She turns around slowly, this time to face me and cuts me off. For a moment, by the look in her eyes, I think she understands me. “Here’s the thing, Ben, I don’t care what you’re going through or what you did. Don’t talk to me again. I mean it.”
So I put my hands up in surrender and let her leave. There’s no explaining what I did because I shouldn’t have done it. I stand there and watch her walk away from me again, all the while thinking I might have just blown the best thing that’s happened to me in a long time.
Moving onward through the maze of bushes that surrounds me, I leave Sloan, who is still sitting on the bench waiting for my return, without a word. I have something I want to take care, a small gesture to let S’belle know I do care.
I stop by Beck’s. He’s not there but I find what I need to break into her car in the backroom. I shimmy open her lock and pop the trunk. Once I’ve changed her tire, I hide the keys under the mat, and glance at my watch. I remove it and search for a piece of paper. Finding a stray receipt and a pen I write a quick note:
Bell,
Use this until you purchase another.
And call me if you ever want to talk.
Your keys are under the mat.
Ben
646-453-1234
Then I hit the lock button, slam the door, and head back to the motel hating myself for the way the night ended.
Chapter 9
Pain
March first, a new month, almost spring, and it’s also two days until the anniversary of my death—that cluster of fucked-up events that I can’t wrap my head around. I’ve been reading through my journals—the ones I still have left. I came across an entry from when I first came back to Laguna. I read the pages over and over. How much pain had I caused the people I loved by making that decision? How had I changed the course of everyone’s lives?
Do you ever try to pinpoint any one event in your life that may have changed everything? I do—all the time. But there seems to be so many I’m not sure changing any one would ever change the whole or make anything better.
I lie on my bed, closing my eyes, just thinking. My choice to come back wasn’t all that bad. . . . I had helped Trent, I had made my mother’s eyes sparkle, I had been there to help my sister with her son. So, no, it wasn’t all bad. I sit up and grab my journal. Letting it fall open, I read the entry in front of one more time.
I asked Mom if Dahl was seeing anyone. She was hesitant to tell me anything at first, but admitted there was a guy she was serious about and Dahl had been seeing him for a while. I guess I can assume he’s the same guy Caleb told me about. It’s not that I didn’t want her to move on—I never thought I’d be back. But I just never thought I’d have to see it.
I also asked if Dahl had dated many guys and she told me no, just the one. I had hoped there were more because that would make her more like me. She would have been doing what I had been doing—trying to find a substitute to fill the hole. When I first got to New York I was lost. I had no one. For months I didn’t go out or talk to anyone. Then after a while I tried to date someone, but everything we did just brought me back to the life I left, the life I missed, and it wasn’t fair to that girl.