Chapter 24
I know this is a lot to ask… but let’s say hypothetically I’m in a crisis. How quickly could you guys get to Seabrook?
Roshi
It might be a lot to ask, but you never ask for anything, Blink.
Roshi
And it just so happens to be my one free weekend before school starts. I can be there by tomorrow!
Faye
I’m sure Stephen can survive one weekend without me.
In the cottage’s bedroom, filled with the scent of lavender and sunlight, I’m sitting with my laptop over my covers, oscillating between my manuscript, budget spreadsheets, and the master scheduling portal for the convenience stores.
I breath out a relieved sigh at the thought of Roshi and Faye being here tomorrow afternoon and shoot my mom a text to let her know the plan.
I didn’t leave bed other than to make coffee, and pee out said coffee, for a full twenty-four hours.
The last time I did this it was because of the flu.
Now, it was the disease of distrust festering inside me.
I was well acquainted with the feeling of distrusting other people.
But not being able to trust myself was entirely new.
Hopelessly, helplessly, the longer I thought about the past two months, the more Gwen’s words rang true.
I’d been making life-altering decisions like choosing between a burger or chicken nuggets off a drive-thru menu.
If she was right about that, how could I be sure the rest of her words wouldn’t come true?
That when the fog cleared, I would see the ways in which Declan and I didn’t fit with startling clarity.
That the first time we broke apart was proof of our incompatibility, and diving in headfirst while grief’s claws still held me by the throat was a purely selfish decision. One made for my comfort alone.
I silenced the notifications on my phone, but Declan’s texts were making it through to my computer anyway.
Declan
Blair, I know you asked for space, but I just wanted to let you know I had a wonderful night with you.
Tears and all. Please, take all the time in the world you need to think.
Grief isn’t something you can run away from.
And if you try, it will tackle you from the back. And no one likes a surprise tackle.
I hate myself for the way my heart flutters at the sight of his name alone, and the stupid smile that creeps onto my face at the football reference.
But his words make my chest ache for him.
In my own grief, I kept forgetting he was no stranger to pain.
The grief of losing your life as you knew it came with its own set of complicated emotions.
Everything was uncharted territory for me, but maybe, for him, it wasn’t.
Maybe my grief wouldn’t create a ravine between us.
I start to type out an over-explanation of where my head is at and then delete it.
Wasn’t it manipulative to drag someone through your contemplations about them while saying you needed space?
And it wasn’t even contemplation about him.
He was everything I wanted and more. It was about my inability to understand if I was thinking clearly during such an emotional time, and if I was using him as a safety blanket against the harsh reality of my new world—and here I was, doing it again.
I slam my computer shut and drop my head into my hands.
Hot, frustrated tears spill from my eyes from confusion so thick it feels like my thoughts are trudging through mud.
Emotionally, I felt like an empty well when it came to other people.
There was only enough energy for my own pain and no one else’s.
Grief, at this stage, felt inherently selfish.
So, how would I be capable of giving Declan the love he deserved?
I could hardly listen to Faye complain about her mother-in-law for thirty minutes.
And besides, Lottie hid her suffering from her closest friends. She even hid it from me and my mom to the best of her ability. All the way to the painstaking end until she lost control of it.
And my mom protected me from the details of my father’s torment my whole life.
No matter how much I pried, she never unearthed the specifics.
And to think, she was in the middle of losing the man she loved, swallowing the dream life he promised her, and figuring out how to be a single mother, and yet, she never relied on me to shoulder the weight.
She went to great lengths to prevent her emotional distress from affecting my childhood, and although I still wanted to hear the story, I’m grateful she shielded me from things I was too young to bear at the time.
So, wasn’t love hiding the pain you were in for the sake of others? Or was it letting them in?
The next morning, a knock at my door startles me while brushing my hair. I tiptoe to the door, hoping against all odds that it’s not Declan coming over to check on me. And to my utter shock, I see Faye and Roshi’s fish-eyed bobbleheads in the peephole.
“Ahhhh!” I scream, whipping the door open. “How did you guys get here? I thought you would call when you landed?”
