Chapter 16
REMI
“Icalled Paige,” Elena says as she sets a glass of water in front of Remi. She’s not sure how long it took for Elena to coax her off the floor and onto the couch. Remi didn’t hear Elena on the phone. But then the words process, and she frowns.
“Why would you call her?” Remi asks.
Elena’s changed out of her scrubs and into her comfy clothes—an oversized band tee and spandex shorts. “Because,” she says, like it’s obvious. “You’re not in the right headspace to meet her parents.”
“Fuck.” Remi’s head drops forward. She completely forgot about the double date. Then she jumps to her feet.
“What’re you doing?”
“Paige is coming out to her parents,” Remi says. “I have to be there for her.”
“Remi, come on.” Elena stands and grabs her arm, stopping Remi from racing out the front door. “You can’t meet them like this.”
Remi’s gaze snags on the round mirror hanging from the wall before her, and she startles at her reflection.
She’s a mess.
Her hair is disheveled, her eyes are red and puffy, her shirt is crinkly, and there’s a gross wet spot on her collar that she hopes isn’t snot.
Remi cringes and turns away.
And that’s just her physical appearance. She’s thankful there’s no mirror that can show her the mess she is inside.
Twelve years.
Anna’s been gone twelve years. Remi has never missed an anniversary … until yesterday.
Because she was too busy having one of the best days of her life.
With another woman.
Her heart clenches.
“She’ll understand,” Elena says.
Remi isn’t sure if Elena means Paige or Anna.
It doesn’t matter. She’s wrong either way.
“I’m going to end things,” Remi says.
“You’re—wait. What?” Elena reels back. “With Paige? Why the hell would you do that?”
Remi paces the floor. “Because I’m only going to disappoint and hurt her. Just like I do everyone else.”
“Okay. You’ve lost me.” Elena’s face is scrunched in obvious, and slightly annoyed, confusion. “What the hell are you talking about? Who else did you disappoint?”
Remi collapses onto the couch, dropping her face into her hands. There’s a shuffle as Elena sits beside her.
“Paige needs me to be there for her when she tells her parents, and I’m letting her down,” Remi says. “You needed me there at the grave yesterday, and I let you down. Anna needed me to not be an insecure jerk, and I let her down.”
“Remi, I love you, but that’s a reach,” Elena says. “First, Paige will reschedule—you’ll still be there for her. Second, you didn’t disappoint me; I’m okay. And, third, you were an amazing girlfriend to Anna. You didn’t let her down.”
Remi roughly shakes her head. “Paige shouldn’t have to reschedule. And you shouldn’t have had to go see Anna alone. I’ve given you so much shit for being absorbed in your relationship, and I’m so much worse!”
“You can’t blame yourself for that. I suspected you forgot, and I could have said something, but I didn’t.”
Heat rises in Remi’s cheeks, lighting her skin on fire. “What?” she snaps. “You could’ve … Why didn’t you?”
“Because you’re happy! I’ve never seen you so happy.”
The words sting. They shouldn’t. But it feels like an even bigger slap to Anna than forgetting yesterday does.
“You should’ve said something!”
“If getting pissy with me helps, go ahead. I can take that and a whole hell of a lot more,” Elena says. “But keep it directed at me. Don’t you dare break up with Paige because you insist on punishing yourself.”
Remi glares at her. “It’s not punishing myself. Paige deserves better.”
“?Ay, Dios!” Elena sighs, rubbing the space between her eyebrows. “That’s such bullshit. You and Paige are both amazing and are perfect for one another.”
Remi doesn’t say anything. There’s no point.
“Honestly, I think you mean you,” she says. “You don’t think you deserve Paige—that you don’t deserve to be in love with someone else—so you’re going to sabotage”
“I don’t though. Not after what I did.”
Elena’s mouth snaps shut. She softens. Then.
“You know that wasn’t your fault.”
But she’s wrong.
Anna was supposed to be staying the night at her house. But they got into a fight—a stupid fucking fight. They both were recruited by the University of Michigan to play soccer. U-M had a great team, and it was a dream opportunity to play for the same college.
