The Long Walk

by Jill Cox

  “I’m completely serious, Fee. Every single day of fraternity recruitment, I thought the kid was freaking hilarious. And don’t ever tell him I said this, but I’ve never been more jealous of another person’s vehicle than I am of Russell’s. Who gets a brand new Range Rover for their eighteenth birthday?”

  I felt the muscles in my jaw tense. “He didn’t get that car for his eighteenth birthday, Drew. His grandmother bought it for him after his parents died in that car accident so he’d be safe.”

  “Oh. Right. That makes sense.” Even in the darkness, I could see Drew cringing. “Well, hey, his grandmother obviously did something right along the way, because that was pure class what Russell did earlier, clearing out to let me have a few minutes alone with you. If he’s not careful, I’ll be forced to admit I’ve misjudged him all these years.”

  “We both misjudged him.” I took a steadying breath, then turned to face him. “I placed fourth on the Beckett scholarship qualifying exam, Drew. Not third. And even though I’d never done anything to deserve it, Pete gave up his spot for me. He’s the reason I got to study in Paris.”

  “What?” Drew’s eyes widened. “How come you never told me?”

  “I never knew until this spring. His grandmother told me right before she died.”

  I watched Drew’s face as he stared across the backyard again at Pete. We’d known each other for so long that I could practically see his mind piecing together the truth of all the time we’d spent apart while my dad was sick. Three months ago, watching him process the truth would have felt like a nightmare, but things had changed. For both of us.

  “I don’t understand, Fee.” Drew turned his face toward me. “If Russell gave up his scholarship for you, why was he in Paris all year?”

  “Because his grandmother paid for a fourth slot. She was the benefactor behind the endowment anyway, and when she found out she had cancer, she didn’t want him to watch her fade away. So she made sure he went to Paris after all.”

  Drew slid his gaze back to the kitchen window for a moment, and even though I’d expected him to hurl a million accusations my way, he only nodded, his mouth setting in a hard line.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “About the scholarship, about not telling you until now, about hurting you last year. And I’m sorry for what you walked in on tonight in the basement. If I had heard you come in, I never would have –”

  He raised his hand to silence me. “I meant what I said, Meredith. Russell’s not the person I believed he was. Turns out he actually is Mr. Darcy, so I’m stepping aside. This time for good.”

  “Drew –”

  “No, I mean it. I told him as much while we unloaded my car. You love him, Fee, and he loves you. That light you saw on Ian’s face the other night? Take a look in the mirror – you’ve got it in spades.” A wistful smile spread across his face. “As much as I hate it, I can never un-see the way you look at Pete. And truth be told, that spark was already there the day I surprised you in Paris. I knew it then. I should’ve jumped back in that miserable taxi right that second, but I wasn’t ready to let you go yet. And for that, I will always be sorry.”

  Once again, I squeezed Drew’s hand. I knew he meant every word. Whether it was for Ian’s sake or for mine, it didn’t matter. Drew Sutton was casting aside his jealous jerkface hat and replacing it with a new and improved “Friend of Fee” snapback.

  NINE

  On Saturday, Sullivan’s Restaurant threw the greatest Fourth of July bash in the history of Lincoln City, Oregon. Only it wasn’t a party. It was a celebration of my brother’s life.

  Celebrating at the restaurant was Pete’s idea. Maybe he wished he’d done the same for Gigi. Or maybe my brother dying so young made the idea of a funeral seem ridiculous.

  So the Sullivan’s staff gave up their holiday to honor Ian, who had worked off and on in the restaurant for most of his life. My parents served steak and lobster – Ian’s favorite combo – and the Suttons convinced a few bakeries in town to donate enough pies and cakes for all our guests. People spilled out from every doorway onto the beach behind the restaurant, and to the outside world, I’m sure it looked like any old holiday instead of the least conventional wake of the year.

  Ian’s high school friends – the group my family always referred to as the lads – built a bonfire on the beach near the restaurant, which might seem strange for the middle of summer. But the temperature in Lincoln City stayed in the sixties and below year round, and despite the cloudless sky, the mercury had barely crept above average.

