued. I don’t tell my friends about running into Parker on the beach before they leave. Even though I can’t stop thinking about him standing there. He’s tall, broad shouldered and practically a model with that smile he has. I was shocked when I first saw him. I just didn’t expect a hot guy to be the landlord next door. I really thought we had cute banter too. Well before that … unfortunate breakdown of mine. I’m pretty sure I’m the one to blame and I’m still too upset about it.
I realize I shouldn’t be this upset. I’ve replayed the conversation at least a hundred times, and I don’t think he was pissed when he saw me. Maybe a little annoyed. Maybe a little put out that I kept him up all night with the music and my friends’ voices. They’ve never been the quietest people, although I had no idea he could hear anything. Swear to God. If we’d known we were bothering him, it never would have happened.
I know my heart shouldn’t be pounding when I think of Parker’s eyes as he stood next to his truck, his arms crossed over his chest and this expression on his face, like?—
Like he was glad I walked up because he was thinking about me. I guess he was only thinking about how the single party I’ve had in the condo since I moved in got a little out of hand. There might have been some guys over at one point—friends of Hazel’s who she’d met in college. I couldn’t remember their names, but people’s names haven’t seemed important since my mom died. Almost nothing has seemed important since my mom died, honestly, but the way Parker talked to me?—
It’s just he didn’t have to wait. He could have said something. Him waiting… something about it. It makes me so unreasonably upset.
And yeah, I know that doesn’t make any sense.
I don’t know if I’m fine. I don’t know how anything could be truly fine when my mom isn’t here anymore. When I can’t call her or text her or leave her a voicemail about my terrible days. When I can’t feel better the second she calls me back.
“We’ll be here whenever you need us,” Hazel says into my ear, her arms tight around me on the steps of the condo. “I can stay a few more days if you want. A week. However long, really. I don’t mind.” I know she can't though. Not unless she wants to lose her job. The sentiment is sweet though.
“I’m good,” I promise her. “I’m…better. But if I start to feel—” I’m already starting to feel crushed by the sadness that might not ever let go of me. “If I need you, I’ll call.”
“Swear.”
“I swear,” I promise her, and hug her a little tighter. “Drive safe.”
“I will.” Hazel kisses my cheek, and then she’s gone. I stay on the steps to wave to her as her car disappears around the corner.
Then I just breathe in the quiet. I can hear the ocean from here, like everybody else. It’s always there, making that sound, day and night, but when you have four friends in your house, it’s hard to hear anything else.
I glance over at Parker’s place and feel…
A little guilty.
Not very guilty, because if he wanted it to be completely quiet all night or on the weekends, he could have said so. That’s a very standard practice for landlords. They’re supposed to put that kind of information in the lease so nobody has to have a confrontation.
But then?—
We could have been quieter. I could have just said we didn’t have plans to stay up all night when he talked to me at the beach. I could have explained. I could have not freaked out over basically nothing and been a complete bitch to him.
Letting my head fall back I groan. I don’t know. I could have done everything differently, I guess.
By Monday morning, I’m feeling as down as I did before Hazel’s emergency sleepover happened. I don’t want to go to my therapy appointment at all, which is a good sign that I need to be there. I make up a million excuses not to go, but in the end, I drag myself there anyway.
My therapist, Anne, runs her practice out of a room in the front of her house with a separate entrance. It’s cozy, with an overstuffed chair for clients to sit in and a colorful rug on the floor. A prism by the window reflects rainbows onto the deep green walls. Anne, my therapist, is making tea when I arrive. She hands me a cup with a quiet greeting, and I settle into the chair with it. It doesn’t matter that it’s summer. I still appreciate the heat. I’ve seen her for six sessions now. I’m used to the pattern of how things go. I’m used to the smell of the herbal tea and the faint bell from her cat as he moves somewhere in the house.
Anne settles in across from me and inhales the scent of her tea, then meets my eyes. “So,” she says, like we’ve been talking for a long time already and we’re only changing topics. “How was the party?”
“It was horrible.”
Her eyebrows go up. “Was it? I thought you felt positive about having your friends come to see you.”
“No.” I take a sip of my tea. It’s the perfect temperature, but it makes my throat ache. “No. It was—most of it was fun. Hazel pulled out all the stops. They all did. They really wanted to cheer me up.”
“But you weren’t cheered up?”
The sun streams in through the windows, and I’m reminded of the good things.
I need this. I just let all the thoughts fly out of my mouth.
“It just feels,” I say carefully, trying to be as accurate as I can about how I feel. It’s hard to find the words because my emotions are a mess. A big, painful mess that I can’t clean up or get rid of. “It feels like nothing can go right.”
“You know that’s not true, right?” Anne looks at me with soft eyes.
“I know.” I let out a heavy exhale. “I know.”
“Let’s look for proof that things can go right.” She glances out the window and takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “Did you have any trouble on the way here? Car trouble? Driver trouble?”
“No. The drive was—it was fine. The weather is nice even.” I could have walked, but I drove because I thought I’d turn around if I was on foot. “So that went right.”
“As far as I can tell, this morning hasn’t been all bad. You were on time. You didn’t have any problems with your car and didn’t get into an accident. You arrived in one piece. Did something specific happen over the weekend that’s making you feel this way?”
I didn’t want to talk about this. I really didn’t. It’s so meaningless. But now that Anne’s asked, it’s the only thing on my mind.
“I ran into my neighbor. My landlord. We…well, it wasn’t a fight, but he wasn’t happy because my friends and I were loud on Friday night. We kept him awake. He wasn’t—I don’t know. I overreacted, I think, but I was upset. And that’s why the party wasn’t wrapped up with a bow.”
Her brow arches. Oh Anne. I’m learning what that means. “Because of something he said?”
I shift in my seat and set the tea down. “Because he—I felt defensive about the noise because he could have said something and then it wouldn’t have been an issue. And then I dropped the shell.”
“A shell?” Anne asks, that brow still arched. It’s going to give her wrinkles.
“I found a shell on the beach. I was going to write on it like I used to do with my mom. We would come here for long weekends and sometimes in the summer we’d get a place, and we would write memories on shells and then throw it in the ocean to show thanks to the universe.”
Anne smiles kindly, “Your mom sounds like a gentle soul.”
I nod, my throat going tight, “She was.
“I was going to write a memory on it, about the party and how I missed her but she would have loved it, but it broke.” My eyes fill with tears. I can’t stop them. “When it broke, it just felt like the whole weekend broke with it. It’s supposed to be a shell for that day, you know? And I was so tired and it broke.”
Anne hands me a box of tissues. I take one and dab at my eyes, breathing deeply. I am not going to cry over the shell. I’m not going to cry again over the shell. Once is enough.
“What would your mother have done?” Anne questions.
“About what?”
“About the shell or about your landlord. About the party and the noise.”
“She would apologize,” I admit, my voice shaking. I’ll sob out loud when I get home, but not in front of Anne. Not right now. “She would try to make it right. She would have gotten another shell but I didn’t. Are you saying I should try again?”
“I’m saying that knowledge of your mom can’t be broken. It will always be with you.” Anne gives me an encouraging smile. “But maybe it would be worth trying again. Go get another shell, it’s okay that it’s not the same day. You can talk to your landlord. You can do whatever you want to do. Whatever your gut is telling you is right.”
With a rolled up tissue in my hand, I blink away the tears and nod. In my mind though I see Parker and my gut sinks. It’s a shitty feeling and even worse when I know I will not be able to explain this to him. If I do, I’ll break down and he’ll think I’ve lost it even more than he probably already does.