Page 1 of The Rest is History

Chapter 1

Reece Carter

I have always known my first love.

When you’re six, you don’t call it that. You tell your dad that you ‘made a friend today’. The boy from next door.

At seven, he comes over to your house and stands next to you while you blow out your candles because he’s ‘your best friend’.

Then, at thirteen, the lines begin to blur.

At sixteen, you breathe into his mouth in a kiss so tender it could make angels sigh that you are his forever, and he is yours. The world disappears around you, and nothing else exists. You give him all your firsts, and he gives you all of his. You make promises made only to first loves: Forever and always and eternally.

I have always known Asher Cameron.

I have no recollection of a moment in my life when he did not exist. He came to live next door at some point not long after my mother left, and that’s all I knew.

But when sixteen became seventeen, and we got careless with our secrets, my father destroyed Asher. I’ll never forget his rage the day he found my journal with all those secrets, nor the disbelief in Asher’s eyes when he realized what the price would be for loving me. Asher’s family, so unlike mine, took him away to protect him. To save him from us. From me. I was the reason he had to leave and losing Asher and his parents felt as if they had died.

A click of heels cuts through the air gently. Elaine Connerly, my realtor, is doing one last look through the house. I don’t move. She’s given me my space to say goodbye to the home I thought I would grow old in with my wife. The home we would watch our daughter grow up in, celebrate unicorn birthdays in, ground her in for some or other petty reason no one would remember in a week. The home she would leave for college one day.

But things don’t always work out the way you think. Dreams are unkind, deceptive evils. Only there to show you all the things you’ll never have. They’re there – all the wonders of life. Just not for you. You’re too much. An attention seeker. Too demanding for love. So demanding, in fact, that people get tired of you. Other times, you’re not enough. Too weak. Not man enough.

Asher never got tired of me.

A sigh keeps my chest from tightening. I’ve been here long enough. Elaine will want to wrap things up. The property photographer left ages ago. He got some nice aerial shots, he told Elaine. The place will sell in no time. It’s the perfect house for a family.

I take a step back. Yes. We built it with money from my trust fund – my father’s money, and he never lets me forget it – for that exact reason. For a family. For Abigail.

I didn’t care much for its size and opulence. I always preferred smaller spaces, like Asher’s house next door when we were kids. But what if Abby grew up to have tons of friends? We had sleepovers and parties to think about. A dozen teenage girls under one roof needed their space.

My eyes burn, blurring the bright yellow and black hand-painted bees that occupy the soft yellow wall behind the wooden crib. I’d convinced myself she would love the bees when she was old enough.

I place my hand over my mouth, using my thumb and index finger to pull down the skin under my eyes so my tears won’t fall.

How long have I been standing here? Thirty minutes? I blink the tears away, dragging my fingers carefully over my lower lashes where some of my tears are caught, and the wall comes into focus again. The last few months melt away and I cast my eyes around the room, watching the reel play in my mind as if it were happening now.

“Are you sure you want yellow on yellow?” I ask Julie, pointing to the paint samples in her hand.

She’s cross-legged on the floor, her round, heavy belly almost touching the soft yellow carpet when she leans forward to place the samples on it.

Julie was the most beautiful pregnant woman I’d ever seen. Maybe I was being biased because she was carrying my child. Maybe all the beauty she had inside her was shining through, and that is what made her so beautiful. There was only one person more beautiful to me than Julie, but that wasn’t to say I didn’t love her. I didn’t love her the same, but I loved her, nonetheless.

“Yeah. I think so,” Julie says. “It’s . . . calming. Do you think she’ll like it?”

I’d laughed. We would’ve had to wait about four or five years before our daughter would develop enough of her own personality to tell us how much we sucked for choosing yellow for her bedroom walls. And carpet. And crib. Even the lamp shade and dresser were yellow.

I have to blink away my tears again. Maybe she would’ve loved yellow. Abigail. Maybe Abigail would have loved yellow. It’s what I told Julie, but obviously, we couldn’t have known for sure. We would just have to wait and see. But now, we’ll never know. Now, we can’t wait and see. All the what ifs and maybes are now forever out of our reach. We left the hospital with nothing more than a new set of vocabulary that will haunt us forever: umbilical cord prolapse. Fetal distress. Unstable vital signs.

Sometimes I feel so alone it overwhelms me. Sometimes, I think I'm okay and sometimes it's like I'm drowning. I know she's gone, Abigail. I know in my head it's not my fault, and there was nothing anyone could have done, but still, I can't stop blaming myself.

Elaine’s voice comes from just behind me, in the hall. “Meet me out front when you’re ready?” she says. Her voice is soaked in compassion, and I want to tell her to stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. It’s over and it’s finished. Please act normal. But this is what she must do. If she doesn’t, I’ll accuse her of being insensitive. She can’t win. No one can win because grief cannot be comforted.

I angle my head but don't turn around. I need to look at the bees. Their bright colors are all that’s left in my gray world. “Yeah. Thanks, Elaine.”

“Do you want to leave all the gardening tools? Any new owner would love that,” she says.

“Sure.”

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