I don’t say much, and they don’t seem to notice, maybe because I’ve been quiet for so long, since Trent. Tonight’s different though. Here, with my family and their good intentions all around, I’m not wishing I could go back. I’m not replaying the past. Tonight I let myself drift away, back to the ocean and a kayak, and the possibility of another day with Colton. I know it’s dangerous, what I’m doing, but I think about how it felt being with him today, and the truth is, I want to feel it again.
After the dishes have been cleared and washed, the food put away, and Gran taken home, I tell my parents I’m tired from my big adventure and leave them sitting on the back deck by the pool, a candle flickering softly next to the two glasses of wine on the table between them, night falling soft and blue all around. I pause once I’m inside and look at their silhouettes through the window. They’re nodding and talking, and my dad reaches across the table to rest his hand on Mom’s arm. She leans toward him and laughs, and seeing them together like that brings on one of those moments that hit me out of nowhere.
I can’t remember the last time Trent and I sat like that. I can’t remember the last time he was at our house for Sunday dinner. He came almost every Sunday, so it would’ve been less than a week before he died. But I can’t remember it. All the nights he spent at our table with us have blurred together, become fuzzy around the edges. I can remember the easy way he chatted with my parents, complimenting my mom on her cooking or offering to help my dad with whatever big yard project he had going on. The way he always joked with Gran about her Red Hat ladies and their antics and teased Ryan like she was his own sister. The way we’d stay out on the deck long after everyone else. His arm resting on the back of my chair, my head on his chest, we sat watching stars appear in the sky.
I can remember all those things. But I can’t remember the last time he was at our house for Sunday dinner.
I’d give anything right now to go back, even just for a few moments, so I could pay more attention. Inscribe every detail of him, and of us together, onto my heart, where I could keep it safe always. Where even time couldn’t erase it.
My body feels heavy as I climb the stairs to my room, and all I want is to tumble into bed and fall into the kind of sleep where I can dream about Trent; but I hesitate when I get to the top of the stairway. Ryan’s already in her room, and I can hear the muffled beat of music escaping along with the slice of light from under her door. All of a sudden my room looks too dark in contrast. Too quiet. I want to be in the light and energy and music of my sister’s room, such a welcome difference from the stillness of mine for the last nine months while she was away at school.
I knock tentatively because she used to always make me. I’m not sure if the same rules apply. So much of her is the same, but so much is different too. Ryan has a new air about her, like she’s a level removed from this life here, which I guess is true after being away.
“Come in,” she calls from behind the door.
I open it just wide enough to poke my head through. “Hey,” I say, realizing I don’t really have a specific reason to be here.
“Hey,” she echoes, giving me a funny look. “Come in. What’s up?”
I open the door wider but stay in the doorway, still feeling a little unsure. “I don’t know; I just . . .” I smile. Try to think of something else to say. “I’m glad you’re home.”
“Me too,” she says, turning down the music. She looks me over carefully until her eyes rest on the stitches in my lip. Her brows come together. “How are you doing? I mean really. Like, not the Mom answer, the real answer.”
She pats the bed next to her, and I realize that is exactly what I was hoping for when I knocked on her door. I step in and pull the door closed until I hear the tiny click, shutting me into the cocoon of my sister’s room.
I want to tell her about today, and about Colton, and the cave, and the feeling of being out on the ocean. The feeling of being with him. But I know if I do, she’ll ask questions—too many, and I don’t want to have to lie to her to answer them.
I don’t say anything.
She scoots from the middle of her full bed to one side and pushes aside a messy stack of magazines to clear a spot for me. “Sit. Talk.”
I sit. “I’m all right,” I say. I don’t sound convincing even to myself.
“Really?” she asks flatly. “You still have pictures of you and Trent up in your room.”
There it is. That direct approach I wished earlier that she’d use with me. I take it back. Get up to leave. “What were you doing in my room?” I’m surprised at how uncomfortable this makes me all of a sudden.
“Wait,” she says, a firm hand on my shoulder. “Don’t get mad—I just poked my head in when I got here, and I saw them still there, is all.”
I sit back down on the edge of the bed with my back to her. The bed shifts with her weight, and her arms come around my shoulders. “It’s like a time capsule in there. A really sad one.”
I don’t answer.
“Maybe . . . ,” she says gently, “maybe it’s time to . . .”
Tears spring to my eyes, hot and angry, and I turn to face her. “To what? Take them down and act like he never existed?”
“No,” she says, more firm now than gentle. She reaches out to put a hand on mine, but I pull away. “That’s not what I meant.” She sighs. “Just . . . doesn’t it make you sad to look at them all the time?”
I wipe my eyes, hating that even after this long, tears spring up so readily. “It’s not the pictures that make me sad.” It’s that without them, all those little details about Trent will start to fade.
“I know that. Believe it or not, Quinn, we all loved him, and we all miss him, still. I know it’s on a whole different level for you, but I think . . .” She pauses, and I can tell she’s trying to choose her words carefully. “I think you’re making it hard for yourself to move on. At all. Mom told me about all the letters, and meeting the recipients, and you looking for the heart guy. She’s worried that you’ve been stuck on that—finding him—and it just seems . . . like maybe you need to let go a little.”