Page 84 of Every Heartbeat After

The sound of fabric shifting, then what I imagine is an elbow hitting the hardwood, tells me she’s propped herself up to stare at me. “And why, pray tell, were you looking at jobs in Colorado?”

I squirm beneath her scrutiny but don’t answer. Can’t, really. All I know is one minute I was soaking in the same bathtub I’d washed my grandmother in for the last few months before she went into a care home, and the next, I was scrolling through a list of very outdoorsy roles that I am sorely underqualified for. Not that that’s ever stopped me.

Maybe it was the ache in my stomach when Gary called to see how the job search was going. Or the longing that strangled my windpipe when he mentioned he’d seen Kit at Zoey’s bar, confirming he’d made it back to Loveless in one piece. I shouldn’t care. I’d made it my business not to. But just the single syllable of his name was enough to bring me back to stage one of grief: denial.

Hence, Colorado.

“Also,” Alicia continues, not waiting for a reply that she knows isn’t likely to come, “respectfully, how the hell do you afford to live on the salaries from these jobs? If it weren’t for Destin being a doctor, we’d be screwed! Teaching might as well be a passion project for all they pay me.”

I weigh my options, deciding just how honest to be. But it’s Alicia, so of course I go for no holds barred in a way I’ve only ever been with her. Or Kit. “Being the sole beneficiary of four life insurance policies has a way of floating you for quite a long time.”

Her silence is heavy. I feel it pressing on me like a weighted blanket. Through a slitted eyelid, I peek up at her. She’s nibbling at her bottom lip.

“It’s o?—”

“Don’t say it’s okay,” she interjects, her voice no more than a whisper. Her brown eyes shutter for a moment. When they reopen, they’re washed with unshed tears. “I know we don’t talk about it often. And it’s not because it makes me uncomfortable, I can assure you of that. But I try not to bring it up because I see how much it upsets you. Especially this time of year. Especially when you go to the resort.”

“Alicia…”

“You’re selling their things. Looking at jobs in another city.” She shakes her head, the corner of her mouth tilting up. “Something changed for you this summer. And while I’m sure part of it is because of you, I can’t help but feel thathehad a lot to do with it.”

I release the breath I’d been holding in a whoosh, feeling my bones melt into the floor beneath me. Wishing I could slip right through, to the cool earth beneath, and let life sort itself out the way it feels so inclined. Letting things begin and end without emotion, without heartbreak. Trusting that each life is exactly as long as it needed to be. That love doesn’t have to be spoken aloud to change everything we are inside.

My throat bobs. I gaze up at my friend, vulnerable as I’ll ever be, and smile sadly. “I didn’t talk about it—couldn’ttalk about it—for a long time because it hurt so badly. Every heartbeat after losing Mom and Dad was a struggle. Every year that passed. Every summer at the Carmen. Every anniversary. While everyone else was growing up and growing older, I was doing the opposite. Moving backward. Becoming less and less, in the hopes that I’d eventually disappear.

“Then I found out I still had family in the world. And that family led me to Kit.” I wet my lips and draw in a hiccuping breath. Whisper, so the walls won’t hear me. “And I think Kit led me back to myself.”

Not the me I’d been pretending to be for so long, but the real Tess. One who could burst into tears if a sunrise was too beautiful, or wallow in sand without caring about the cleanup. One who sometimes needed to be spoon-fed pasta while wearing only a robe to bed because the grief was overwhelming. One who made love, and let love remake her, in the only place she remembered feeling alive.

The Tess who fell in love with him but was too scared to say it when it mattered the most.

“That’s wonderful, Tess.” Alicia’s watery smile quickly turns to confusion. “So what on earth are you doing here with me?”

“You let yourself in,” I say matter-of-factly.

She pins me with a glare. “You know what I mean. Why are you here when you could be there? You have no job tying you to this place, and if you think for one second that moving across state lines will keep me from you, you’re sorely mistaken. So what gives?”

I sit up, folding my legs in a crisscross, and curse my aching back. So much for the floor helping. “I can’t just up and move to Colorado for a man.”

“It’s not for a man. It’s for you.” Her hair dusts her shoulders as she tips her head this way and that. “Okay. And a little bit for a man. But let’s be honest, Gary’s worth it. He killed at Christmas karaoke.”

Leave it to Alicia to deflate my very real worries with a pinprick of relentless laughter. The mental image of my uncle, drunk on peach schnapps and brandy, singing “Here Comes Santa Claus” at the top of his lungs in Alicia and Destin’s living room will never not win any argument in which it’s brought up.

When the giggling finally dissolves, my cheeks ache and my abs are in stitches. I take Alicia’s hand in mine and hold it against my heart, which beats in a rapid tempo. “Would it be absolutely insane?”

“Yeah, but that’s kinda your MO.”

I let out an exasperated sigh, but hope keeps my lungs afloat like a buoy. “Am I really going to do this?”

She nods. For the first time since mentioning it, sadness enters her expression. “You’re really going to do this.”

“What about you?” I ask, throat raw from blending tears and joy and trepidation all into one. “What will you do without me?”

“First of all, I’m going with you. I’m off for the summer, and a cross-country road trip sounds amazing.” She taps my nose with our clasped hands. “Then I’ll probably buy this house.”

“What?” I scoff.

“Yeah.” She shrugs, leaning back to peruse the room. “Lots of potential, and we’ve been hoping to move closer to town. The commute from Foley is a bitch on school days.” Her brown eyes dart to meet mine in a mischievous smirk. “And besides, I know the owner, and she’s selling for way below market value.”

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