“Except for Shay, you made it pretty clear you didn’t want to know what was going on back here.”
I suppose I had.
*
I couldn’t fall asleep. I lay on the bed on my side and stared at the wall. My head hurt so bad I was either drunk without drinking or getting a migraine from six years of pent-up feelings that had just burst through the dam I’d built around them.
Beck had needed me. Shay had needed me.
And no one knew why I’d gone away.
I slid to the floor and reached under the bed, pulling out the suitcase that didn’t fit into the closet. I unzipped it and lifted out a drawstring bag.
When Miles had lifted my suitcase into his car, he’d joked that I had bricks in it. When I told him rocks, I hadn’t lied.
I emptied the bag into the well of my lap. Twenty-two stones tumbled out. Twenty-two testaments to friendship. I’d started with the one from Butchart Gardens, which would never settle in my pocket again. I picked up a small white stone and flipped it over. Gecko. I’d picked it up off the ground in Sabino Canyon in Tucson, when a gecko ran across my path. I jumped and ran away, knowing that Celia would have wanted it to come closer. I missed having someone who challenged my sensibilities but never asked me to change them.
I could barely see the writing on a flat black stone, but I knew I’d written the word “peppers.” I’d lifted that one out of a cactus plant in our Albuquerque hotel, after I’d had some of the spiciest food of my entire life. Food that Celia would have loved, without flinching or without drinking a quart of milk.
I’d gathered stones in Boston, Malibu, Seattle, Miami, St. Louis, Philadelphia, and Savannah, but the stones weren’t meant to honor cities or hotels, or to serve as reminders of overarching sadness.
These stones were moments. Twenty-two breathtaking, side-splitting, heart-wrenching moments from my travels I needed to carry with me, carry to Celia, so I’d tucked them into the pockets I’d had sewn into every dress.
I gathered them back into the bag, slipped on my robe, and walked upstairs. Light shone under only one door. I knocked and Beck opened it.
“I need to show you something,” I said. “And tell you something.”
He stepped aside but touched the small of my back as I walked inside.
Beck’s room had caramel-colored walls and majestic draperies and linens, and warm brown leather furniture.
I knew it had once been two rooms—two large bedrooms. Now the bed was separated from a sitting area in an alcove. Ticking-striped drapes framed the walnut headboard.
I sat on a chair and Beck sat on the end of the bed closest to me.
No matter the distance, there was a bond between us that pulled at my heart, that made me not take my eyes off him even when I looked away. I couldn’t believe I’d allowed, no, forced myself to stay away so long, so long it would have been forever had Shay not unwittingly come to my rescue. What had I been thinking? I couldn’t outrun it no matter how hard I tried.
“I’m sorry.” Too little, too late. I knew this.
“It’s not your fault what happened to Shay. I wish I could say it was, but it’s not.”
I shuddered from his misinterpretation. “That’s not what I’m sorry about.”
He just stared, daring me. He wasn’t going to make it easy. He shouldn’t, but I wished he would anyway.
“I’m sorry I left without saying good-bye. I’m sorry I didn’t answer your calls or respond to your texts. That was wrong.”
“Yes, it was.”
“I’m sorry for all of it.”
“But you’re not sorry you left.”
“No, I’m not.” The truth. “I am sorry about the way I left.”
“You made a choice. We all do it, and we pay for it sometimes. I should know.”
“I didn’t feel like I had a choice back then.”
“I’m done being mad, Teddi, but it’s time to own what you did. You packed up your car and drove away and didn’t look back. You forgot about all of us. Including Cee.”
“I felt like half of me died with her—but I didn’t have the right to feel that way. I wasn’t family. I didn’t lose a sister or a daughter or a mother or a wife. Your loss was deeper than mine. But it didn’t feel that way to me. I was empty and lost and there was no book or prayer or support group that could help me, because friends are at the bottom of the list. People wanted to know why I was late for work. Why I looked so sad. Why I had no appetite and didn’t shower. Losing Celia was the biggest thing in my life, and my grief was invisible.” I handed Beck the bag of stones. “And I didn’t forget about her. I carried her with me every single day.”
He opened the bag and spilled the stones onto the bed, spreading them out with his hand. He lifted each one and examined it before setting it down.
“When I found the first one, it was something to hold on to that was part of my new life but that kept me connected to Celia. I planned to come home and place it on her headstone. But I couldn’t bear the thought of any of it. So, I just kept waiting for the next perfect moment and the next perfect stone. Eventually, I stopped feeling like a balloon that was floating away.”
“You wouldn’t have felt so disconnected if you were here.”
“It would have been worse.”
“How can you possibly think that?”
“Because Cee wanted me to leave Chance.”
“No. She would have wanted you here for Shay. For Miles, too. Even for my parents.”
“Well, she didn’t. I turned down a job in Chicago and she knew that, so she wanted me to go out and find something else. She was the only person who knew all the things I wanted to do and all the places I wanted to go. And you know what I did when she wanted me to promise I’d leave? I said no. To my dying best friend. It was the only thing she asked me to do for her and I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t do it. I told her I was going to stay in Chance and shoot local weddings and schools and Little League teams and become a Wagoneer and volunteer at the freaking library sales.”
“And that’s not what she wanted for you.”
I shook my head. “She was so disappointed in me.”
“She loved you. And she was really proud of you and of your work.”
“You didn’t see her face that day when I said no. She thought I was kidding. But how could I say I would leave when Shay was here? When you were here? I couldn’t fathom it. And then…”
“She was gone.”
“And I could only think one thought. I had to do what she wanted me to do. Especially since deep down, I knew she was right. But it took her dying to get me there. Do you hear me? My best friend had to die for me to start living. That eats away at me every single day.” I slowed my thoughts and hoped my breathing would follow. “And I doubt she meant ‘go away, don’t talk to anyone, and come back six years later.’ That part? All me.”
“You could’ve told me why you were leaving.”
“I didn’t want you to stop me. And I didn’t want you to be mad at Cee.”
Beck looked down and fiddled with the stones. “I loved you, Teddi. I’d have wanted you to go if that’s what you needed. I would have understood why Celia wanted you to go. At least I would have tried.”