Ava doesn’t know I’m doing this. When I agreed to help her with invitations, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to slip you a note. I mailed a card to your mom’s house, but since your family wouldn’t let us see you, I’m guessing you didn’t get it. The plan is to hand-deliver this one, so here’s hoping.
We all miss you. Girls’ night isn’t the same without your quirky sense of humor, and Ava isn’t the same without her best girlfriend. I’ve been able to have my sister by my side as I plan my wedding, but Ava’s doing it without you. She wants to let you heal. She wants to respect your request for distance. Are you sure this is what you want?
Know that we all love you, and you’ll always have a home here, whether you want to return to it now, next month, or in a few years.
I hope to see you at Ava and Jake’s wedding, or as soon as you’re ready. We can be patient.
All my love,
Nic
My request for distance? When did I ask them to stay away? And why?
When my mom and sister talk about my life in Jackson Harbor, they make it sound like I was running drugs, and days from living under a bridge. Girls’ night and a best friend who wants me to help plan her wedding don’t fit into the picture they’ve painted of that world.
Nic said she mailed a card here, but I never got it. Is Mom hiding my mail? I was too busy being afraid of Jackson Harbor to consider that my friends there might have reached out to me.
I check the hallway and see Mom and Brittany’s lights are off. After slipping off my shoes, I pad down the dark hallway to the stairs and into the kitchen. Mom keeps the mail on the counter in the corner nook. I thumb through it and don’t find anything but bills and advertisements.
This morning, I wanted nothing to do with my old life. But the life I’m imagining from Nic’s note and from the words of the man at the bar? A life where people send me cards and make special trips to hand-deliver wedding invitations? That’s one I need to understand before I can walk away.
I grab an old notebook and take it to the kitchen table, prepared to make a list of all the names I’m connecting with that old life.
Colton McKinley – my fiancé, maybe missing, maybe dead?
I stare at the word dead and wait to feel something. I was going to marry the man, and I can’t muster a single image of him beyond the ones I’ve been shown—photographs with accompanying instructions of “Call the police if you see this man.” But I must have loved him, so why can’t I feel anything?
Taking a breath, I continue to write what I know.
Ava McKinley – my best friend, engaged to Jacob Jackson—Jake? Why did I ask her to stay away? Is she Colton’s sister?
Jacob Jackson – Ava’s fiancé, stranger’s brother?
Nic – friend from girls’ nights? Also planning a wedding? To whom?
Closing my eyes, I try to recall my conversation with the stranger. Who else had he mentioned? There was a Mandy? No, Molly. He mentioned her twice, so I add her name to the list.
Molly – secret kid, connection to Colton? Who is she? What does the kid have to do with anything?
I stare at the list and tap my pen against the notebook. I felt like I was flooded with information at the bar, but now that I see it on the page, it seems like nothing at all. What about the sexy stranger? What about my new memories? Were those memories?
Tattooed stranger – friend of Ava’s? My former lover???
The words mock me from the page, and I close my eyes, remembering the heat of his breath against my ear. “I never stopped loving you. Even when you told me to. Even when you chose him.”
I go to the living room to find Mom’s laptop. I sink into her recliner and open up Facebook. My fingers type the password before I can even question if I should know it, and when I realize what I’ve done, I give a little prayer of thanks to muscle memory.
My account opens, and I scroll through my feed. I recognize some names and faces from high school and college. Every time I see a face I don’t recognize, I stare at the avatar and wait for blips of memories like the ones I got earlier. Nothing.
I go to my friends list and scroll through the five-hundred-some faces, looking for the man I saw at the bar and the woman who was with him this morning.
I don’t have to scroll too far before those broad shoulders fill my screen. And his smile—I sit back in my seat. He’s gorgeous when he’s all brooding and angry, but his smile puts him over the top. His name is Levi Jackson, and his account says he’s a motocross racer. That’s what Mom told me Colton did . . . before. Is that how Levi and Colton are connected? Friends through work?
There’s a picture of Levi from July. He’s holding a baby, and the caption says, “All the Jackson men are madly in love with Jackson Maddox.” Levi’s sitting on a dark leather sofa, grinning down at the infant, and my heart swells.
I squeeze my eyes shut for a beat over my own loss. It’s easier when I forget I had a pregnancy I can’t remember, but the reminders are everywhere. Little stabs of heartache that always strike when I’m unprepared. And I’m never prepared.
There are a few pictures of Levi racing a dirt bike. A few look like official promotional pictures for motocross races.
I recognize Colton in the photos. There are a lot of pictures of Levi and Colton together. In some, they’re sweaty with helmets in hand after a race. In others, they’re cleaned up and smiling for the camera.
I’m more surprised when I see pictures of the three of us together.
In one from July, we’re on the beach. The boys are both wearing board shorts—their bare chests tanned and muscular—and I’m standing between them in a bikini with an arm draped over each guy’s shoulders. Me, my fiancé, and the sexy stranger I made love to at least once. Made love. Could it have been making love if I was marrying Colton? But there are no other words to describe what I remembered at the bar—Levi looking into my eyes as he slid into me. “No regrets.”
I put my hand over my mouth. I’m not just learning about these strangers. I’m learning about myself. What kind of person did I become? Engaged to an addict? Sleeping with his best friend? The memory was only a blip, but it was enough that I know it’s true. But like the names, it sits in my mind without context. Was that before or after Colton and I were engaged? Before or after I got pregnant?
Was the baby even Colton’s?
I go to my own profile and scroll through the posts, but it’s cluttered with “Get well soon!” notes, and half of them are from names and faces I don’t recognize. I click on my pictures, and everything inside me stills when I see a picture of Colton on his knees, kissing my still-flat belly.
I put my hand on the arm of the chair, close my eyes, and breathe through the unbearable ache in my chest.
I log out of my account and close the laptop. That’s enough for tonight.
Sunday, October 21st
I’m awake before the sun’s up. I tossed and turned for a few hours, but I’m not sure how much of my time in bed qualifies as sleep. This morning, I’m as restless as ever and ready to dig a little more.
Since Mom will be up soon, I don’t return to her computer. I assume my own laptop is still at my house back in Jackson Harbor with most of my other belongings, so I plug in my phone and press the power button.
I hold my breath as I watch it come to life. The notifications for text messages, emails, and voicemails pop up on the screen one after another.
I open the text message application, and the most recent messages are at the top. The newest one was sent last week from Ava.
The next most recent thread is from Levi, and I scroll up and frown when I realize there aren’t any messages from before the night I was assaulted. Did the police clear my phone, or did my family do that? Would I have done that?
The oldest message from Ava is from the twenty-ninth of September, the day after I woke up at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, and there’s a new one every few days or so.
Ava: We drove to Chicago to visit but your mom asked us to leave. I just wanted you to know I’m thinking of you.
Ava: Anything I can bring you? If you don’t want visitors, I could just leave it with the nurses. Anything at all.
Ava: I miss you.