And it’s definitely not how it happened this time around.
“Oh yeah?” Brit whirls around, furious. “I don’t know what planet you’ve been living on, but that’s exactly what went down. He went into a total f**ked-up spiral after you waltzed off out of town four years ago. You didn’t see what you did to him,” she adds, bitter shadows skating across her face. “You don’t know how far he went.”
I shake my head, furious. “But he’s the one who broke up with me! He just did it, all over again!”
“And you let him!” Brit cries. She tries to walk away again, but I grab her arm, pulling her back.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I demand. “Explain, now.”
Brit rolls her eyes again, rubbing her arm. “Like you don’t know.”
“I don’t!” I yell over the sound of the downpour, totally confused now. “Emerson was the one who ended things! He dumped me right after my mom’s funeral, told me it was all over, and that he didn’t love me anymore!” My voice breaks on the last word of my humiliating confession, echoing in the pouring rain of the parking lot.
Brit stares at me, amazement falling over her face. “You really don’t know, do you?” she whispers.
I feel a rush of blood pounding through me. What’s she talking about? What does she know?
“Tell me,” I beg her. “Please, I don’t know anything!”
Brit stares at me a moment. “Wait here,” she orders, before suddenly turning and racing off, up the outside stairs that lead to the apartment above the bar.
I watch her go, helpless. I don’t know what’s going on here, but I know it has to be something big. Something about Emerson.
My heart races. Was there a reason he ended things that I don’t know about? What possible excuse could he have for breaking my heart? Even though I know it’s stupid, I feel a ray of hope. If he was hurt after the breakup, then I must have meant something to him after all—enough to mourn for, if not enough to love.
I wait anxiously for Brit to come back down. I have so many more questions for her, I don’t even know where to start, but as the seconds tick past, and water soaks me completely, I feel more and more on edge. She told me to wait, but should I go up there after her? What if it was just a cruel prank, to get back at me as some kind of revenge?
My nerves tie themselves in knots, until finally, the apartment door opens, and Brit hurries back down the stairs.
“You need to talk to me!” I hurry forwards to meet her, words slipping desperately out of my mouth in a babble. “I need to know what happened, please!”
“Here.” Brit holds something out to me. It’s a crumpled envelope, with something written on the front. “This explains everything.”
I take it, still confused. There’s a letter folded up inside, and Emerson’s name is written in cursive on the front. I stuff it quickly under my sweater before the rain can get to it. “What is this?”
“Read it.” Brit tells me. “I don’t know why the stupid jackass didn’t tell you himself, but…” She shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter. It’s too late for that.”
I stare dumbly at her. “I don’t understand, why are you helping me? I thought you hate me.”
Brit gives me a sharp look. “I love my brother more.” she says fiercely. “And for some reason, he chose you, no matter what he tries to tell himself.”
She turns and stalks away.
I hurry back into the safe dryness of the car, still confused. I pull the letter back out, turning it over in my hands, and that’s when I see it: the lettering making up Emerson’s name. I recognize the handwriting, better than anything.
It’s my mother’s.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I drive on through Cedar Cove, out to the cliffs that curve around the far side of the bay. Rain lashes at my windscreen, wind howling outside, but every five seconds, I can’t help glancing over to the passenger seat, where the envelope sits beside me. The white square of paper is yellowed and crumpled in places, and looks way too innocent for whatever long-buried secrets it contains.
I grip the steering wheel so tight my knuckles turn white, driving through the rain until I reach the bluffs. I park at the lookout point, safely back from the drop to the ocean, and sit, watching the sea churn and froth in the storm while I huddle here inside.
This is where we scattered my mom’s ashes.
It was a day like this one: cloudy and cold, but I didn’t feel the bite of the wind as we stood there.
I couldn’t feel anything at all.
Mom had said in her will, she didn’t want to be buried. She liked the idea of going back into the earth, in a way: becoming a part of the ocean, and the trees, and the beach again. I thought it would be healing somehow, to see the cycle of life revolve. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. But when Dad emptied out the urn, it didn’t seem real to me: that my flesh-and-blood mother could be reduced to a couple of handfuls of dirt. I watched the ashes dance and skip in the wind for a moment, and then she was gone.
Just, gone.
Except, now I have something of her again. This mysterious letter to Emerson.
I reach for it, tracing my fingertips over the edge of the paper. By the end of that summer, we were fighting all the time. I was so head-over-heels in love with Emerson, I didn’t care about anything, as long as I would be with him. I was ready to tear up all my old plans. It seemed so romantic: just the two of us, together, building a life on our own. We would figure it out, to hell with what my parents said. I remember Mom, begging and pleading with me not to gamble everything on him. It tore her apart when I told her everything was going to change. We spent so much of her final days yelling at each other, my heart aches to think of it now.