12. June #2
The lighthouse.
In Tom Nevers.
The one I used to point out every summer as a kid, telling Meredith and Sophie that someday I’d live there. The one I’ve been saving up for since the Gallery started turning a profit.
The one Ashton threatened to buy for us. For me.
The second postcard has another angle. This time of the cliffside, waves breaking below it, all captured in faint gray lines.
My stomach drops.
I know exactly who sent these.
There’s no signature, no handwriting, nothing but the sketches. But I can feel him in the curves of the pencil, the steady hand behind them.
For a second, my only thought is: he’s breaking the no-contact order. If anyone finds out, if the wrong eyes land on this, it could cost him everything. Trial evidence. Violation. Jail time.
My pulse kicks up hard enough to hurt.
But then the panic shifts, twisting into something darker.
Because if no one can prove it was him… then these sketches are mine to hold. Mine to keep. Mine to obsess over.
I press the cards against my chest, my breath shaky, and suddenly it feels like my ribcage is collapsing in on itself.
The grief comes hot, fast, unrelenting because for months now I’ve been telling myself I don’t miss him, scolding myself when I do dwell on it.
Telling myself that I can hate him and love him in equal measure, and that one can cancel out the other.
It has to, it’s the only way to survive this.
But here he is, in graphite and paper, reminding me that none of it cancels out at all.
And I’ve never felt so utterly alone.
I don’t know how long I lie there on the floor. It must be hours.
My side has gone numb from where I’ve curled in on myself, my face is sticky from crying, and the postcards are crumpled at the edges where my hands wouldn’t let go. The ‘discard’ pile tumbled over a while ago.
Time has stopped mattering.
Until it starts again with a knock.
“June?” Meredith’s voice. “It’s me.”
Panic sparks through me. The postcards.
My body protests angrily as I whip around to shove them under a stack of old magazines on the coffee table, wipe my face with the sleeve of my sweatshirt, and stumble up just as Meredith pushes the door open.
She stops cold, eyes sweeping over me, the mess, my red-rimmed face.
“June.” Her voice softens. “Baby.”
I force a wet laugh. “Don’t call me that, or I’ll start crying again.”
“This isn’t…” Meredith sighs, stepping inside like she owns the place. “You can’t keep doing this. Sitting here, stewing. You’re going to give yourself a migraine.”
“Not stewing,” I mutter, crossing my arms. “Researching.”
She gives me that look that makes me feel twelve years old again. Then she shakes her head and holds out a hand. “C’mon. You need to get out of this house.”
I open my mouth to argue, but her hand is already clasping in mine and tugging me to my feet.
A brisk shower, a change of clothes, and Meredith hijacking my own car later, we pull into one of the Shack’s two parking spots and make the short trek across the road to the holy grail for the lonely and depressed.
The familiar 80s rock makes me want to take back my mental dismissal of Birdies, though. There’s enough laughter coming from the bar for me to feel chastised. And it’s hard to feel depressed when Roland Jones immediately pulls you into a warm embrace.
“You gave us a nasty shock, June-bug,” my father’s best friend murmurs in my ear. “You’re gonna give an old man a heart attack one of these days.”
I pull back to give the man a once-over. “You’ve finally accepted it then?”
“Damn hip reminds me every day,” his smile quickly fades as his hands reach for my face, cradling me gently. “You don’t do that to me again, you hear?”
I thought I was dried out of tears, but my traitorous eyes prickle anyway. Roland’s thumbs are up and brushing them away in an instant. Holding me steady as I recompose myself.
“Come on,” he says when he finally lets me go. “Marlene’s kid dropped by earlier with leftover stuffies. You look like you could use a decent meal.”
We’re still chatting about the latest addition to the Shack’s kitchen when Eddie finally wanders out of the back, crate of glasses on his hip.
If he’s surprised to see me after the last breakdown I had at the bar, he hides it with a nod and a smile, before beelining to where Meredith is leaning over the bar to try and grab his attention.
Roland takes the stool next to mine, content to natter on despite the fact I’m only half listening. Too busy watching the way Eddie smiles at my sister. How Meredith grins right back.
I don’t know when they reunited. Sometime between Thanksgiving and now, clearly. How many days or weeks has it even been?
It might be a bad sign that my first thought isn’t about how happy they look or how nice it is that Meredith has something good, finally.
Whatever anxiety Eddie was feeling about their lack of communication during my trial seems to have disappeared completely.
And that’s wonderful for them both, truly.
But my first emotion is… smugness.
A delicious sort of greed, and toxic delight in the fact that Mark is going to hate this.
It’s plain as day who Meredith has eyes for, and it’s sure not the asshole who cheated on her and got her fired from his father’s law firm.
At least something is going right in the world.
And I stare. I stare and I stare, taking in every juicy detail of the way their hands graze a little too long, how there’s a faint flush to Mere’s cheeks that has nothing to do with the glass of wine that miraculously appeared in her hand under Eddie’s keen attention.
I fantasize about how I might let these details slip the next time Mark decides to call me at 2 AM just to insult me and beg for information about my sister.
It’s not until Eddie smirks that smirk and leans forward, daringly, flirtatiously close, that I realize my mistake.
The jealousy hits out of nowhere. Brutally unforgiving in the way it curls through my stomach.
“Bug?”
I blink frantically as I try to place the last thing Roland said.
“Yeah… I, er…”
A plate slides in front of me. Three stuffed clams, recently reheated.
It’s enough to make me feel sick.
I swallow and turn to face the man at my side. “Thanks, Roland. I’m just not feeling all that hungry.”
“I asked if you’d mind sharing,” Roland looks back at me with an unbearable sort of sympathy, before his eyes dart over my shoulder, nodding toward where I know his son is flirting with my sister. “‘Bout time, don’t you think?”
I push the plate over, trying my best to play along. “Yeah. About time.”