Sara fiddled with the cellular phone, facing the car. She took a deep breath, staring at the phone number on the phone. It was time to go. Her belongings had been reduced to what was in the car and the rest had been put in a small storage unit until her return. The thought of leaving without telling Lincoln goodbye weighed on her. It felt wrong not to tell him, but she wondered if it was right to tell him. It seemed like that was all she thought about now; what was right and wrong. Was it wrong or right of her to love her husband’s brother? Was it wrong or right of her to want another chance at happiness, though her husband could not? Lincoln felt right; Cole had felt right. What did that say about Sara? Maybe it said absolutely nothing, maybe it didn’t matter, but still, she felt it said something.
She took a deep breath. He was fading from her and that was what was the most unbearable. The exact shade of his eyes eluded her; the certain timbre of his voice when he spoke; his scent; it was all leaving her. Leaving her and filling her with a terrible loss, making a part of her hollow. Sara thought that was what hurt the most; more painful than his absence was the lack of everything that embodied him; kept him alive in her. She didn’t want to forget him, not a single detail of him, and it was already happening.
The pull to call Lincoln was maddening, unavoidable, and so she hit the Send button, listening to the ring of the phone. It took her back to all the countless times she’d called him after the car accident, when he’d been all that was between her and insanity from the depth of grief she could not bear. Lincoln had saved Sara from herself so many times. This time, though, she had to save herself. I wish I knew how.
“Sara,” Lincoln said by way of greeting.
She closed her eyes at the sound of his voice, shocked by how much it affected her. It sent tingles from her scalp down to her fingertips. When he didn’t say anymore, she floundered with, “Hi. I, uh…I…I’m leaving today.” Pathetic, Sara.
A pause. “Be safe,” was his gruff response.
“I will.” Sara tapped her short nails against the roof of the car, the sun glaring down on the crown of her dark hair. “I just…I wanted to say goodbye.” The distance between them was suffocating her and it was because of her.
“And so you did.”
“Right. Goodbye, Lincoln.” Dread pooled in her stomach, growing until it filled her with a sick feeling.
She began to move the phone from her ear when he said sharply, “Sara, wait.”
“Yes?” Her voice was breathless and Sara’s heart pounded in anticipation of Lincoln’s words.
“I don’t want you to go. I know you’re going to go anyway, but I just want you to know that.”
“I have to go,” Sara whispered, clutching the phone tightly to her ear.
“I know that. I know.” Lincoln let out a loud sigh. “Just…” He broke off and she could feel the hesitation from him even through the phone. “I’m going to say this and you don’t have to say anything back, okay? I love you. Remember that.”
I love you, she thought back as the line clicked off. Heart heavy, Sara got into the car and began her journey. She didn’t know if it was necessary for her to leave her life in Boscobel in order to find herself, but maybe it was. The house, the town, even Lincoln; they all reminded her of what she’d lost. This separation from all she knew was the one thing that without a doubt, felt right.
The hours she drove with only her thoughts to guide her were reflective and also inescapable. Sara had never really thought of herself as weak or strong before the accident, but since then, she’d convinced herself she was the weakest kind of person; the kind who couldn’t say goodbye, the kind unable to function on their own, unable to accept loss and carry on; the kind of person who broke in the wake of tragedy instead of growing stronger because of it; the kind of person who could take a life and yet be forced to continue living what they felt was an unworthy one.
You’re only human, a voice inside her head said. Was that really an excuse? Sara struggled with forgiveness; for herself, for her inability to save him; for being only human. Humans were flawed, so easy to die, so prone to hurt and hurt the ones they loved, consciously or not. And yet forgiveness was not so easily given, not to herself.
***