Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 76710 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76710 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
“You’re a fighter, Jess. You always have been. It’s all you’ve ever known. But right now? You’re fighting for the wrong fucking thing. Fight for you. Hell, fight for Allie. But don’t waste another second fighting for her,” she says, gesturing toward Crystal, her voice resigned. “You don’t owe her a goddamn thing.”
When I don’t respond, she takes that as her answer and walks out the door.
“Always has had a flair for the dramatic,” Crystal remarks, blowing out a plume of smoke between us. “Let her go.” She pats my knee. “She’s not like us, Jesse.”
“I’m nothing like you,” I spit.
Crystal lets out a cackle that morphs into a cough. “Look around you, baby. You’re exactly like me.”
Fuck. She’s right. I’ve done nothing but drown myself in booze and wallow in my misery since I’ve been here. Suddenly, I feel like the walls are closing in on me. My throat feels tight and beads of sweat form at my hairline.
This wasn’t supposed to be my life. Lo’s right. I don’t know if anything is fixable, but I do know that I don’t want this.
* * *
Two weeks later
TODAY IS MY NINETEENTH BIRTHDAY. It’s also the first anniversary of the worst day of my life.
I tried to go about my day as if it were any other, but I couldn’t bring myself to go to school. I couldn’t bring myself to face Halston and Dylan—who have already flooded me with calls and messages. Even my mom tried to call me. And I couldn’t face Lo, who knows nothing of the significance of today, but knows Jess and I aren’t together. I threw my phone facedown onto the floor, grabbed my headphones, turned them all the way up, and started walking.
I didn’t know where I was going. I don’t know how long I wandered before I found myself standing in front of the cemetery gates. Suddenly, the guilt was overwhelming. My dad was in there, rotting in the ground all alone, and I haven’t visited him once.
I swallowed hard, pushing through the gates, and made my way to his headstone. I didn’t speak. I didn’t cry. I just sat, cross-legged on top of his grave. I listened to my CD on a loop for hours, picking grass and watching other people come and go as they greeted their loved ones, before I uncrossed my stiff, numb legs and started walking once more.
Up next on the pity party tour was the vacation rental. I stood in front of my grandparents’ closed garage, mustering up the strength to open the goddamn thing. Slowly, I brought my fingers up to the keypad, sliding the cover up before punching in the code. The door lurched before starting to rise, inch by inch.
The first thing I saw was the brand-new black car with the red ribbon still attached to the hood. The graduation present he never got to give me. I shook my head, eyes burning with tears, already regretting the decision. I thought it would be cathartic. I thought wrong. When I turned to leave, I spotted a box in the corner with my name written on it in my dad’s handwriting and scooped it up before hightailing it out of there.
By the time I get back to Lo’s, I’m kicking myself for leaving my phone behind. My feet are sore, body aching, and I’m glad to find the house empty because the emotional exhaustion from today is setting in. I feel raw and flayed. Like someone split me open, and all the ugly shit I keep locked up inside spilled out for everyone to see. Grieving. Abandoned. Heartbroken. Alone. In my mind’s eye, I see myself bending down to pick them up one by one, stuffing them back inside me. But every time I get one thing locked up, another breaks free.
Pushing the door open, I walk back into my room, sitting on the floor next to where I left my phone. I stare at the box for long seconds before the need to hold something of his wins out.
I pluck a picture I’ve never seen before of my dad sitting on the floor with an acoustic guitar. I’m next to him with wispy hair much lighter than it is now as I attempt to hold my toy guitar just like him. I flip it over to find ME AND MY GIRL—2003 written in my dad’s signature handwriting. All caps and sloppy strokes. Tears blur my vision as Jimmy Eat World’s “Hear You Me” plays on my headphones.
I sift through the rest of the contents of the box. With each photo and old birthday card I find, my throat gets tighter, my hot tears falling faster. The dam breaks, my grief hitting me like a Mack truck. It feels as if it was just yesterday that I stood over his casket, saying goodbye, instead of a year ago, making it hard to breathe.