Chapter 18
ANNA
The nerve of her. I have too changed.
I stomp off, weaving through the guest cabins and past the dining hall toward the fishing hole, a marshy pond the dude ranch stocks with trout. I can hardly see where I’m going. I’ll probably walk straight into the water, I’m so fumed.
“Screw you, Holly.” I raise both arms in the direction of our cabin and flip her off. It’s childish, but I don’t care. So what if the gesture feels hollow.
I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly chilled despite the pleasant Montana night, my anger already fading to leave behind something worse.
That familiar ache of rejection. It’s a heavy weight on my chest and I feel lonelier than ever.
After suffering years of her ostracizing me from her life and snubbing my attempts to make up for what I did, she still believes I’d risk a repeat of Greece. It couldn’t be further from the truth.
For a moment I stop walking, my vision blurring with tears I’ve held back since the second we stepped off the plane at Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport.
Heck, since the moment I saw her in Mr. Whitmore’s office wearing her indifference like a second layer of skin.
As if it could protect her from having to feel anything for me.
But I saw her hand shake when she reached for the envelope.
I heard her breath catch when Zoe’s name was spoken.
She’s hurting as much as me. But how am I to get through to her when she keeps pushing me away?
With a huff, I resume walking at a brisk pace.
I reach the pond and I follow the dirt path around the perimeter, confiding in the only person I can.
“Everything I’ve been doing is with her in mind, Zoe.
I’ve changed. You know I have.” I watch every word around her, measure every action, second-guess every instinct.
I stay off my phone when she’s around. Or, at least, try to because it makes her squeamish.
Then I have to go and slip up! One stupid story, one moment of forgetting to be careful and I’m right back to being the Anna who ruins everything.
The one she can’t trust. “What more am I supposed to do?” I shout at Zoe, as frustrated with her as I am with Holly.
After I’d seen the falling star, I had an idea.
If I pushed her out of her comfort zone I could push her into cracking.
She’d let down her guard. We’d talk it all out.
She’d finally forgive me and we’d move on.
But she blindsided me tonight. I don’t know how much more I can take.
How much more either of us can take if we keep ignoring The Incident.
The massive elephant sitting between us everywhere we go.
My boot tip connects with a small rock, sending the stone flying into the pond with a noisy kerplunk. A snippet of satisfaction sparkles. I kick another rock, and another. Kick, kick, kick.
I’m definitely buzzed.
Again, I don’t care.
And I don’t care what Holly thinks.
Because I have changed. I have been thinking about Zoe, and Holly, and the two of us, every stinking second on this trip. And if she can’t see that, well, tough beans.
Maybe Brody’s right. Maybe Holly isn’t worth the effort, not when I keep getting hurt in the process.
“No!” I shock myself hearing the vehemence in my voice, but I stop the thought in its tracks, remembering I promised myself I’d do whatever it takes to make her come around. Holly is worth it. She’s always been worth it. We need each other.
My phone pings, notifying me I have five percent battery life left.
I smirk at the irony because I’m drained, too.
Needing a little pick-me-up, I access my Luxe Vacations feed on Insta to read the comments from this evening’s #goodbyezoe post only to see my @FiskyAnna profile at the top of the screen notifying me of my new story.
I tap the little circle image and there I am, at the bonfire, laughing, singing, and drinking with a bunch of raucous cowboys and cowgirls.
And Brody, oozing sex appeal through the camera.
But this time, I watch the clip as if I’m Holly, and sure enough when I switch over to my other account and tap the tiny icon to see who’s viewed the story, there she is.
While in comparison it’s not even in the same league as Greece, I can see how she’d find the two scenes similar given how sensitive she is.
I am an idiot, the same careless Anna who posts first and thinks later.
The same Anna who hurt her best friend so badly that five years later, she still flinches every time I reach for my phone.
The same Anna so desperate for connection that she will take what she can get, even if it’s an online heart.
My buzz crashes and burns. So does my foul mood, snuffed out like one of Cosima’s Sobranie Gold cigarettes under the heel of her slingback pump.
I start walking again, my stride sluggish and kind of all over the place.
The video clip is exactly what Holly would expect to see in my stories, and I handed it to her on a beer-soaked platter: Me drunk and partying.
How could I have been so careless? No wonder she doesn’t believe I’ve changed.
I stop again, pressing the heels of my hands against my eyes. The tears come but I don’t let them fall. I’ve cried enough over this. “Damn it,” I mutter. Why did I have to post that story? Why did I drink so much? Why do I care so much about what she thinks of me?
I drop my hands and open my eyes to a blinding light. My hand flies back up to shield my face. “Gah, what the heck?!”
“Sorry.” Holly points the flashlight at the ground. “I couldn’t tell who it was.”
“Who else would it be?” I ask, surprised to see her, but not really. She might hate me, but she’d still worry until I returned to our cabin. Once she knew I was safe, then she’d remind me where we stood with each other. “Where did you find that thing?”