  For hours after lunch, the lads shared tale after tale of my brother’s shenanigans. Drew and Pete and I laughed until we cried, and for a brief moment, I let myself believe I could bottle that moment in time forever and carry it with me into the future, like a flask of good cheer to open in the days ahead.

  I made the rounds from time to time, following my parents’ lead, circulating through the crowd to thank church friends and other locals for coming to pay their respects. Ever since that phone call on Wednesday morning, my parents had lived up to their Irish roots – their warm, brave hearts stoic against all odds. But every so often, I’d caught them huddled together in a tight hug, like a shelter in the storm. And with the number of times they’d wrapped their arms around me the last three days, I wondered how I’d ever go back to school in August without the three of us shattering into a million pieces.

  Still, I kept my eye on the bonfire boys, even when I ran up to the restaurant for a few minutes to thank the staff. From the second I left, Pete had joined Drew on the opposite side of the circle, and there they stood for an hour, side by side – so normally, in fact, that I had to smile.

  If only I could harness the power of the Sigma Phi Beta brotherhood.

  But when I finally made my way back to the bonfire, Ian’s friends had left, and Drew was standing alone, staring northward along the shore.

  “Where’d everybody go?” I asked.

  Drew glanced at me briefly, then returned his gaze to the north. “The lads left a couple of minutes ago to grab a pint,” he explained. “But Russell’s phone rang twenty minutes ago and he disappeared up the beach. I lost sight of him when he passed those boulders over there.”

  I followed Drew’s gaze. “Did he say who was calling?”

  “Vick somebody?”

  “Oh.” I could feel the blood pulsing at my temple. “Vick is his grandmother’s lawyer. He calls Pete a couple of times a day. It’s a little excessive if you ask me.”

  “But it’s Saturday, Fee. And a national holiday. I know I’ve only interned at the firm for a few weeks, but I’m pretty sure even attorneys take a break on federally-mandated holidays.”

  I pulled my phone out of my pocket to see if Pete had texted me. Yesterday, while we’d run errands for today’s wake, Pete had said fewer words all day than he normally said in an hour. At the time, I hadn’t thought much of it. Neither of us had slept much since Wednesday morning. Pile on jet lag and grief, add in a pinch of casserole overload, and it was a miracle we hadn’t sniped at each other. Not even once.

  Suddenly, I clapped my hand over my mouth. Next Wednesday, Pete would mark another year of life without his parents. Four years ago, on the night of July 8th, Liz and Jim Russell had left Sullivan’s Restaurant with their son in the backseat. When they turned south on Highway 101, a drunk driver named Alicia Baldwin collided head-on with their car.

  And I was standing on the front steps of the restaurant, just a couple hundred yards away.

  Why on earth hadn’t it occurred to me that if we held the wake at Sullivan’s, poor Pete would be trapped five hundred yards from where his parents were killed? I looked up and to my right. Just up the stairs and past the restaurant, car after car sauntered along. And okay, the exact location of the crash wasn’t visible from the bonfire, but that didn’t matter.

  All afternoon, I’d unwittingly forced Pete to relive a moment he could never forget.

  “I need to find him,” I muttered a
s blood roared through my skull. “If my parents come looking for me –”

  “Hey, hold up,” Drew grabbed my elbow. “Tell me what’s going on, Fee. Is everything okay?”

  “No,” I choked out. “No, Drew. It’s not. Nothing will ever be okay again.”

  I scampered across the sand to the outcropping of rocks where Drew saw Pete disappear. Just past the first group of stones, I found him sitting on a boulder, staring out to sea.

  When I stepped into his field of vision, Pete jumped. “Oh, hey,” he said with a bit of a forced laugh as he leaned back against the boulder. “Sorry. You surprised me.”

  I gestured toward the phone in his hand. “You ordering pizzas or something?”

  “What? Oh, no. Vick called.”

  “He doesn’t take holidays off?”

  “Well, you know Vick. If there’s a T to cross, he’ll find it.”

  “He needs a girlfriend.”