Faye flashes her beauty pageant smile. “Your mom sent us a sneaky text telling us to call her when we landed. She picked us up from the airport this morning and was so excited to show us around your hometown!”
Roshi sheds her coat. “Yeah, Blair! How long were you going to keep this gem of a town hidden from us? This place is like the perfect set for a Nicholas Sparks book.”
I cackle my disbelief as I pull each of them in for a hug.
“Aw, I can’t believe you guys are here.” I jut my bottom lip out. “Thank you so much for dropping everything and coming out so last minute.”
“Oh, hush! You deserve the world. Now let us in. We have way too many bags for a two-night stay.” Roshi boogies past me through the doorway with her suitcase like an auntie in a movie. Overly comfortable and unwilling to accept your sappiness.
Faye follows her in, and I watch as their jaws drop. “Shut up,” they say in unison.
“This is all yours?” Roshi shouts.
“I mean, what you’re looking at now is pretty much the whole house. But yeah, isn’t it cute?”
“Um yeah! You think? I’m trying to furnish my house, and let me tell you, I don’t have the eye for interior decorating like I thought I would. And Stephen is no help in that department.”
Her words make me grateful in an instant. A house, fully furnished by Lottie herself, was a blessing I would never get over. I give them the short tour, and then set up Faye’s things in my bedroom, and unbox the blow-up mattress I had shipped overnight for Roshi in the living room.
There was an ease with which they slipped into my home, as if no time had passed. It made me wonder what I was so upset with them about. Perhaps it was easier to convince myself they “weren’t there for me,” when what I was really mourning was our distance.
After getting them settled in, we walked the short couple blocks to a cliffside view of Seabrook.
The town seemed to be showing off. The sunbeams danced on the waves, which glittered as they splashed against the rocky cliffs.
The ancient trees stretched their spindly branches as if guarding the landscape.
“Wow, Blair,” Faye said, awestruck by the view. “Why have I never even heard of this place before meeting you? It’s absolutely breathtaking!” She clutched a hand to her chest like a rich, elderly woman.
I chuckled. “Yeah, not many people have. Everyone seems to be pretty secretive about it.”
“I would be too if this is where I grew up,” Roshi added.
I’ve stared at the beauty of this place for so long, it’s become my normal.
But seeing it through their perspective gives me fresh eyes.
Just two months ago, I might have been embarrassed—embarrassed that I had given up a prestigious job to stay in my hometown and write a book with no prospects of publishing.
But I’d never felt freer, in one sense at least. In the other, the cloying agony of wanting Declan but not wanting to hurt him nipped at me.
That night, after eating dinner, we settle into my little seaside cottage, or what Roshi and Faye are referring to as my “Nicolas Sparks movie-set-house.” It feels like I’ve lived here forever with them making themselves cozy in the living room.
And with our pajamas on, candles lit, and soft jazz playing on the television, Roshi finally breaks open the conversation I’ve been steadily avoiding.
“Okay, Blink,” she starts, getting settled beneath a fuzzy cream blanket on the couch. “I’ve never heard you refer to yourself as ‘in crisis.’ So, let’s hear it. What’s going on?”
I blow out a big breath, eyes going wide.
“Oh boy,” Faye quips.
“Yeah. Oh boy, indeed,” I reply, and then, in a surprising turn of events that shocks everyone, including me, I tell them everything.
Every painstaking detail. So much so that the earth must have made its full rotation by the time I’m done speaking.
Not actually, but it feels like a lifetime has passed when Roshi finally pipes in to say: “And why do you think you’ll hurt him? ”
“Because I did the first time. And that was before any of this grief stuff hit. If we do this again, I don’t want it to end.
Ever. And I definitely don’t want to be the one responsible for hurting him a second time.
But how am I supposed to know I’m in a healthy enough mindset to be making a commitment that big?
What if I’m too emotionally weak and he ends up having to support me all the time, and then he feels tired of having to take care of me?
I cry every single day now, and I never know when it’s coming, and when it does, he’ll feel like he needs to drop everything to be there for me.
Isn’t it selfish to enter a relationship like that? ” I plead.