Page 9 of Feels Like Coming Home

“She texted me to not bring Thai, what’s that about? You love Thai, especially from the place around the corner. I could have brought you your usual.” Her voice was soft as she spoke. As I listened, I had a flashback to the last morning I spent with Connor, sitting in the dining room downstairs.

“You want your usual?”he had said as I put on my shoes and grabbed my bag to leave. I remember kissing him goodbye, fully expecting to have my usual with him that night as we sat together at the table, sharing about our days like we always did with dinner.

Before I could stop them, the tears were back in my eyes and I tried to remember to breathe. Within seconds, I was sobbing again for what felt like the hundredth time that week, unable to put words to my thoughts and explain why I was so upset.

“Oh, oh sweetie, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to make you cry, what did I say? I’m sorry!” I heard my friend say, panic in her voice knowing that she had said something to set me off. Piper was my best friend, but the way she cared for me was more like a sister. I started to cry even harder because I knew I had upset her.

Through my sobs, I watched as she took off her shoes and coat and then I felt the bed give way as she crawled into bed next to me. She wrapped her arms around my torso and held me, repeating a ritual we started in college. Whenever the other was upset, we would crawl into bed and lay with each other.

I managed to collect myself and slow my tears down enough to get out, “We were supposed to get Thai that night. The night of the accident. Connor was going to bring it home with him from the office and…” But I couldn’t say anything else before another crushing wave of grief and sobs overtook me.

Piper sucked in a breath, finally understanding why Thai food was an open wound for me.

Everything felt like an open wound to me.

Instead of saying anything, Piper just held me and let me cry, which hurt just as much as the thought of eating Thai again because I knew Connor would never again be able to hold me like this. For a brief moment, I closed my eyes and pretended that she was Connor in the hopes that I would finally,finallywake up from this terrible nightmare.

But I knew no matter how much I hoped I would wake up, I wouldn’t.

Connor wasn’t coming back and I wasn’t dreaming.

When I woke up,I realized I was alone and Piper was gone. At first, I thought I had made our entire interaction up as if it were a dream, but then I saw her shoes in the corner of the room and heard her voice downstairs. I listened for a second from the bed and heard a second voice, my mother’s.

“I feel horrible. When she mentioned how they were supposed to get Thai food that night I wanted to crawl into a hole. She was so upset just at the mention of it,” I heard Piper explain, her voice was hushed as if she was trying to prevent me from overhearing.

“Oh Piper, you are so kind to care so much about her, she’s lucky to have you as a friend,” my mom replied. I could just picture the face she was giving Piper, one that told you that you were okay and you hadn’t done anything wrong.

“Martha, I'm really worried about her. She’s not eating and she spends most of her days holed up in that room. Has she even gone into her room at all since the accident?” Piper questioned, her voice steeped with concern.

My mother sighed. “No, she hasn’t. She’s on this cycle of sleep, eating two bites and calling it a meal, and sleeping some more. She only takes a shower after I nearly drag her out of bed to do it. Then she goes right back into that room and goes back to sleep.”

“That’s not Haley, that’s not our girl,” Piper sounded as helpless as I felt.

“No, that’s not our Haley, but this Haley is hurting and we need to let her hurt. The only way for her to come out of this is to feel and feel it all. But eventually, when she’s ready, she will come out of this hurt. She’s strong, our Haley girl. I raised her to be strong.” Hearing my mother’s words brought more tears to my eyes which surprised me because I hadn’t had a full glass of water in days, and surely my tear ducts had to be empty at this point.

I thought about going downstairs to talk to them, but the thought of seeing the empty chair Connor once sat in at the dining room table made me feel like I had been permanently strapped to the bed. It hit me then that this whole house was a constant reminder of Connor, our marriage, and what we used to have.

The dining room table where he sat drinking coffee before heading into the office. The stove where he stood every night to cook me a proper meal because to him, ‘Anything cooked in the microwave for three minutes isn’t a real meal.’ The couch where we sat next to each other, watching my favorite TV show for the fourth time because he knew it made me happy.

And our bedroom where we would sleep, laugh together in the dark, and make love like we were still in our twenties.

This whole house was a reminder of what I lost.

A home that no longer felt like home because the thing that made it a home was no longer in it.

6

CAM | NOW

The first week of training hadn’t been that bad, but the second week was brutal. Coach Mike had us training three times a day to prepare for the first preseason game and wasn’t letting anyone give less than their best. We trained three hours in the morning, three hours in the evening, and had an hour of conditioning in between.

Honestly, I was grateful for the demanding schedule because it didn’t leave me a lot of extra time to think about the dream I’d had of Haley last week.

But holy shit was I tired.

After our final training on Friday, I asked Harvey if he wanted to grab a beer with me.

“I wish man, but Monica and the kids are waiting for me to go see a movie.”

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