Or it would’ve been.
While Elena and Remi were strong players, Anna was something special.
She had been a part of the Olympic Development Program since she was twelve years old and trained with the U-17 women’s national team.
When Florida State—the team who had just won the 2014 NCAA championship—said they wanted Anna, her decision was made.
Remi was ecstatic for Anna, of course, but she was also an immature eighteen-year-old.
They had one last summer together before who knew what long distance and intense training schedules would do to their relationship.
Anna wanted to focus on the positives and enjoy their last couple weeks together.
Except Remi let her insecurities nag at her and picked a fight.
“An asshole ran a red light and hit her,” Elena says. “I know you think it’s your fault because you told her to leave, but she wouldn’t blame you. It was a horrible accident. It’s. Not. Your. Fault.”
Tears well in Remi’s eyes.
Elena rubs her back. “Anna would want you to be happy.”
The first tear falls. “Don’t say that. You don’t know what she’d want.”
Elena frowns. “Look, I know it’s different because you two were dating, but she was my best friend too. I knew her, and I know she wouldn’t want you punishing yourself.”
“No, you don’t know what she’d want because nobody knows what she’d want.” Remi wipes her cheeks with her palms. “You and I aren’t the same people we were when we were eighteen. We’ve grown up. We’ve changed. She would have too. We don’t know that person. She never got the chance to become her.”
Elena sits with this for a moment. “You’re right. We can’t say for sure who she would be right now.”
“Thank you.”
“But”—Elena looks Remi head-on—“we both know eighteen-year-old Anna. And that person would never want you to spend the next twelve years sabotaging your every chance at happiness.”
“I’m happy,” Remi argues. “I don’t have to be in a relationship to be happy.”
“You don’t,” Elena agrees. “But you haven’t been this happy in a very long time.”
Remi sighs. Elena’s not going to let this go.
“When’s the last time you saw Janine?”
Her therapist? Over a year ago now.
“What does that matter?” Remi asks.
Elena smirks, knowing she has her now.
Remi curses.
“Why’d you stop seeing her?” Elena prods.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“I think it does.”
Remi crosses her arms over her chest and shakes her head. “It doesn’t.”
Elena lets out a small sound, a mix of a scoff and a laugh. “Come on, Remi.”
She rolls her eyes. “She said something I didn’t agree with, and I haven’t been back.”
“What did she say?”
Remi’s skin prickles. “Can we just drop it?”
“Nope.”
She groans. “She made a comment about my taste in women.”
Elena’s eyebrows pull together. “You yourself describe your taste in women as terrible—I’m excluding Anna and Paige, of course.”
Remi rubs the back of her neck.
“So?” Elena says when Remi is silent for far too long.
Remi drops her hands to her thighs with a loud slap. Elena’s going to keep asking until Remi tells her, so, in a rush, she admits, “She thinks I’m subconsciously only attracted to women who can’t or won’t reciprocate my feelings.”
Elena’s eyes widen. “Oh, did she? And why does she think that?”
Remi side eyes her. For the exact same reason Elena accused her of earlier in this conversation: Because she’s punishing herself in the form of sabotaging all future relationships.
It’s not true though. Remi has terrible taste in women—Anna and Paige aside—it happens.
Plus, she is in a relationship so they can’t be right.
Elena nods, as if Remi’s silence confirms her suspicion.
Remi swallows.
“Okay, I have one final question for you,” Elena says in a tone so confident, Remi knows she’s going to hate what comes out of her mouth next.
“No, thank you,” Remi says. “You’re all out of questions.”
“Shut up.” Elena licks her lips as she mulls over her words. Finally, she says, “If the roles were reversed and Anna had kicked you out and you were hit while driving home, would you want Anna to spend the rest of her life doing what you’ve been doing?”
The question knocks the air from her lungs.
She blinks rapidly a couple times.
“I … I need to go.”
“Now?” Elena asks. “Where?”
Remi pushes to her feet. “To see Anna.”
“But the graveyard is closed.”
“I know.”