Page 61 of The Truth About Love

The elevator doors open to a full view of the office floor. Opposite me, an entire wall of windows looks out over downtown Tallahassee. Everywhere, books pile on surfaces. On shelves, sideboards, even stacked into towers on the floor. Three obtrusively large meeting tables take up most of the centre floor space, where the staff are forced to sit together to do their work.

Having read an article about the benefits of community work environments last year, Martha had all the office cubicles removed and replaced with the three whopping planks of mahogany in the hopes that it would encourage collaborative work and offer more learning opportunities. I’m not sure I’ve seen the benefits myself yet, but she seems pleased with the new layout.

The day passes slowly. I spend most of it with my head buried in manuscripts, copy editing and proofreading until my eyes sting. By the time I look up from my work, half-light bathes the office space in a purple-orange glow. The sky looks like it’s been set on fire and for a while I sit and watch it burn.

It doesn’t matter how much time has passed, sunsets always remind me of Summer-Raine. Those evenings we spent wrapped together on her balcony as we watched the night come in with the tide. I remember them so vividly that I can almost feel the tickle of her hair on my cheek and smell the salt of the ocean in the air.

Despite what ended up happening between us and how much she hurt me, I still feel something akin to homesickness when I think of her. Nostalgia is a funny thing. Time passes but a yearning for the halcyon days never ceases. It’s what makes me reach for my wallet and pull out the sprig of lavender that I’ve held onto for the last five years.

Shortly after Summer-Raine gave it to me, I had it preserved in resin and then set in glass. It probably wouldn’t have lasted the test of time without it. And though life has moved on, I’m not sure how I’d feel if I ever had to part with it. It marks the time in my life that I was happiest and it’s nice to remember that feeling sometimes.

As deep as my feelings for Cara are, she doesn’t set my soul on fire the way Summer-Raine used to.

The office has slowly emptied, leaving me sitting alone at one of the vast meeting tables. I turn the lavender keepsake over repeatedly in my fingers as I stare out the window at the twilight.

It’s been a month since I last called Winter Taylor. A month since I last asked for an update on how her sister is doing. I told myself I wouldn’t call again. I figured five years is long enough to go regularly checking up on someone who broke my heart so momentously, yet my fingers twitch to pick up my phone once more.

And because I’m a weak man with no self-control, I do.

Winter picks up on the third ring.

“Auden, hey.” Her voice is breathless, as if she’d been running before picking up the phone.

“This a bad time?”

I can hear the babble of little voices in the background, giggling and squealing as they run rings around their mother.

“No, no,” she pants. “It’s fine.”

I cringe at the sound of Winter cursing under her breath, then yelling after one of her kids. It doesn’t sound like it’s a good time, but I’m not about to argue with her.

“You doing alright?” I ask.

“Sure.” She sighs. “But that’s not what you called to ask, is it?”

Perhaps I should feel guilty, or at least a little sheepish, about calling Winter simply to ask about her sister, but we’ve done this song and dance enough times. Denying it would only be lying and she’d know it too.

So, I ask the question I really want the answer to. “How’s she doing?”

I hear her suck in a breath through her nose, her momentary hesitation causing my gut to twitch in apprehension. “She’s not well, Auden.”

My heart plummets. How after all this time does it still ache so much to know that Summer-Raine is hurting? I react the same every time Winter tells me she’s having a bad day or going through a particularly dark period. It causes me actual physical pain.

“What’s going on?” I ask, a slight tremor in my voice.

“She’s just kind of checked out, I guess. Like she’ll look at me, but I never know if she can actually see me cause her eyes are glazed over. It’s kind of scary. It’s like she’s a zombie. I’ve had to go out in the middle of the night a couple times to find her after someone’s rung me to say they’ve seen her wandering around somewhere.”

Hearing this kills me.

If she hadn’t suddenly started refusing to see me after her accident in senior year, it would be me chasing Summer-Raine around town at all hours of the day. I’d have found her, taken her home and held her to me until the sun came up. I can say that with certainty. If she hadn’t ended us the way she did, I know for a fact that we’d still be together.

There was no way in hell I’d have ever wanted a life without her.

But as angry and hurt as it still makes me, I can almost understand why she did it. If I hadn’t called out after her on the cliff that day, she wouldn’t have fallen the way she did. If I hadn’t called out after her, maybe she wouldn’t have gotten hurt the way she did.

God, the memory of her floppy, jack-knifed body hurtling towards the water still haunts me even now.

It’s something I’ll never forgive myself for.

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