Page 87 of Home Again
I renteda car after I landed in Charleston. I needed to drive and clear my head. I let Delilah know I’d landed but that I’d be arriving later.
Ella’s words seeped into my blood, tiny little weights pulling me under the waves.Her dad never would have left her. Not if he’d been given a choice.
She was right. I didn’t have to know Grace’s dad to know he wouldn’t have done what I did. He wouldn’t have left Grace or Ella if he’d had anything to do with it. I doubted Ella would believe me, but I didn’t want to leave them. I only wanted to be better for them, but the truth was, I didn’t know how.
When Ella said she was done, I didn’t try to fight it. How could I? She needed someone who could be there for her and Grace, someone she could really depend on. I thought I could have been that man, but when I saw the ghost of Carrie and what we went through together, I was reminded of how quickly I could lose it all. I didn’t think I could survive it again.
Ella was right to call it off. She deserved someone whose first inclination wasn’t to run. Still, her words sliced through my core. I could drive all day and never get away from them.
I found myself retracing many of the same steps Carrie and I had taken together around the city in an effort to feel near her… as though somehow she could tell me what to do.
First, I stopped in for some coffee and macaroons at our favorite place and sat near the window people watching, just like we used to do. Sitting there, I could almost see Carrie’s reflection in the glass out of the corner of my eye as though she were right across from me. Almost. But as soon as I blinked, her image disappeared.
I watched as couples came in, hand in hand, and left with coffees and boxes of pastries. One of them came in with their daughter who looked a little younger than Grace. A lump formed in my throat as I saw the man pull the woman close and kiss her tenderly. The young girl rolled her eyes, and her parents took that as an opportunity to sandwich her with kisses on either side of her cheek.
I sipped my coffee to find it now tasted sour, the bitterness I felt intermingling with the taste of the toasted praline roast. When I stood to leave, I took one last glance at the family, and I wondered if they knew just how lucky they were.
I walked down the street to the used bookstore Carrie had loved. My chest ached as I ran my fingers along the spines of hundreds of stories, the way Carrie once did. I wondered if any part of her still lingered amongst the pages housed there. Even after all this time, I wondered if there was a book that lived on those shelves that Carrie had touched. I closed my eyes and tried to connect with her there, yet somehow she felt further away than ever. That realization made the walls feel as though they were closing in on me, so I left in search of more echoes of Carrie.
As I got in the car, Grace sent me a text to ask if there was any work she could help me with, but I didn’t have the heart to respond. I knew it was only a matter of time before Ella told her what I’d done. She wouldn’t want anything to do with me, and she certainly wouldn’t want to work with me. I shoved my phone back in my pocket and drove some more.
Even though I could go to a Target store anywhere, I stopped at one while I was there because that’s what Carrie and I used to do after our date nights. We’d go to dinner, and afterwards she rarely wanted to go to a movie or to a bar for drinks. Instead, she wanted to roam the aisles of Target. The bright colors inside the store seemed dimmer, and everywhere I looked there were more couples and families. Their presence seemed to taunt me, heartbreaking reminders of what would never be.
Finally, I ended up at Folly Beach. I parked and walked along the water’s edge the way Carrie and I used to do and headed up to the pier. It was unusually quiet, and it felt like the sunset was putting on a show just for me. Vivid pinks gave way to shades of peach, the same color of Ella’s dress the night of Liv and Jax’s wedding. My chest tingled as I pictured her that night… the night it all began, even though I knew that my attraction to her had begun long before that.
I watched as the colors faded into darkness, and I thought about what a metaphor that gorgeous sunset had been for my time with Ella. In such a short time she had filled my life with color, but in her absence everything felt grey.
My phone rang from my pocket, and I suspected it was Delilah wondering where I was. When I brought my phone in front of me, I was shocked to see Derek’s name on the screen.
“Hey, Derek,” I answered.
“Where are you?” Derek’s voice was tense.
How does he even know I’m not in town?“What?” I asked.
“I talked to Ella. She told me everything.” Derek was the most even-tempered of all the guys of Midnight in Dallas. He rarely got mad, but he soundedpissed.“What the hell, Cash? Where are you?”
“She talked toyou?” I didn’t mean for my words to come out as accusatory as they did. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I’m just shocked.”
“Well, who was she supposed to talk to? It’s not likeyouwere there,” he fired back. “She asked me to come over and hang with Grace and Sam while she ran some errands. When she came back, she looked like she’d been crying.”
It felt like he’d punched me in the face.
“So, what gives?” he asked. “ Where are you?”
I paused for a few seconds and sucked in a deep breath. “Charleston.”
The line went quiet for a moment. “Okay. Why didn’t you just tell her that? I’m sure Ella would have understood if you wanted to go see Delilah and Richard.”
“That’s not entirely why I came.”
“So, why did you?”
“I don’t know, Derek. Alright?” The emotion exploded out of me. “The accident thing and Sam’s cancer scare really freaked me out. It hit too close to home. Losing Carrie was…” I didn’t have to finish the sentence because Derek knew. He and the guys had all been there for me through it. “I love them. The possibility of losing a spouse is bad enough, but achild?”
“Let me get this straight,” Derek said. “You didn’t want to risk losing them, so you justleft? You didn’t think to, I don’t know, tell Ella what you were feeling instead of abandoning them when they needed you?”
“I wasn’t abandoning them,” I insisted.
