Page 13 of The Significance of Moving On

Wow. Innuendo fills the room like a bad 1970’s porn ’stache fills the screen. The chemistry between Kelsey and Demetrius blazes hot enough to set the house on fire. I feel like an intruder in their private moment.

Casey must feel it too, because he claps his hands together. “Time for a movie,” he says to get us moving to the theater.

We live close enough to the cineplex that it takes us no more than a five-minute drive. The four of us piled into Demetrius’s truck, an extended cab with more leg room for the boys and elbow room for us girls. Casey got shotgun while Kelsey and I giggled and whispered secrets in the backseat.

Being here feels normal. I need normal—to laugh and act like a teenager again, hanging out with friends. I think we all need to laugh.

Demetrius has turned out to be a pretty cool guy once he figured out how to talk to me. And it’s super cute the way Casey gets all Mr. Protective around us, like he’s afraid his brother might try something with Kelsey when the lights go out.

The men spoil us with popcorn and candy and sodas. Then the movie has so many hilariously ridiculous tropes that I laugh hard enough I feel like I might pee my pants.Exactlywhat I need.

After the show, we stop at a diner, but my appetite hasn’t been super strong as of late and the popcorn filled me plenty. Casey and D—as he calls Demetrius—eat burgers and fries while Kelsey has a salad. I sip on an iced tea. At points I fall into the fun right along with them, and for a brief period, I’m living in the moment until the guilt hits. Is it wrong to be having fun this soon after Tom? Does that make me a bad sister? Sitting here listening to them laugh, the tightening in my chest begins once more and that popcorn starts doing really bad things to my stomach.

Air. I need air.

“I’m, I’m going to step outside for a minute.” It’s not a run, but I do speed walk around waitresses, feeling that sucking vortex threatening to consume me yet again. I don’t get it, he left me.Heleftme.

Outside, I step around the corner of the diner to keep incoming and outgoing patrons from seeing my brand of crazy unleashed onto the world. My whole body shakes as I heave buttered popcorn and partially digested sno-caps project from my mouth onto the shrubbery.

Jesus, Chantal’s gone into meltdown mode.

The tears waterfall as the heaving and shaking intensify. I don’t want to be this person. I want to be the old me who always had fun with Kelsey. I want Casey to know that me.

“Hey, I’m here. I’m here.” He holds my hair back until I’m left with dry heaves and a sweat-glistened face.

“I’msorry.”

“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for. It takes time, okay? But… you are allowed to let go and have fun.” It’s like he’s crawled inside my brain, or he has psychic abilities. How else could he know what I’ve been thinking? “It’s not betraying Tom’s memory and it doesn’t mean you love him any less.”

“Is she all righ—oh crap!Al.” Kelsey bends to hug me but Casey waves her away.

“She’ll be fine. Go back with my brother. We’ll be in in a bit,” he says to her. I can see the reluctance on her face. She is, above all else, a loyal friend. I give her a slight nod to let her know it’s okay. Casey is really the only one who’s ever seen me this bad. Even when my dad died, I don’t know; I wasn’t all that close with him because he worked all the time and I had Tom and the rest of my public-school friends. This, whatever this is, is reserved for those of us who have lost the world. “Tally, look at me.” He gently spins me in his arms to hesitantly meet his eyes. “I’m going in to get some napkins. I’ll be right back. Right back.”

Every party has a pooper and I’m the party pooper. Since I officially ruin our fun afternoon out, Casey not only comes back out with napkins, but D’s car keys. He helps me into the backseat and climbs in next to me while we wait for the other two to finish up.

Once we make it home, I go right to my room. Kelsey lies down to squeeze onto the twin-size bed with me. I’m pretty beat down and she knows it, meaning like Casey, she doesn’t push. This is why I love her. As I lean my head against the strap of her Betty Boop tank top, she strokes my hair. “So,” she says. “How sexy is Demetrius?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know? His skin is the color of dutched cocoa—don’t tell himI said that. I’ve heard some people hate having their skin color described as food, but dude, hot cocoa is my favorite and you know he works out, too. He has to. A body like that doesn’t happen naturally. Did you see how taught his shirt stretched across his chest?”

“No. I guess I didn’t really pay attention.”

“Guess you wouldn’t.” She laughs lightly. “But that Casey, he’s delicious, too.”

“Yeah, I mean, I don’t know.” Heat spreads all over my body, hairline to toenails. She lets me pretend to sleep until I finally do.

Chapter Seven

D-day. Tom’s house. Kelsey says she’s here to scale the castle walls with me. Casey says it’s time to storm the beach. But they’re both wrong. Tom’s house isn’t a castle wall or a beach; those are both inanimate, able to be conquered. Tom’s house is a beast, an ugly, snarling beast, snapping and barring its teeth. If one of them would say slay the dragon they’d be closer and I’d know someone understands. But they don’t.

And now I feel like little red riding hood standing before a place that was once spilling over with life, love and magic—what big eyes it has.

“Hey.” Casey slips in next to me, his hand finding the reassuring spot at the small of my back. I look from him to the house. “I was wrong,” he whispers into my ear. “This isn’t a beach at all. It’s a beast.”

My heart stills. He sees the beast? I start to tremble, but his hand moves in those calming circles.

“We can still defeat it,” he whispers again.

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