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Walking to the door, she stays behind me. I open it and move outside, needing the reprieve from all things Harbor. “If you decide you can tell where or how he is, why he left, or anything that can bring some semblance of closure, I’d be very appreciative.”
I start back to the truck, a million things crossing my mind. One that stands above all others is in the chaos of my boyfriend leaving me, I might have just found my mother.
39
Lark
Two months later. . .
While my dadloaded the last box into the back of his truck and Amanda took photos around the house with my phone, I stood in the middle of my bedroom.
A stuffed bear that had seen better days.
The pink ruffled bedspread.
The photo of Liz and where the brooch used to be.
I run my finger over the top of my desk and then pick up the yearbook from where Harbor left it. Flipping through the pages, like he did that day, I find the picture that he didn’t think was as bad as I once did. I close it when I feel a wave of emotion breaking on my heart’s shoreline and put it back with the others where it belongs. I walk to the door, looking back once more, and smile before leaving and closing it behind me.
I’ve ghosted around Beacon for months now, hollow on the inside, invisible and small as I can be, but here, working and minding my own business. Here, I can almost remember what it feels like to be real again. It was my refuge from the apartment, from life, from the memory of Harbor. Only a few surfaces bear his fingerprints, unlike my heart. I’m jealous. Or maybe it’s regret. I’m not sure anymore. It’s a mixture of emotions that I haven’t sorted through yet. What’s the point?
He’s not here.End of story.
I cut through the living room and into the entry, snagging one of the hats my dad wears at the shop from the hook by the front door. It’s his favorite. I slip it on, say, “Goodbye, house,” blow it a kiss, and walk down the path to where the truck’s parked at the curb.
“Nice hat.” He doesn’t ask for it back, already well aware of how sentimental I am.
I adjust it, preferring a slight curve to his straighter bill. “Thanks.”
He opens the truck and leans on the door. “You ready, Pip?”
“As much as I ever will be.” It’s weird when Harbor’s words return, coming from my mouth. I moved home the day after graduation, trying to rid my life of Harbor. I could toss the pillows and burn the sheets—Amanda’s idea. I could donate every morsel of food to a bank to help others. But that wouldn’t change the fact that he was there twenty-four hours earlier. I still smell his cologne in the air as a part of him remains just to torture me some more.
Facing the fact that his departure was planned, I found most of his belongings were gone before I walked across the stage that day. The furniture remained, and the cabinets were full of dishes. The towels were stacked as if prepared for the next tenant—Noah.
The Westcotts told me I could stay as long as I wanted. Noah even said the same. But why? Why stay in a space that feels like we never existed?
Since Amanda had moved into a studio a few blocks over from my dad at the beginning of the year, when I packed my stuff, barring a few things I couldn’t find, I moved back into my childhood bedroom. It was comforting and easy to be here, to live with my dad and pretend Harbor was never part of my life, much less the largest part for a time.
But I was fooling myself into believing that he was found in objects—a chair he preferred over the couch, a coaster I insisted he use when watching TV, a lone sock found behind the couch. An empty side of the bed. A toothbrush left in a cup in the bathroom. There were reminders wherever I looked.
I left to save myself the misery only to find he’s not just in the tangible things. He’s everywhere. Still is on days when I’m more accepting of my fate. I see him in a box of cereal that he loved to eat a few hours after dinner. I feel him in the bath beneath me when I’m trying to escape all my memories with him. I’m haunted even outside on the patio when a breeze plays a cruel melody that sounds like the laughter we shared when we were happy.
Escaping was fruitless.
I endured instead.
That ache I once craved, the one I could feel the next day after he claimed every part of me, I now live with. Though it’s changed from one of feeling full to barren emptiness. Maybe I’m not as ready as I said, but I have no choice. Harbor Westcott disappeared without a trace, at least in my life. His mom says he’s f . . . she can’t say it because she knows it’s a lie. And that’s not a lie she wants to tell me. Somehow through this nightmare, Delta and I have bonded.
We haven’t spoken much over the summer, but enough to know she doesn’t agree with whatever decision he made. Maybe she agrees with the reasoning . . . I get hints of that sometimes, but not him being gone or how he went about it. I don’t get more than that. It’s probably best that all I know is Harbor’s alive, but he’s not living.
That’s of his own doing, so I have no sympathy for him.
“Here’s your phone,” Amanda says, jogging down the path. “I took lots of photos so home would always be with you.” She snaps a pic of my dad, who’s still grimacing long after she comes to stand next to me. Holding the phone above us, she says, “Fries before guys.”
“Fries,” I mumble and then laugh on the outside. I’ve learned I get fewer questions that way.
Amanda notices those things, but she’s not going to say anything in front of my dad. She knows he’s already worried. Add my move to New Haven into the fray, and well, I might just see John Summerlin, my gruff ole dad, shed a tear. We can’t have that.
