“I’ve spent my life living with a hollowness inside me that I can’t explain. When you find something that feels as intense and real and pure as what we once had, it fucks you up. It’s a deluded, exaggerated version of it, because it couldn’t have been that amazing. Anyway, it’s not worth the good times when you have to endure the hellacious aftermath… but I can’t seem to move forward from this point in my life and have a lasting, healthy existence.”
That sounds so much better than the truth, even if it does make me sound a little pathetic by default.
I stand and pour more coffee, ignoring the hot tears pricking my eyes.
“I decided I needed closure. My… therapist… agreed. Sort of.” Therapist sounds much less eyebrow-raising than psychiatrist. “It’s the only way I’m ever going to move forward. The bowling alley is unfinished business. It was supposed to be ours. I spent three years planning out every detail with Chase when we were younger. Hunter helped me pull it all together when I finally decided I had to do something drastic for closure. So… I bought this house and the bowling alley.”
It seemed like it was meant to happen now, at this time, considering how everything kept shifting into place.
“My dad had a stroke shortly after I saw Chase sucking that girl’s tongue down his throat. Early last year, he finally passed away. He hadn’t been able to really communicate since the stroke, and spent years suffering from it. My stepmother stayed with him, even though she just kept the married title and did whatever. In order to inherit anything, she couldn’t divorce him. In the end, she had to follow the will. She couldn’t sell the house to anyone but family—and only for the price stipulated in the will. She wanted to sell it to her son, but he was just going to sell it immediately after in an effort to get around the will and sell it for a much higher price. We both had lawyers going to war over it. I won. They lost. The stipulations were that I had to live here, since my lawyer made the case my stepbrother was just going to sell it as a means of getting around the will. To honor my father’s wishes, I was given the house if I truly wanted it for the sentimental value my lawyer fought to prove it had to me. I agreed to the move without thinking about it.”
Whit nods as I take a sip of my coffee.
“The bowling alley had always been our dream when we were growing up, trying to find a way to be together,” I go on. She knows I’m talking about Chase again. “When my brother called to find out if it was still empty, the realtor told him the price had been slashed. It was too good to pass up, so I bought it, then asked Hunter to turn it into our dream… My closure… He did everything via phone and internet, speaking with the contractors and such. Since he had Chase’s designs, he didn’t have to see the space to draw his up.”
“And the bald eagles? They’re everywhere. What’s the truth behind them?” she asks quietly.
This time, my tears do start to fall, and I swear more tears fill up in her eyes.
“Chase’s idea. Bald eagles mate for life. Most of the time, they return to the same nest every year and make it stronger, better, bigger… It was us. Come to find out, bald eagles mate for life, but not forever. When one dies, the other moves on like its heart isn’t broken the very next year.”
I clear my throat while shoving my coffee away. Everything tastes bitter right now.
She chews on her lip as more tears fall from her eyes.
“No wonder.”
“No wonder what?” I ask while averting my gaze.
“I chased Chase for a while. I even joked about it. The chase for Chase. Until a little over five months ago, he never acted interested. When he finally took me up on it, he made one thing very clear: The second I fell in love, it was over. He said he wasn’t that kind of guy. Guess it’s because he already found a love too rare to ever imitate.”
I snort derisively. “We were kids. He was a sweet kid back then. I was young and dramatic. Together we were incredible… Until we were toxic. Everything seems like it’s so much better when you’re a kid. Love like that doesn’t really exist, Whit.”
Her lips thin for a minute, until she speaks again. “Chase James was never a sweet kid. He was a bully, a menace, and an asshole. Compared to then, now he’s sweet—obviously he’s not actually sweet, but you get the idea. He used to punish people for looking at him wrong. He hung around with guys who were just the same. Most of them ended up in prison. Chase was the only one smart enough to calm down. He was a hellion and a fighter. Not a sweetheart, Mika. You had a different Chase than anyone else got to know.”
My heart thumps in my chest, but I ignore it. I always figured his friends were jerks, since none of them liked me too well or wanted Chase around me. I only ever met them briefly, and Chase kept me far away from them after that. It’s why he pretty much stayed at my house all summer. We rarely ever even went into town, unless we were going to check on his mother or grab something to eat.
We watched movies and went bowling in a completely different town.
“At this point, I don’t know what I should tell you or let you find out on your own, but I do think you two should sit down and talk. This thing between you isn’t over.”