by Ava Danielle
Roadtrippin’ to Portland is only a few hours but it’s refreshing and well needed. I have time to reflect on the past with Noah and look forward to my future. I’ve lost my loved one, but I hadn’t lost myself. I still have dreams to follow and within my heart, Noah will be along for the journey until the bitter end.
Beating myself up with grief will get me nowhere. I need to face the fact I’m on my own now and still have a right for happiness. Enjoying my trip in Portland is helping the pain. Fully engrossed in the food, the many people I meet along the way, I get exactly what I came for. The click of the camera gave me the biggest epiphany. Images of Nashville, my hometown, are a few a dozen, and I decide to head home as soon as possible to sell these images to my publicist and consider perhaps starting my own magazine. Experiences are often valued differently even in the same city, same hotel, same park bench. We all see the world through different eyes. What you consider the sunshine of love, I could see in a dark and dreary way.
Days have gone by in this wonderful city and I’m finally ready to get back to Nashville. I know it won’t be easy to step foot into my apartment but I may have found a solution. I picked up and left everything behind. I was ready for an escape. It’s not my proudest moment, I usually don’t run from my problems, but in this case, I saw no other way but out. And while I sit at the airport ready for departure I listen to my favorite band on my iPod, waiting to get home.
“When are you getting here?” I receive a phone call from my best friend Cassie.
“I’m waiting for boarding, I have a layover in Chicago, and then I’ll be there with you around five tonight,” I can hear the excitement in her voice.
“I’ll have some dinner for us, don’t eat when you get to Nashville,” she reminds me.
“Aye Aye, captain,” I joke.
Cassie is the sister I never had. She’s more than just a best friend. She’s my family. We’ve known each other since high school and are still as close as we were then. My parents live in Spain; my dad had taken an offer he received about two years ago, they packed up and left. They didn’t see any reason to stick around; I was living my own life. I think it’s miraculous.
Layovers and flight delays caused my arrival time to exceed way past five. In fact, I didn’t end up at Cassie’s place until nearly midnight. Ringing the doorbell almost twenty times she finally answers with annoyance in her voice, “Where have you been?” she stumbles over her words. “Stuck at airports, in airplanes, just fucking waiting,” I’m annoyed along with her. “Here,” she grabs my bag, “I’ll get you set up in the extra room, you go take a shower, and then we’ll plop on the couch.” I highly doubt we’ll both be able to hang out on the couch.
Cassie’s apartment is a hidden gem. Back in the good old days, her building was a packaging factory, and years after they went bankrupt a billionaire turned it into a crazy number of modern apartments. Driving by you would think it’s a center for homeless. It’s a rundown brick building with lots of white-framed windows. Once you enter through the main glass front door, you are met with more red brick and wooden stairs until you reach upstairs and are met with her light mahogany front door. Once you’re inside you continue down a hallway where you’re met with white spiral stairs that lead upstairs to the bedrooms. The kitchen is tiny compacted into a corner and there’s room for a tiny table with two barstools, only because Cassie splurged on a big leather sofa for those special movie nights. Often, we would pass out on the couch just because we’d be so comfortable wrapped in the many quilts and blankets she owns.
“I’m so excited about you moving in with me,” she may be still half-asleep but the fact she’s still excited about the idea of me moving in with her makes me happy.
“I’m still thinking about it, Cassie.”
“You’re going to do it. I think you need to start a new life, Jenna, a new life to move forward. I’m not saying you need to forget Noah, but I think it’s best if we just live a little more every day.”
I agree with her. And moving out of the apartment he would spend many nights with me is probably the smartest decision.
“Bennett and I have been texting a lot,” I worry Cassie will judge me.
“That’s awesome. Is it helping?”
I nod my head, “mhmm. It’s nice to talk about the old days and remember the good about Noah. It’s helping the healing. I don’t like the fact Bennett told me he still has feelings for me.”
“Wait. Isn’t he married?” she hands me a glass of mojito as she joins me on her sofa.
“He is. And I thought you were tired?” I lift my glass wondering.
“Not no mo,” she drinks.
“Apparently, they’ve been having a lot of problems, but he may just be saying that all for extra attention, I don’t know.”
“I don’t know if I’d agree, he never came across like someone that would lie.”
“We haven’t seen him in a few years. Besides, he was a football player then, wasn’t that their MO? “
“He was never that typical football player, remember?”
Waking the following morning on the sofa cuddled up next to Cassie I decide to prepare breakfast for the two of us. Poking around the refrigerator, I decide on bacon and eggs she has hidden away in the back. She’s a fitness nut, but here and there cravings take over and she can’t help but indulge in some greasy food.
“What’cha doing?” she scares me nearly half to death.
“I’m hungry,” I mention as I show off the bacon frying and the scrambled eggs waiting in a dish.
“Mmm, this is why I’ll love living with you.”
“As long as you don’t steal my shampoo again like you did back in the day when we’d do sleepovers.”
“But your parents always bought you the good stuff. Mine got the cheap shit that smelled like dog food,” she rolls her eyes as I laugh.
“I can’t help my parents loved Herbal Essence,” I joke as I prepare her a plate.
