Page 88 of Best I Never Had

As soon asI walk through the front door of my childhood home, I’m rushed with a greeting from every mourning relative that gathered around the living room. My aunts and uncles, cousins, and even family friends that my parents gained over the decades they’ve spent in Ohio, growing within this life that revolved around routine and consistency. A standard that I walked away from and now regret with everything in me. Because if I had stayed at home, listened to everything my dad asked me to do with my life, I would’ve been there to say goodbye. I wouldn’t be carrying around this anvil of guilt making my heart heavy.

“Hayden!” my mom calls from the living room. She runs toward me, her arms wide open and eyes rimmed red. She pulls me close to her, runningher hand up and down my back as she sniffles back her tears. “I’m so glad you’re home.”

The next hour becomes a blur. I’m ushered into the living room, extending my greeting to everyone while my aunt passes around plates of some slop she claims is casserole. My own remains on my plate, cold and uneaten, as I can’t stomach a single thing.

Late into the evening, when it’s just me and my mom, we sit across from each other at the kitchen island, the dim light hovering over us like a spotlight. I stay quiet while my mom fidgets with her wedding ring. I wonder to myself how long she’ll wear it until I push that thought out of my head.

“We were going to visit you,” she says, her quiet voice louder than it actually is over the silence. I look up at her, but her gaze is settled on her ring, the diamonds and platinum twirling around her finger. “He wanted to go and see your restaurant. Eat your food.”

I sigh as I run a hand over my face, scraping against the day-old scruff settled around my jawline. When I don’t say anything, she keeps going.

“He really was proud of you. When Pat called and gave him crap for being so stubborn, he changed. It sounds strange, but it was like he knew he needed to let you know how proud he was. Like he knew he was saying goodbye.” The last of her words are drowned in a sob as she wipes her eyes with a napkin that’s become a permanent fixture to her hand as the day has worn on.

I stand, round the counter, and wrap my arms around her to console her.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” I whisper into her hair.

She turns to look at me, her soft smile peeking through the quivering of her chin. “Oh, honey. You don’t have to be sorry.”

I shake my head. “No, I should have just listened to him. Done what he wanted. Then at least I would’ve had the last two years with him.”

She stands from her stool, swiveling to face me as she stands over a foot shorter than me. She holds my arms in her hands, squeezing them to get my attention. The tears start welling up as my throat constricts with the regret lodged there.So many regrets.

“Hayden, listen to me,” she urges. When the first of my tears fall, I finally look at her. “Your father wanted what was best for you. Your future, college, everything. He just wanted what he thought was best. But he was wrong.”

I become a blubbering mess as her solemn eyes look at me, convincing me that my choices aren’t a mistake. Her hand reaches to move my hair out of my face and wipe my tears. Although it’s pointless, as the tears don’t seem to stop.

“He was stubborn, and you had to deal with the result of that stubbornness. But don’t you for a second believe that he wasn’t proud of you.”

I sob, lowering my head onto her shoulder as she pats my back. “I just miss him. So much.”

“I know, baby. I know.”

I’m sitting on a twin-size bed, decorated with yellow floral sheets and a stuffed walrus named Harold, in Natalia’s childhood bedroom. My back is leaned up against the wall where Harry Styles’s face is smiling directly at me. I would move further away, but then I’d be eye-to-eye with Robert Pattinson.

“You know that Edward dude was wearing a wig when he filmedTwilight?”

Natalia’s head pops up from behind her laptop, and her brow furrows, with a scowl of disapproval on her face. “No, he wasn’t. You made that up.”

I shrug.

She rolls her eyes before returning her intense gaze back to her lit-up screen.

I’ve been back home for twenty-four hours now, and I had to get out of my house. The family members that were there when I arrived returned in a swarm the following morning, fawning over me and my mom as we assured them we didn’t need more food. I needed to get some air. So I called Natalia, hoping to spend some time with her and get my mind off funeral planning. With all the arrangements jotted down by the funeral planner my mom hired, the service will take place this Friday. It’s fast. Too fast. In a few days, we’ll be saying our goodbyes and lowering my dad’s casket into the family plot where my grandparents are buried.

I want to bring Natalia back to my house, introduce her to my mom so she understands that Natalia is important to me but with the chaos that’s settled in our living room, it’ll have to wait.

My foot that’s extended over the edge of the bed taps the bottom of Natalia’s where her leg hangs over the opposite knee. She looks up at me again but this time, there’s no hint of the annoyance she carried when I dissed Edward Cullen.

“You want to talk?”

I simultaneously shrug and scratch my head. “I think I’m getting a little bit of cabin fever.”

She closes her laptop and gently places it on her desk, where it sits under a corkboard of pictures with her and her sisters and string lights that are turned off.

“Come on, Marshall,” she says, her hand patting my thigh as she stands up from her cushy lounge chair. She reaches for the keys to her dad’s minivan and turns back to face me. “I know just what you need.”

After a fifteen-minute drive, we turn down multiple streets that start to look familiar. Residential areas that have warning signs for childrencrossing and the repetitiveness of stop signs and speed bumps. After a final turn, we come face to face with Coolidge View High. The parking lot is full of cars parked half haphazardly in assigned spots and those that are marked as student or faculty. Natalia pulls into an empty spot with the sign Visitor posted at the head.

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