“Under the sink in the kitchenette.” We both stare at the massive flashlight illuminating our shoes. “I—” she starts, stops. Her weight shifts from one leg to the other, and I figure she’s winding up to rip into me again.
“Look, Hols—”
“I’m sorry,” she interrupts.
“What?” I blink, unsure I heard her correctly. I must be more drunk than I thought.
“I’m sorry about what happened back there. I overreacted.”
“Oh.” Wow. I was not expecting that. “You don’t owe me an apology. I shouldn’t have posted that story.”
“It was innocent fun. It wasn’t for me to judge. Though it’s totally different from what you’ve been posting these past few days.”
I stare at her. I know she follows me, but after our discussion this morning I didn’t imagine she’d be reading my #goodbyezoe posts.
“Your photos are beautiful and your words… they’re heartbreaking.
I didn’t expect this trip to be easy, but I wasn’t prepared for how hard it would be.
Every time you post something, I’m reminded again of how much we’ve lost.” The flashlight beam shakes.
Her hand is trembling. I want to pull her in for a hug, but I don’t, afraid any sudden movement will spook her and she’ll pull a Holly and retreat.
Instead, I say, “It sucks having to say goodbye to her over and over.”
“It does,” Holly says, and I instantly feel lighter.
This simple agreement feels like a bridge between us.
Tentative, fragile, but real. And for a couple beats we’re silent, thinking on what we just said, watching the beam dance from her feet to mine and back, then over to the bushes, chasing some rodent scurrying across the trail. We both startle at the noise.
“Do you think we can do this?” Holly asks when it’s gone quiet again.
The question catches me off guard, especially coming from her. “We are doing it. Pretty well, too, I think. We’ve had to get a bit creative with Zoe’s requests, but we’ve managed.”
Holly shakes her head. She points from me to herself. “I mean us.”
“Oh. Oh!”
Holly’s brows rise in a silent “Oh?” and I can’t help myself.
I start to laugh. Blame it on the beer, exhaustion, or feeling overly emotional, but I can’t hide my giddiness as laughter bubbles up from somewhere deep inside me, from someplace I’ve kept locked for five years.
It’s pain and relief and hope all mixed together, coming out of me in hysterical giggles. She’s asking if we can be us again.
Yes! I want to shout. Yes, we can.
Holly’s face scrunches up in confusion over my odd reaction until I see it, a brick tumbling.
Then the entire wall crumbles. She starts laughing too, and it’s the most beautiful sound I’ve heard in years.
It’s the Holly laugh, the one that starts with a snort and rolls into an infectious giggle that only makes us laugh harder.
We’re laughing and crying, and I don’t even know why anymore, except that it feels like a dam breaking, flooding us with joy and happiness.
“Bones. There were bones,” she says between gasps of laughter.
“I know, right?” We’re laughing so hard there are tears in our eyes. “Oh, my gosh, when they spilled out from the urn. That was so—”
“Gross,” Holly finishes.
We shudder at the memory, the image sobering us.
“This morning was hard,” I say, dabbing away the dampness in the corners of my eyes. But they’re not just tears from the laughter anymore. They’re tears for Zoe, for the fact that it took her death to get us in the same room, let alone at least try to get along.
“Yeah, it was. And I haven’t been going out of my way to make it any easier. It’s hard for me to talk about her, and I’m out of practice talking to you.”
I see on her face the weight of the admission. “Wow, Holly. Where’s this coming from?” I ask, my voice soft and careful like I’m approaching a wounded animal. Because that’s what we both are, wounded by loss and betrayal and our own stubborn pride.
“You weren’t the only one tonight who reminded me I can be a pain in the ass. I miss her.” Holly’s free hand flutters to the twin of the necklace I’m wearing. It’s the first time I’ve seen it on her since Greece. My heart grows bigger at the sight of it.
I touch my own necklace and align the three gold stars over the notch between my collarbones. “I miss her, too.”
I want to add that I’ve missed Holly as well. That I miss what we once meant to each other, but something moves in the brush behind us. I shriek and Holly drops the flashlight. “Shit,” she gasps. It rolls down the embankment, turning off in the process. “Shit,” she says again.
I tap my phone to use the flashlight, but the screen remains dark. “My phone is dead,” I gripe.
Holly grabs my hand. “You’ll be okay. We’ll get through this together,” she says, straight-faced.
“Funny,” I drawl, then giggle as happiness spreads through me that she can joke with me again.
Holly retrieves the flashlight that thankfully was stopped by a rock before it rolled into the water and tugs my hand. “Let’s get back to the cabin and give that phone of yours some much-needed rest.”
“Har, har.” But I’m grinning.
There’s so much more we have to say to each other, so much to resolve. But we’ve taken a huge step forward tonight. It isn’t everything, but for now, it’s something.