  Pete smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. And just like that, his smile faded, his expression crumpling into the same hot mess I’d seen in the gazebo the afternoon Gigi died.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” he muttered, choking back a sob. “I thought I could handle being here today. I’ve gotten so used to missing my family that I felt certain celebrating Ian here would be… I don’t know. Cathartic, I guess. You have no idea how badly I want to redeem this place. To be strong for you. But every time I think I’ve got things under control, something happens to knock me back to the beginning. I’m so sorry, Sully. I failed you.”

  He took a shuddering breath as tears flooded his cheeks. Half a beat later, I pulled him to standing from his perch on the boulder, and in the next half a beat, I had my arms around him.

  “You did not fail me,” I murmured into his chest. “I’m so sorry, Pete. I never once thought about your parents this whole time we’ve been planning Ian’s wake. That should have been the first thing on my mind. I don’t know why I’m such an idiot.”

  He held me tight against him, and the two of us let silent tears roll down our faces and onto the sand. It isn’t fair, I thought. This isn’t how your life should feel when you’re one second into adulthood. And yet Pete had survived now for four years without his parents. Two years without Pops. Four months without Gigi. Seventy-eight hours without Ian.

  Pete leaned back against the boulder again, pulling me with him. We stood that way for a long time, no sound interrupting our solitude except the crashing of the waves behind me.

  “I should have taken your side at the airport on Tuesday night.” He whispered into my hair. “It was the right thing to do, and I ignored it, all because I wanted a break from the drama.”

  “Do you think I blame you?” I leaned back, peering up into his face. “Because I don’t. Just like I don’t blame Drew for letting them leave Seattle. Ian was stubborn, Pete. And I can say that because hello! I’m a Sullivan. We’re Irish, bro.”

  “If you don’t blame me, who do you blame?”

  “Myself. My brother. But mostly, I blame Kate. Remember what the police told my dad? She was driving twenty miles over the speed limit in the middle of the night on a rural road. If she’d been driving like a sane person when they hit that pothole, the tire might not have blown out and Ian’s car would never have flipped the way it did. Kate made reckless choices Tuesday night, Pete. So did my brother. And none of their decisions had anything to do with you.”

  “But Sully –”

  “You’re exhausted, Pete. This has been a long week. Scratch that – this has been a long year. I think you should go home for a few days, find Vick a girlfriend, and take care of the backlog of paperwork he’s been hoarding in your absence. Once you’ve finished up with Vick and you’ve eaten your fair share of really bad pizza, you can come back and hang out with me for the rest of the summer. We’ve got plenty of help right now. So you’re off the hook.”

  His brow furrowed. “But I want to be here, Sully. I need to be here this Wednesday at the very least. I need to spend the accident anniversary in Lincoln City this year. It’s important.”

  “Okay, then,” I said, dropping my fingers from his hair. “Spend tomorrow, Monday, and Tuesday catching up with Vick. Then you can drive back here Wednesday morning.”

  “But how will I get back to Portland? I don’t have my car. And I don’t want you to drive me. You need to be with your parents.”

  “Right.” I turned toward the ocean, watching the mid-afternoon sun dance on the waves as I sifted through the options. “Well… I mean, this is probably the worst idea ever, but maybe we could ask Drew? He’ll drive through Portland on his way back to Seattle.”

  “That’s true. He will.” Pete brushed a stray hair off my face. “I’m up for it if you think he won’t mind.”

  “No,” I smiled, remembering what he said about fraternity recruitment. “I don’t think he’ll mind at all. Things feel… settled, don’t they? Between the three of us, I mean?”

  “I think so.” The warm smile on Pete’s face faltered for a moment and his brows knitted together. “Listen, Sully – if I go home, it’ll just be ‘til Wednesday. And I swear I’ll call you. Every day, at least ten times a day. In fact, I’ll call so often you’ll be sick of me.”

  “Aw.” I wrapped my arms around his neck. “I bet you say that to all the girls.”

  “Nah. Only the ones who laugh at my Vick stories.”

  I feigned a gasp. “Some poor idiot laughs at your Vick stories?”

  “Uh, yeah. This tall redhead I know can’t stop laughing at them. Just the other day, she laughed so hard that she snorted. And then her skin went bright pink, including her freckles. So she tried to smother me with my own hoodie because I refused to stop laughing at her.”

  “Ha! Lies. Your Vick stories aren’t one bit funny, bro.”

