Chapter 28
HOLLY
“What did you do?” I shriek at Anna, who’s gaping at Zoe’s urn where a tree stump a few yards away stopped it from pitching over the cliff. But not soon enough.
“Zoe!” Anna cries out, and we both lunge for the urn at the same time. Anna loses her footing again and falls hard on her knees.
I snatch the urn, hugging it to my chest the way I used to do with Quinn when he was crying and needed me.
“Is there anything left of her?” Anna reaches me, breathless. She brushes gravel from her knees and hands. There’s a raw spot on her palm and a trickle of blood on her knee where she skinned them. My only thought is that it isn’t punishment enough for what she’s done.
I brave a look inside. Nothing. I shake my head, glaring at her.
“Omigod, omigod.” Anna thrusts her hands in her hair, severely pulling it away from her face. “What are we going to do?”
“You aren’t going to do anything. You’ve already done enough.” I march back to the picnic site for the urn’s cap, not that there’s anything to cap. No thanks to Anna, the wind has taken all of our friend.
Almost all.
A thimble-sized amount rests in a small indentation in the beach towel.
“Oh, my god,” I whisper. We’re supposed to meet the Whitmores in Mexico for Zoe’s memorial with most of the ashes for her family to scatter.
I step on the beach towel, dislodging the ripple of fabric so I can collect this last bit of Zoe. But the wind is unsympathetic. Another gust snatches the ashes away.
I watch her go, dumbstruck.
How did we let this happen?
How did I let this happen?
What am I supposed to tell Mr. Whitmore? How do I explain what he feared would happen has actually happened? That we proved him right?
We never should have agreed to take this trip. I never should have agreed.
No, I never should have let myself trust Anna again.
“Holly.” Anna is at my side. “Holly,” she repeats, reaching for my arm.
“Don’t touch me.” I elbow her aside and move away. I don’t want her anywhere near me right now. “How could you be so irresponsible?”
“It was an accident.” Her plea only pisses me off further.
“Standing on the edge of a cliff to take a selfie wasn’t an accident. I told you to be careful.”
“It was a mistake. I made a mistake.” Her voice pitches in defiance.
“Are you kidding me? The only mistake was me letting my guard down around you.”
“That’s not fair.”
“You haven’t changed. Zoe and Jack were wrong.”
Hurt sits on her shoulders, weighing them down. “What do you mean?”
“I’m not better with you in my life. Look what we’ve done.
Look what you’ve done.” I shove the urn in her face, and she backs up.
“I gave Mr. Whitmore my word, my word,” I pound my chest, “that we’d do right by Zoe.
That he could trust us.” I laugh, dry and humorless.
“What a joke. We failed. We lost Zoe. There’s nothing left of her. ”
“That’s not fair,” Anna weeps.
“No, Anna, what isn’t fair is you pulling another stupid stunt that ruins everything.” My breathing is shallow as the words rush to the surface. “You haven’t changed because you screw up everything you touch.”
Anna looks like I keyed her prized Porsche. Her eyes turn into reflective blue pools. “I slipped,” she whimpers.
She slipped. But she should never have put herself in that position in the first place.
It’s also the final piece in the can-we or can’t-we puzzle we’ve been dodging and skimming since day one of this trip.
No, we can’t make things right between us, no matter how hard we pretend for Zoe’s sake. And I’ll never forgive her for what she did to Zoe—to us—in Greece today.
“This wasn’t all my fault.” Anna flips that blasted phone over and over in her hands. I want to hurl it off the cliff.
I show her my palm. “I don’t want to hear it.
A handful of decent moments doesn’t repair what’s wrong between us.
Zoe wanted us to try, and I did try. Lord, I tried.
But there’s too much to overcome. It never would have worked.
I can’t do this anymore.” I yank up the beach towel, scattering our lunch, and shove the towel into my bag.
Hugging the urn to my chest, I shoulder my bag and turn around.
“Where are you going?” she asks.
“Far from you.”
“You can’t blame me this time, Holly. You kicked the urn.”
“Because you fell at the edge of a cliff,” I shout, whirling back to confront her.
She thrusts her hands on her hips. “I didn’t fall. You came after me. You kicked Zoe.”
I shake my head, repulsed with disbelief. “I can’t believe you aren’t owning up to what you did.”
“Like last time? Is that what you want? So what?” She throws out her arms. “You’re going to hold another grudge against me for the rest of our lives? I’m sorry. I embarrassed you, Holly. Get over it.”
“That’s what you don’t get,” I yell back.
“You didn’t just embarrass me. You tagged me and the school where I worked with that damn photo.
You screwed my credibility with the school board and parents, and almost got me fired.
It’s taken me years to rebuild my reputation.
But worst of all, you made Jack question if he could trust me.
So, no, Anna. I will never forgive you. For that, or for this.
” I gesture at the empty urn and walk away.