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I just… couldn’t do it. Couldn’t get past being stuck, unsure of how to move forward.
“You have the weekend… after the party,” Jamie said, an emptiness in his voice. As if subtextually he was telling me he knew he wouldn’t be here. “To finish the words, that is.”
From the passenger seat, he put his hand over mine, squeezing me tightly within his firm grip.
“I don’t know how I feel about going to that party,” I said. “Besides, I still have almost 9,000 words to write by Monday… that only gives me the weekend… and… Jamie, do you know how much longer we have? Together, I mean.”
He shook his head, sadly. “I don’t know.”
But something in the way his aura flickered and dimmed told me we didn’t have much time at all. Besides, our dream the other night had confirmed everything I needed to know.
“Give me one more night with you,” I pleaded. “I don’t want to waste our final time together at an uncomfortable party. If it means I’ll lose you afterward.”
“We should go to this,” Jamie said, shutting his eyes. A tear trickled down his face.
My insides hardened as I put the car into drive. Somehow, I knew I couldn’t argue with him. Somehow, I also understood we didn’t have the night. Somehow, I knew I had to go to this party. As if there was something there that I needed to discover. Something there that would seal my fate. Whatever that might be.
Something there that would save me from the demons lurking inside my mind.
Something there that would save me from myself.
My eyes focused ahead, and I gazed forward at the emerging night sky.
10,005 words down. 9,995 more to go.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Hello and Goodbye
We arrived at Jamie’s parent’s house as the final remnants of light splashed across the sky.
“Just breathe,” I told myself as I stepped out of my car, brushing a hand along my black dress. The material hugged my waist, and my heels clicked as I walked along the pavement toward Jamie’s old home. I swallowed, a shiver running up the back of my exposed neck, hair pulled into a bun. The thing was, I totally wasn’t looking forward to the awkwardness of being with Jamie’s family, my mom, and a bunch of other people I didn’t even know. I should’ve faked an illness for the internal disturbance creeping through my insides.
As it was, I’d arrived fashionably late—which hopefully meant I could sneak in and out without too much fuss.
The house in front of me looked familiar from the times I’d been with Jamie—half brick covering the exterior of the first floor, including a nook with a large window which protruded out from the rest of the house. Pastel green paneling on the outside of the second floor. A brick chimney stuck out of the roof, closer to the front of the home.
I nearly stumbled, my heel briefly sticking into an uneven space in the brick path which lead from the street to the front door. Greenery and bushes surrounded Jamie and me on each side. I yanked my heel from the space and stopped, unable to continue.
“My god, I forgot how fugly this house was,” Jamie said, appearing next to me.
I cracked a smile at his comment. “You act like you haven’t been back since you passed.”
“Well, that’s because I haven’t.” He ran his hand through his curly blond hair.
“Really?”
“Really.”
“All those times you said you needed to go and do something…” My words trailed off. “You weren’t visiting your parents?”
“Not once. All those times I left you before, they had me, let’s just say, going to therapy,” he said. “I haven’t been able to bring myself to see my parents… See? You’re not the only one feeling uncomfortable right now.”
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s just... I wish you were actually here with me. We could’ve gone in there together. As a team.” An image of Jamie and I arriving here together danced through my mind as I envisioned the two of us greeting his friends and family. Maybe a holiday party with lots of green and red and wreaths and mistletoe and garland. With a turkey cooking in the oven. And his brothers with their wives and children, if they even had wives and children.
“They don’t have children,” Jamie said. “Not as far as I know of, anyway. Besides… we wouldn’t be going to a party at their house. My parents almost never threw parties before. They’re sort of anti-social.”
“Well… the house isn’t that bad, anyway.” I shrugged, responding to his earlier statement about it being fugly. “I mean, obviously, it isn’t our dream home with the moat.”
