44 Joey
Joey
Joey’s house feels empty.
She has come to think of River as an extension of this space, she realizes. And the dog. God, she’s going to miss that dog. What Sophie said broke something inside her. Because she was right. Joey hasn’t lived.
She sorts through day-old mail. Most of it is trash, but there’s one bill for the coffee shop.
A second notice with a fee attached. That is not what she wants to think about right now, and apparently it’s something she didn’t want to think about before, either.
She leaves it on the counter, promising to finally sort it.
She needs to make plans to get that place back in shape.
The extra business from the movie shoot will be a huge help, but it needs more than that to become what it used to be.
The problem is that Joey just doesn’t care about it like Barbara did.
She has tried and tried to muster the enthusiasm for community events, maybe an open-mic night, a teen night, a guest speaker, or live band.
She knows what it will take, but she just doesn’t have it in her.
She’s not the kind of woman who gathers friends and community members together.
She’s the kind of woman who runs alone on mountain trails at night, who hides from herself.
Sophie and Elena coming back has brought her a speck of hope, she realizes.
It’s only been a few days, but she somehow feels more herself than she has since Quinn died.
They’ve had their disagreements, and they are far from perfect, sure, but she understands now that these are core friends, the kind that form the foundation of a life.
They are the kind of people you are lucky to have when they’re with you and who you miss like a limb when they’re gone.
What she wouldn’t give to just go back in time and do it all differently. Stay in touch. Stay close.
She sits, staring at her phone. The rush of emptiness in her bones weighs her down into the stiff contours of the couch.
Her lock screen is a photo of her own feet that she took during a run a few years ago.
There are no texts from Sophie or Elena.
Nothing from River. Not even a message from Zach, and she knows he’s this close to quitting.
She is truly alone. Joey’s obsession with the truth has poisoned everything.
It’s kept her from living, from having friends, from reconnecting.
Fifteen years is a lot of time to miss. This thought makes her so fundamentally sad that she finds it hard to breathe properly.
Elena and Sophie will leave in a few days, and Joey will be alone all over again.
She stands, then, and makes an impulsive decision.
It takes her ten minutes to take down all her pictures and notes and strings from the wall.
She doesn’t let herself keep anything except one.
She finds an old frame and slips a photo that has all four of them inside it.
This, she sets on the dresser. The case file, she tucks back under the sweater in the closet.
Then, she opens her laptop. With several click-and-drags, she brings everything involving Quinn to the trash icon in the corner of her home screen.
Her mouse hovers over the Empty button. She and Quinn once promised that if they both hadn’t left Whisper Ridge by the time they were thirty, they would leave together.
Quinn had laughed. “I’m going to be an inspirational speaker, so I’ll have to leave for all the international speaking engagements.
” Joey said she couldn’t wait to go with her, but even as she’d said it, she had a strange fermenting feeling in her gut.
She knew, even then, that she would never leave Whisper Ridge, no matter what they promised each other.
She couldn’t imagine a life anywhere else.
She ignored that little premonition until…
well, until she manifested it. She’s thirty-two and alone and still here.
“I’m sorry,” she says aloud to Quinn’s picture. “I’m sorry for that day. I’m sorry for what I did.”
She knows it’s not nearly enough, that she’ll never forgive herself. But she cannot do this. Not anymore.
She clicks Empty.