I shrug my shoulders.“But I never asked if she was seeing someone either.”
Finn frowns, his eyebrows knitting together as he sets down his beer.“And why didn’t you ask?”
“Because we were just having fun, like the good old days, reliving our friendship,” I say, “having fun, with no second intentions.”
Elliot tilts his head, clearly not satisfied with my answer.“Why didn’t you try to understand if she was seeing someone back home?”
“Because that didn’t matter,” I answer quickly.
“Or because you didn’t want to know,” Asher says, cutting in with certainty, replacing my answer.And Finn clinks his beer with his.
“Alright, alright.”I raise both my hands in surrender, dropping my defenses.“I miss her already.”
“You don’t say…” Finn replies ironically.“For a guy who’s usually so feet-in-the-ground, your head has been miles away in space since she left.”
“But when we ask you what’s on your mind, you never admit it,” Asher points out.“It’s okay to miss her, bro.”He pushes my beer closer to me from across the table.
I do miss her already.It’s hard to say it out loud, but it was a feeling I had known for a while.Being an adult now, I thought it would be easier to shake its hand, invite it in for a moment, and then ask it to leave.But the truth is, the feeling leaves, and then comes knocking on my door again and again, far too often, in short spans of time, ever since the night she left.
“Last month, Lisa left the city for ten days and Finn cried every single night,” Elliot says.
“I did not,” Finn tries to defend himself.
“Don’t lie,” Asher points a finger at him.
Finn laughs and doesn’t fight the words.
He did cry.Not every night.But seven nights after Lisa had left New York, on another Friday night like this one, we were hanging out playing darts.Finn had a bit too much to drink and rambled emotionally to the whole bar about how he could never live without Lisa in his life again.
“When you love someone like that, you don’t whisper it.You let the world hear itecho,” he said drunkenly on thatechoingFriday night.
Chapter 50
Ella
April 4th, 2009
Saturday
The sun is beginning to set over the horizon, its golden light reflecting everywhere in Evermere.
Miss Amara used to say she loved how I spaced out staring at the sky at sunset.She would also tell me to stop looking directly at the sun, she said it was bad for my eyes, but I would do it anyway, then see her face filled with moving yellow dots.
I’ll never not think of her every time I do that.
My heart has been carrying profound sadness these past three days, since she left us.But somehow, at this moment, I’m feeling lighter, driving by myself, looking at the sky at sunset.
I know there’s someone I need to call.If it were the other way around, I would want him to call me.
I imagine Miles trying to reach Miss Amara unsuccessfully, weeks after she passed away.I imagine him finding out that way — through an anguishing suspicion in his heart.
Okay.It doesn’t matter.I must call him.
Today my girlfriends came from Verryn to visit me.We spent the day at the beach, and right now my heart feels that there aren’t many Saturdays like this one.I feel like this day is precious.Peaceful.Each of us brought a book, and we shared swims, thoughts, and silence.The sun was always there for us, the ocean seemed to make a pact with the calmness of it all.
I just dropped them off at Philia’s car and waved goodbye, thanking both for coming to Evermere and for spending the last three days glued to me.I’m staying here for about two or three more weeks.I’ll take a few days off work, help the CIC organize Miss Amara’s things — as she had always said her wish was to leave everything to charity — and spend some time with my family in the countryside.
There’s traffic.Not too much, but more than usual in the village.You can tell it was one of those days when only a few people stayed indoors.