“What’s your plan for today?”
“I think I’ll pack up Noah’s stuff and take it to his parents.”
“You don’t want to keep it?” she’s a bit shocked.
“Not really, no. They also want me to go through his house and see if there’s anything salvageable.”
“What?” she’s shocked, “are you even mentally ready for that?”
Shrugging I eat silently listening to how she would handle the pain. But if I keep putting it off, I won’t be able to move forward. At one point, all of that has to be put behind me. It’s been three weeks now.
Twisting the key in the keyhole to my apartment I sigh a deep breath to prepare for the memories to flood me. I enter the apartment and remember the moment two strangers searched through looking for something of value while pushing me into a room and disappearing. The police were unable to locate anyone. I find a mess but choose to ignore it. It’s time to pack up all my personal things, the furniture I’d like to keep, and leave the rest behind for the landlord. Noah had given me a dresser and china cabinet for an anniversary; it’s best if I leave it behind as well.
“You’ve gone and left me here alone, thanks Noah,” I complain nearly broken on the shaggy rug in my living room, “you promised to love me forever. How is this forever? Forever is you’re supposed to outlive me. I’m supposed to die in my nineties and you’re supposed to follow a few months later from heartache. Now I’m left in my twenties on the floor of my apartment where you left so many memories and have to figure out how to continue. How is this fair?” I hold on to a teddy bear he once gave me in high school. “I’m going to miss you, Noah. If only I could reverse the time. My heart will never be the same.” I whisper and then find the courage to go on.
I always assumed it would be hard to grief for someone. I assumed I would lie in a bed covered with a blanket choosing to ignore the world. In grieving for Noah, I found strength I didn’t know existed. I feel guilty I’m not hiding in a corner in pain. I feel guilty I’m living my life while he lost
his. Taking the teddy bear and placing it in the keep box, “you’ll stay with me forever,” I close the box and promise to move forward. A promise I make myself every single day a few times a day. I have to say the words out loud just so I remember that life is worth living. It could’ve been me in that house with him. But I knew I had to get up the next morning and promised to see him after work. If I’d been in the house with him, we would’ve had sex all night, and then I would’ve had a rough next day. I still had that hard day, just in a different way.
Loading the boxes in the back of my car waiting for the moving truck to come by and pick up the couple of bigger pieces to take to Cassie’s apartment. Luckily, she has an empty bedroom I’ll be staying in. She’s been waiting for this day for us to live together. She’s kept that room empty ever since she moved in. My plan was to move in with Noah one day – whenever he finally picked up the nerve to ask me.
Looking around the empty apartment – minus the furniture left behind – I hand my landlord the key and thank him for the last few years. The cleaning lady will go through to finish the last minute clean up and I take one last look around. Far too many memories of Noah flash before me. “Goodbye,” I sigh as if he could hear me.
Brokenhearted I leave this pain behind to move on to another pain. The house.
Looking at the charred dismal remains of the house standing in the pale evening light. It had been so alive, so vibrant and suddenly there’s nothing but dust left behind. Inside had been a place of love, security, a place with memories and warmth. That night it was an inferno, black smoke billowed into the heated air, sending its distinctive aroma over the neighborhood. Orange flames blew out of the windows and sent horizontal jets of flames out. You could feel the radiating heat on your face from right across the street. Now the home is cold and I’m bereft. The walls have long since crumbled and in their place stands thick beams of blackened and charred wood from where the flames had licked them. Black dust still hangs in the air. Nothing has escaped the fire, glass litters the floor where the windows had been broken and the metal base of the lights lay blackened and twisted on the floor. It’s all gone. Everything he ever owned has been burnt.
There’s nothing and I decide it’s best I leave and never return to this neighborhood.
This is the end. Time for a new beginning.
Lovely. It’s Valentine’s Day and guess which girl is sad and alone on this beautiful day. Me. Yeah. My boyfriend dies a few weeks after Christmas, a few weeks before Valentine’s Day and I’m left with a bottle of tequila, a trashy lifetime movie, and chocolate. Mind you, it’s two bags of mini Twix. And I intend to eat both packs, equaling to forty-eight snack sized Twix. Don’t judge. I’m sure if Cassie caught me with these she’d drag me to the fitness studio next chance she got and she’s not wrong, I need to workout really bad before I end up looking like a potato.
Snow is filling the streets of Nashville, Cassie is out on a date, and I’m sitting in self-pity until I receive a text message from someone who actually cares.
BENNETT: How’s your day going?
ME: Oh, you know, 48 Twix, a bottle of Tequila, and it’s going great.
BENNETT: So, you’re drunk?
ME: Not yet. Working on it.
BENNETT: I bet the drunk version of you is funny,
ME: It’s definitely different.
Instead of texting back and forth I decide to call him. He whispers into the phone and I can tell he’s not alone, “I shouldn’t have called,” I feel guilt rushing through me. “Don’t hang up,” he whispers as I hear a door in the background.
“I’m sorry,” I apologize, “you’re trying to spend this lovey dovey day with your wife and I’m calling to ruin it. I shouldn’t have,” but he begs me not to hang up.
