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There was something I had to do, and it couldn’t wait.
Only one thing mattered to me. Everything else be damned.
Chapter Forty-Two
Carrie opened her door, her hazel eyes rounding with surprise and her pretty mouth flattening when she saw it was me. She started to close the door, but I stopped it with my hand.
“Wait, please, I just want to talk to you. Can’t we just talk?”
“Go away, TJ.”
“Just for a minute?”
“Are you drunk?”
“No, I’m sober. Really.”
“I don’t believe you.” Carrie folded her arms over a thin white tank top with cutoffs I remembered too well. Her long chestnut hair was in an adorably messy ponytail.
“It’s true. I’ll be sober two years on June seventh. You know the date.”
“Of course.” Carrie’s eyes flashed with anger. “It’s the day you left Emily in thecar.”
“Yes, and I’m sorry, so sorry, and I’ve been punished for that, and I punish myself for that—”
“Good, you should feel like absolute shit.” Carrie scowled. “Anythingcould have happened to her that night. There’s a million possibilities and believe me, I know every one. They still keep me up at night.”
“I know, it’s awful, it’s why I pleaded guilty, I am guilty, I was guilty, and I—”
“Forget it.” Carrie put her hands up. “I don’t wanna get into it.”
“But part of you does—you must, because you just did get into it, and I want to hear it, I really do, you’ll feel better—”
“Is this you ‘making amends’?” Carrie made air quotes.
“No, but it’s the same idea. Making amends is so people I did wrong can express how they feel, and I did you the wrongest—”
“You’re here for yourself, not me.”
“No, I’m here for both of us,” I told her, and suddenly I had clarity on something I hadn’t before. “Listen, we were together from when she was little. We can’t act like that didn’t happen. We ended in a horrible way, and we can’t act like that didn’t happen, either. So can we talk about what needs to be talked about? I’ve wanted to come by so many times. I’ve been by the house a million times.”
Carrie frowned. “Okay, stalker.”
“Well, not a million, and I saved Emily’s purple bunny. It was on the driveway, and you would have killed it.”
Carrie didn’t smile, but she didn’t interrupt me, either.
“Look, I know there’s nothing more important to you than her, and you guys were my life, and I just can’t let go without talking about this. Part of me thinks you can’t, either.”
“You’re wrong. It’s done, after all this time.” Carrie shifted on her bare feet and the door opened wider, revealing a long IKEA box on the living room floor behind her.
“Let me guess—you went to IKEA and bought something impossible to build? Emily’s at Seth’s this weekend? And you’ve been cursing for two hours?”
“No,” Carrie answered, but she smiled just the slightest.
“Okay, three hours.”
Carrie laughed, a light sound I’d forgotten until now, one that struck such a deep chord in me. I felt the connection between us, as weightless as a musical note but powerful enough to evoke all the love and resurrect all the hope.