  “Bro?” Pete stared at my lips, his eyelids heavy as he pulled me tighter against him. “I hate to state the obvious, Sully, but in times like these, I wish I had a time machine.”

  “Why? So you could force younger Meredith to fly here and witness how futile her attempts were to resist your charms?”

  “Exactly. I finally wore you down, kid.”

  “It’s possible.” I raked my fingers into his curls. “Or maybe I finally saw through your disguise.”

  “Maybe so, Sully,” he sighed. “Maybe so.”

  TEN

  On Sunday and Monday, Pete answered every text and called me ten times a day. Just like he promised.

  But on Tuesday, he only returned one text for every three. When I called, I got his voicemail. By Wednesday, he’d stopped responding to me, full stop.

  I kept thinking about that night last spring – the night Drew chose the Sigma Phi Beta initiation ceremony over me, his alleged girlfriend. The night Pete lost his mind in Gigi’s driveway. Why are you with Sutton? He’d sputtered, exhaustion flooding off of him in waves. Your boyfriend should be there when you need him, no matter what else he has going on in his life.

  That’s what you do when you love someone, Sully, Pete had insisted. You’re there for them.

  Well hey, Pete Russell. I couldn’t have said it better myself. So on Wednesday afternoon, I pulled into that same driveway to ask my new boyfriend if he’d heard the rumor that in the upcoming edition of Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, they’d be featuring his headshot next to the word hypocrite.

  Balancing my heart on my sleeve with two cups of black coffee, I knocked on Gigi’s front door. I still hadn’t quite decided if I should offer one cup to Pete or just dump it on him when an unfamiliar voice rang out from within the house.

  “Oh, good, she’s finally here,” I heard a young woman say. “Can I call you back?”

  The front door swung open and I must’ve blinked a hundred times before my brain actually caught up to my eyes. Because standing before me, in the flesh, was the famous Brooks Darby – little Petey Russell’s manic pixie dream girl.

  At least, I assumed it was Brooks. She was the same
girl I’d seen in the dining room with Pete the day of Gigi’s wake. Same Kate Middleton hair, same slender build. Only today, she wasn’t wearing a tasteful-yet-flirty little black dress, and her cheeks were free of tears. Today, in her top-of-the-line yoga pants and vintage Princess Leia t-shirt with her hair piled on top of her head in a messy bun, she was everything I’d always feared she’d be.

  Effortlessly perfect. With a Star Wars fangirl cherry on top.

  The sort of girl Pete Russell would follow anywhere in the world. Like Ducky Shincracker auditions. Or, as I strongly suspected, the ski resorts outside Queenstown, New Zealand.

  “Oh!” She brushed a stray hair away from her face. “You’re not the, um… sorry. Hi. I’m Brooks. Pete’s neighbor.”

  She stuck out her hand, so I tucked both coffee cups into my left elbow, then reached out to shake hers. “Nice to meet you. I’m Meredith. Pete’s –”

  “Girlfriend. Yeah, I know. He’s told me all about you and… about your brother’s accident.” She squeezed my fingers gently. “I’m so sorry, Meredith. I can’t imagine how you must feel. Pete said you and your brother were very close.”

  I attempted to smile, but my lips wobbled. “Uh… listen, I don’t mean to be rude, but is Pete home? I really need to talk to him.”

  Brooks’ eyebrows shot up as she took a step backward. “Right! Please, come inside! I’m sure you’re exhausted. That drive from the coast is no joke.”

  As I followed this virtual stranger into Gigi’s house, I noticed a million little things had changed since my brief time here in March. Someone had polished the hardwood floors so beautifully that they appeared brand new. The most enormous floral arrangement I’d ever seen outside a wedding sat in the middle of the dining room table. And every visible surface was perfectly staged, like a high-end catalog.

  A chill ran up my spine as I realized what my eyes didn’t see: any sign that Pete’s family had ever lived here. Not one single photo remained.

  “Sorry I was so distracted just now,” Brooks said over her shoulder as I followed her into the kitchen. “I’ve wasted my whole day waiting for the Hearth representative to show up. She was supposed to be here by noon. What is the point in giving a time window if you’re going to ignore it completely?”