“I’m glad you called, I missed your voice,” he murmurs.
Silence cascades between us. I don’t know what to say to that. “I moved in with Cassie,” I mumble.
“Oh really? That’s gotta be fun.”
“Yeah, it’s less lonely. Well, right now she’s out on a date, but all other times she’s around and it’s helping me.”
“What about your apartment?”
“I moved out.”
“Wow.”
“I couldn’t handle seeing everything. And then when those strangers broke in, I knew I’d never feel safe there again.”
“Any word on what happened?” he asks.
“Nothing yet. Still waiting to hear back from the police,” I empty the boxes and place everything on the shelves while talking to Bennett, I hold on to the teddy bear as I discuss everything in my life with an old friend.
Hours on the phone I questioned the fact Bennett’s wife hadn’t searched for him or wondered why he was on the phone for so long. I know I would’ve been upset if Noah had been talking to a woman for hours, even laughing. He assured me she was already in bed and that he honestly didn’t care what she thought. Confiding in me the appointment he had made with a lawyer to finally start the divorce process. Being an outsider to their relationship, there’s not much to say. I’ve not witnessed the two of them together, I have never met her, and I can’t judge her or them together. So, telling him whether it’s right or wrong to divorce is not my place. I can listen to his problems and how can I not agree with what makes sense to him. I remind him that we need to meet up and catch up with a face-to-face conversation, he agrees. Instead of talking it to death we set a date. And the moment we set a date, butterflies flutter. I’m nervous and excited, anxious to see him again, five years after graduating together.
The teddy bear stares back at me as I softly mumble, “I’m sorry, Noah,” not sure what exactly I just apologized for.
Working for the local magazine I’ve learned a lot, I’ve been able to travel the past few weeks even if only to two different cities, but it’s more than I’ve ever been able to do before. I was able to use my own photography skills, my own images, and wrote about my experience. It was definitely the highlight of my year so far. But I feel like that just isn’t enough. I need to embark on something much bigger. I feel my skills aren’t being put to good use at the magazine and I have so much more potential. I know it sounds extremely petty, but I know myself best, and the things I could be doing. Researching how to start your own magazine is an overwhelming task. I’m learning things from the background of the company I never realized would be needed to run a magazine. However, it’s not shying me away from the possibility to become my own boss, to make the rules, to set the standard, to follow my own dreams. Ideas fill my mind as I sit at my desk working on editing the last of the pages I had prepared to be added to the magazine. My co-workers, some who’ve stepped away from talking to me with worry I might break down, are sitting in a board meeting waiting for my last-minute changes. As I hand them the changes, I receive sympathetic looks – I can see in their eyes how unsure they are about approaching me. In these moments I would love to break and yell, to let them know I’m not a delicate flower who can’t handle life, but it’s the unprofessional thing to do. I’m there to do a job. Choosing to ignore everyone’s whisper, I hand over my work, turn my back, and walk out. They don’t deserve me.
Packing my personal items into a bag at my desk, I hear my boss’s assistant try to get my attention, “the boss wants to see you in his office,” her emotions not giving away a clue as to how upset he might be.
Walking into his office I worry I might be fired before I had a chance to explain my behavior and my thoughts on the matter of this job. Opening the door, I see him sitting behind his desk in his white suit. Let me explain this, the man is strange. He’s seen so many things in the world, his personality is always changing to suit the life of the last place he visited. With the white suit I’m not sure what statement he’s trying to make, but he comes across cocky at his old age. His grey hair and beard doesn’t say sophisticated but rather old. And as he sits behind the desk seemingly cool, I sit down in the chair he’s pointing out to me.
�
�Do you know why I called you in?”
“Not sure,” I’m honest, “I have an inkling.”
“You did some remarkable work back in the west,” and I nod in agreement, “and I know you feel a little underrated,” and I nod in agreement again, “however, we can’t continue to do such trips.”
“I understand, there’s something on my mind as well,” I take a deep breathe, “I’m actually going to resign.” I take a look at his reaction, “I know this might be sudden, but that trip has opened my eyes.”
“Oh,” he mumbles.
The conversation continued for a little while, said a decent goodbye, and I continued to pack my things. This is a wakeup call. I can do so much better than this. I deserve so much better than working for this company.
Continuing this change in my life I come to realize, none of this would have happened if Noah hadn’t passed away. It sounds sadistic, completely wrong, shitty, and all other words you can think of, but it is just that. His death has changed me in a way. I’m bold. I’m tempted. I’m courageous. And I’m beyond strong. Emotions I’ve never felt before or was allowed to feel. Truthfully, Noah held me back, most likely unintentionally, but that’s exactly how I feel looking back. It’s wrong of me to think that. It’s wrong of me to think that so early on. Though, I can’t stop.
Leaving the office, I take one last look around and feel great about leaving. There is no guilt, there’s no worry, there’s nothing questioning if I’m taking the right step. There’s a skip in my step as I walk out of the building I had learned so much, yet so little from in the past few years. I guess you could say I expected to be further than I am. And the only way in life to get anywhere is to take matters and your visions into your own hands. I’m going to do just that.
