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“You know what, you’re completely right,” he said.
A second later, he vanished into thin air, his energy dissipating. My eyes focused on the front of the register where he reappeared behind Danielle at the register. She continued ringing up a customer, just as she might’ve. Like nothing had changed at all. Jamie kept space between them, glancing up at me for a moment.
Here goes, he mouthed in my direction.
He focused back on Danielle. I saw his lips move, saw him speaking to her, his arms moving as if to emphasize all the points he was making. Once Jamie got into it, he fell into a trance, on a roll that continued with his arms flailing. Not angrily… just… as if he were a person who needed to get a lot of things off their chest. Things he’d kept bottled in for years.
I didn’t know what he was saying. Didn’t know the specifics of their relationship—Jamie and I didn’t have the time to discuss all those things we may have talked about in another time and place. But I knew in my heart exactly what he was telling her.
You hurt me, yes,I was sure he’d said.
But I’m moving on from all the pain you caused.
Danielle never turned to look. She rang up her customers, seemingly oblivious to everything he said behind her.
Until the end.
Jamie let out his final words. After this, he simply vanished once more.
It was then that Danielle paused, her hand stopping in the middle of the conveyor belt as she picked up a bag of grapes to weigh on the register scale. She looked around, her eyes narrowed.
Then, she shook her head, shrugged her shoulders, and continued as she had been previously. Consumed in her own world, oblivious to those around her. Oblivious to how certain actions could cause a chain reaction and lead to so much pain. Oblivious to the fact that, just maybe, she had once been the single link keeping a person afloat.
It didn’t matter anymore. You couldn’t change people.
You could only change how you reacted to them. Could only control the feelings in your heart and whether or not you were able to release the negativity you stored away for that person.
I let out a breath, imagining a lightbulb going off above my head.
Somehow, even I could feel the weight that had been lifted from Jamie’s heart.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Walls
“Hey, you sure you’re going to be okay?” I asked from the doorway of the guest bedroom. Jamie stood behind me, a hand gently touching my hip, as we watched over Holly like two concerned parents. The air mattress we’d gone out to buy lay underneath Holly in the middle of the bedroom, all blown up with a set of new sheets and two pillows.
“Yeah. I’ll be fine,” Holly said. “Thanks a lot for letting me spend the night. I talked to my dad… he can grab me in the morning.”
“Good,” Jamie said. “So you won’t go back with your mom again, right?”
“Right,” she said. “Only to get some of my stuff, but Dad said he’d go with me.”
“You know, you should go to the police,” I said. “But… we spent enough time trying to convince you. I’m not going to keep pressing you.”
After all, Holly, as we’d learned tonight through conversation, was eighteen now. No one could force her to do anything. Unfortunate as it was in this particular case.
“I know.” She sighed. “I just… I don’t want the drama. Especially since Dad’s gonna take me in to be with him, anyway.” Something in the sad tone in her voice almost made that option sound equally bad.
“Well, the air mattress is always here,” I said. “If you need a place to crash, you’re always welcome.”
“Thanks,” she said, sadly.
* * *
As Jamie and I stepped away, a rush of melancholy crawled through my core, shooting up into the deepest parts of my mind. Being around Holly tonight, realizing all these things with my own mother… brought out such a deep, crushing sadness. While we’d eaten pancakes and gone to the store, I had kept up a strong front in front of Holly—perhaps exactly as if I was being parental—hurting yet shielding a younger person from the true pain.
Now, it all hung out, falling away from me. Emotions exposed, boiling as they reached the surface.
