My pulse thumps in my ears. “I don’t think that’s…appropriate. The couch is fine, I promise.”
Frowning, she says, “Please, Graham?”
I rub the back of my neck, blowing out a deep sigh. “Fine. But I’m sleeping on top of the covers.”
A faint smile tugs on the corner of her mouth as her eyelids flutter closed.
After I switch off the light, I grab the blanket thrown across the back of the couch for myself and walk over to the other side of the bed, climbing in next to her, but making sure to keep my distance. It’s a queen size, but given everything that happened tonight, it doesn’t feel big enough.
I tell myself I won’t sleep, I’ll just lie here and keep an eye on her, but at some point, I must doze off, because the next thing I know, I’m lying on my side, peeling my scratchy eyes open as Charley’s warm body scoots into mine. She wraps her arm around my middle, releasing a contented sigh as she buries her face in my neck. I’m frozen in place. I don’t think I even let out a breath.
“Hold me, please,” Charley murmurs, her voice groggy, the words vibrating through my body from where her face is against my flesh. I’m hesitant. I don’t want her to feel uncomfortable when she wakes up in the morning, but given that we’re still separated by the bedding, I do it because she asked, and I don’t think there’s a single thing she could ask that I wouldn’t do. A couple of minutes pass, and I’m sure she’s asleep again, but then her arm tightens around me, and she says, barely above a whisper, “I love you.”
My breath catches, and I force my muscles to relax.
She’s out of it,I remind myself.
She’s half asleep and probably still feeling the effects of whatever was given to her.
Charley Madison doesn’t loveme.
I would know, because I’ve been in love with her for as long as I can remember.
1
Graham, Present Day, Age 36
Why is there so much shit in here?
When I go through one box and get everything sorted, I swear ten more magically pop up in its place. It’s never ending. I’ve been going through this closet for the last two hours, and I’ve barely made a dent. Truth be told, I should’ve gone through this stuff a year ago, but I kept putting it off, like if I waited long enough, it would get done on its own. But the time for procrastination has officially run out because moving day is Sunday. I’ve cleaned out and packed every room…except this goddamn mess of a closet that I don’t even use, and have never used the entire time I’ve owned this house. This space was my wife, Megan’s. It’s where she kept all her clothes, shoes, photo albums—literallyeverything—and when she died last year, I struggled to find the motivation to go through it all.
After the accident, I feel like I cycled through the five stages of grief at least half a dozen times, always coming back to anger the most. Anger at the destruction she caused, both in life and in death. Then the guilt would come because I wasn’t grieving theloss of my wife in the way I thought I should be. It was a vicious, ugly cycle that I didn’t free myself of until about five months ago. I gave myself permission to just…put it off, pretend like the room didn’t even exist. But then I had to go and buy a new fucking house and sell this one, and now I have no choice but to deal with it once and for all. And sure, I probably could’ve asked one of my sisters to help me—or do it for me—and they would have, in a heartbeat, but this is something I need to do for me.
I’m tying off another trash bag full of shit I can take to Goodwill when my phone chimes from the shelf it’s sitting on. Wiping the sweat off my brow with the bottom of my t-shirt, I grab the phone and swipe across the screen when I see a text from my mom. It’s a picture of my daughter, Ellie Mae, with a ring of chocolate ice cream around her mouth and her nose scrunched up in the way she does whenever she giggles.
Mom: Sweet Ellie Mae enjoying ice cream with her nana! *ice cream emoji*
A smile tugs on my lips as I heart react to the image. My daughter is staying with my mom and stepdad this weekend so I can finish getting the house ready for the movers on Sunday morning, because it’s dang near impossible to get anything done with an energetic and curious one-and-a-half-year-old running around.
Me: Looks like she’s having fun. Give her a kiss from daddy.
Mom: Will do. Making any progress?
Me: Yeah, some.
Mom: Well, get to it! Don’t make me send Georgia over there to kick your butt into gear. You know I will. *smirk emoji*
I huff a laugh.
Me: Stand down, boss. I got it under control.
Turning on a Cody Johnson playlist on my phone, I set it on the shelf and dive back in. I spend the next several hours sorting everything into keep, donate, or garbage piles, loading the back of my truck with the latter to make my morning run to the dump easier. I’m nearly finished when I find a small box in the far back corner of the closet. It looks like all the other scrapbook containers Megan kept in here, so opening it, I expect to find much of the same, but quickly realize I’m wrong.
The organ in my chest forgets how to beat for a moment, a zap of something dark boiling the blood in my veins as my eyes fixate on the contents of the box, or at least, what I can see. My jaw aches as I bite down on my molars, and I don’t realize how tight my grip on the box is until a sharp pain hits me in both of my palms from the corners digging into them. Turning, I walk out of the closet and over to my bed, setting it down as I proceed to go through everything inside. With each item I pull out, the tightness in my chest and the wretched taste in the back of my mouth intensifies. Dozens of memories stare back at me—postcards, ticket stubs, room keys, pictures—but none of them aremymemories.
Finding this box would’ve devastated me a year and a half ago. Now, all I feel is disgust, for her, forhim, and the lies, but also for myself and how fucking long this went on right under my nose. For how naive I was, because everything inside this box spansat leastfive years, according to the date written on the back of one of the photos.
Years.
