Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
"That should do it," Linda Carver said, tucking her tablet back into her bag. "I've got everything I need. I'll have the listing up by the end of the day, and I'll send you the comps and pricing proposal Monday morning."
Corey signed the last form the realtor held out to him. His signature looked unfamiliar on the page, like it belonged to someone else.
"Sounds good. Thank you."
"Thank you." Linda gave him a warm, practiced smile. "It's a beautiful unit. And the location is unbeatable. I don't think we'll have any trouble moving it."
He nodded and held the door for her. They walked out into the hallway together, Linda chatting easily about market conditions and timing. Corey nodded and tried not to think about how strange it was that within a few hours, the condo would be listed for sale.
He walked her to the stairs. She squeezed his arm at the top, told him to call her with any questions, and headed down.
He stood there for a moment after she was gone.
When he turned to go back inside, Mrs. Smith was coming up the stairs with a small grocery bag, slightly out of breath.
She paused on the landing when she saw him.
"Oh, Corey. I thought I saw Linda Carver's car. Are you selling?"
He hesitated, and then nodded. "Yeah. I am."
The elderly woman was quiet for a moment, studying him in that gentle, perceptive way of hers. He braced himself for questions about where he was moving and why he was leaving.
She didn't ask any of them.
"I'm glad," she said instead.
He blinked. "You are?"
"I am, dear." She shifted the grocery bag to her other arm. "I've watched you in that condo for three years now. You've taken such good care of it. So much care. But care isn't quite the same as living, is it?"
Corey felt something in his throat tighten.
"Your mother and father were lovely people," Mrs. Smith continued. "I always thought so. They used to bring me peaches in the summer. Your father grew them on that little tree out behind the building, do you remember? Before the storm took it down."
"I remember," Corey said quietly.
"They were lovely. And I think they would have wanted you to make this place your own, or to find a place that already was. Not to preserve them in amber the way you've been doing."
He couldn't answer.
Mrs. Smith reached out and patted his arm lightly. "I have a cousin, you know. She just retired and is looking for a small place on the island. If you'd like, I can mention it to her. She'd love this building."
"That—" Corey cleared his throat. "That would be kind. Thank you."
"Of course, dear." Her eyes were a little too sharp, a little too knowing. "And Corey? Whatever it is that's pushed you to finally do this, I hope it works out. You deserve to be somewhere that feels like yours."
She gave him one more small pat on the arm and continued down the hallway toward her own door.
Corey watched her go.
Then he turned and went back inside, and closed the door behind him, and stood very still in the middle of his packed-up living room.
The condo was emptier than it had ever been. More boxes filled, more things given away or thrown out.
Corey walked into the bedroom.
The room was mostly bare now. He'd packed up the bookshelves in here, the small stack of paperbacks he kept by the bed, the framed photos he'd kept on the dresser.
The only thing left out was the photo on his nightstand.
It was a picture of his parents on their thirtieth anniversary, taken at a restaurant in Charleston, his father's arm around his mother's shoulders, both of them laughing at something the photographer must have said.
He sat down on the edge of the bed and picked up the photo.
His mother had been wearing the blue earrings his father gave her for their twenty-fifth.
He remembered her showing them off to him that morning when they'd video chatted before the dinner.
He remembered her laughing on the call and his father in the background, calling out something about how she'd been showing those earrings off for five years already.
They'd died six weeks later.
He hadn't gotten to say goodbye.
Corey set the photo down carefully and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes.
He'd held onto this condo because letting go of it had felt like losing them all over again. He'd convinced himself that as long as he kept their lives preserved here, he was somehow keeping them.
He hadn't. He'd just been burying himself.
Until a tiny puppy had crashed into his life. And with Presti, Gayle had come into his life.
And then he'd lost them both.
Presti, who was probably going to a new home tomorrow. Gayle, who'd told him to step back. The bright, soft future he'd been picturing as he toured the small home with hardwood floors and a fenced yard.
He sat on the edge of the bed with the photo of his parents in his lap and finally let himself grieve.
When he was done, the late-morning light had shifted across the room. His face felt swollen. His chest ached the way it did after a hard run.
He stood, slowly, and put the photo back on the nightstand.
The photo was staying with him. So were the boxes marked Keep, and the few pieces of his parents' lives that he'd chosen to bring with him into whatever came next.
The rest of it he was leaving behind.
He had to.
He didn't know what his life looked like without Presti or Gayle or even the version of himself he'd thought he was becoming.
But he was going to figure it out.
He was thirty-eight years old. He'd already survived losing his parents. He could survive this, too.
He'd just have to keep going. One day, then another, then another. Until something started to feel like living again.
Corey wiped his face on his sleeve and walked back into the kitchen.
There was still packing to do.
He started taping up another box.