CHAPTER 56
Josh
I say goodbye to her in her driveway two days after I got here. Two days after I learned the truth. Two days after I got her back. Two days to wrap my mind around losing her again.
I was planning on leaving tomorrow, but I know I have to leave today.
We’re both leaning against the side of my truck, looking at the ground like it holds the secrets of the universe. Her hand is in a fist and she’s tracing circles again with her foot and I hate it because it reminds me of things I don’t want to think about.
She told her parents that she was considering coming back with me, and they didn’t like it, but they know her well enough to realize that telling her not to wouldn’t accomplish much. And yet that’s what I’m planning to do.
I take both of her hands and pull her in front of me because I want to face her when I say everything I have to say. And maybe it’s a mistake, because when I look at her now, I think, for just one second, that God doesn’t hate me so much after all. But then I look again and all I can see is the goodbye all around us and I need to touch her one more time. If there has to be a last time I kiss her, I want to know that it’s the last time. I trace the line of the scar by her hair. I don’t know who moves first, but her lips are on mine and my hands are in her hair and we kiss each other with the regret and desperation of so many days I can’t count them. Her body is crushed against mine and I hold her there so tightly it’s as if I’m trying to absorb her through sheer force of will.
But I can’t; and when we stop, I rest my forehead against hers and start to say goodbye.
I know that if I don’t talk now, I may never talk, and I’ll just stay here until tomorrow and let her convince herself to come with me. And I’ll convince myself that it’s okay.
“I’m leaving today,” I tell her and I wait.
“Do you want me to go with you?” she asks so softly it’s like she doesn’t want me to hear it.
“Yes.” It’s honest, even if it goes against everything I’m going to say to her next. “But you shouldn’t.”
She nods like she’s thought about it, too, and she knows it’s true. But, like me, I don’t think she wants to admit it.
She made me look at those pictures and read those books and now I know everything that she knows. But I don’t know how to help her. I don’t understand how she lived with that in her head every day and still held onto any thread of sanity.
“You should stay here and try to, I don’t know, get better. Get better sounds stupid.” It does sound stupid, but I don’t know what won’t sound stupid. Get well?
Heal? Fix things? It’s like she has a broken leg. Or she’s a handyman. And I’m a shit for thinking it, but there’s a part of me that knows that when she does get well, heal, fix things, she may not want me anymore. She may be so changed that we won’t even know each other, if we ever did. And when that goodbye comes, it won’t be temporary.
If none of this had ever happened, she would be still be here in Brighton where she belongs – the beautiful, talented, unattainable girl. And I’m a bastard, because I know the truth of her now, but I don’t know how to regret it. Because to regret it would mean to regret that I ever met her and I can’t make myself do that.
Part of us has always known that we were together because we were damaged.
We had that life experience bond that neither of us ever wanted. And maybe when she’s not so damaged anymore, I won’t be enough for her. Maybe she’ll want someone whose life isn’t as tragic as hers. And that won’t be me.
When I think about it, I want to rewind and go back to where I just said yes and leave it there. Yes, come with me.
We’ll play house and bake cookies and build chairs and life will be perfect. But I’ve started now; I’m in this and I can finish it.
“I’m going to say this and it probably won’t sound good or eloquent or whatever and I’m probably going to ramble, but just let me say it, okay? Will you listen?” Her eyes are soft on me. Her lips just barely turn up.
“You’ve listened to every word I’ve ever said. Even the ones I didn’t say. I’ll listen to anything, Josh.” It’s like a razor that slices through whatever is left holding me, and I just go.
“Maybe one day you’ll come back.
Maybe you never will and that’ll suck, but you can’t keep doing this. The blame and the self-loathing and the bullshit. I can’t watch that. It makes me hate you for hating yourself. I don’t want to lose you. But I’d rather lose you if it means you’ll be happy.
I think if you come back with me today, you’ll never be okay. And I’ll never be okay if you aren’t. I need to know that there’s a way for people like us to end up okay. I need to know that there even is such a thing as okay, or maybe not just okay, maybe even good, and it’s out there and we just haven’t found it yet. There’s got to be a happier ending than this, here. There’s got to be a better story. Because we deserve one. You deserve one. Even if it doesn’t end with you coming back to me.” The last part chokes me. Steals my air and burns my eyes. I’m kicking myself when I say it. I tell myself to shut up and keep her. Grab her and kiss her and tell her everything will be okay because I’ll make it okay, good, even. Tell her that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with her. Lie to her with every pretty lie I have. But I can’t do it. I’ve done goodbyes before, and I can do this one, too. Somehow this one hurts worse than the others; because this one I could prevent if I wanted to, since I’m the one saying it. This goodbye comes with a choice the way none of the others ever did.
And as much as I’m telling her to stay here, as much as I know she needs to stay here, I still want her to choose to come with me.
To say f*ck sanity and healing and closure.
To say that I am the only thing she needs to be well and whole and alive. But we both know that’s not true. She’s going to say goodbye to me today and I have to let her and neither of us knows if she’s ever going to come back.
***
I’ve been trying to leave for twenty minutes, but neither of us knows how to say goodbye. Even now, I know that all of the words I’ve given her today haven’t been enough, because I haven’t said the one thing that needs to be said the most.
And if I want to leave here without regrets, I need to know that there are no more unsaid words left to haunt me.
“Wait.” I catch her as she walks away, taking her hand and turning it over in mine, tracing the scars like I’ve done so many times before. She’s searching my face and I can almost feel her eyes reaching into mine, wondering what more there could possibly be to say.
I don’t know how to say it—after all this time, I’m not even sure that I can—but I have to break her last rule, because if she knows nothing else, I need her to know this one thing.
“I love you, Sunshine,” I tell her, before I lose my nerve. “And I don’t give a shit whether you want me to or not.”