“So you made up someone new?” My throat felt tight as I saw the tears well up in his eyes.
“No,” he said softly. “But nothing about me was the same after that. Instead, I just wanted to be the person she missed out on becoming. I wanted to live a life worthy of every ounce of pain she endured, and every missed opportunity she never got. She would’ve loved everything about this crazy world, V. All the places she never saw – all the music she never listened to – even all the heartbreak and shit you go through becoming an adult, like falling recklessly in love with someone the way every sixteen-year-old kid does… She would’ve been great at it. All of it. But she got none of those things. She never left Grange Hills. She never saw a great band perform live. She never made it on a boat, even though she talked about it all the time. And she sure as hell was never reckless with her heart, because instead she spent all of her last days here with her stupid annoying brother, planning adventures she would never get to experience. There’s nothing left of her, V. Nothing. Just this empty life, trying to make up for the most excruciating heartbreak I’ve ever known in losing her.”
Tears slid down his cheeks and a few drops slid out of my own eyes as I stared back at him. I’d never seen him like this. “That story matters, Miles. You should’ve told me. I get it, it makes you feel fragile and broken, but it also makes you real. That’s real life, Miles. The world isn’t always pretty. You should’ve told me.”
“Why? I don’t want anyone’s pity, V. That’s all there was left in Grange Hills for me. Pity, and sorrow, and constant reminders of a wasted life. I almost cracked the first night I met you, you know. I wanted to be so far away from you that night.”
“When, at the masquerade ball?”
“The party I crashed, yeah. That part was true. It’s what I do. I invited myself into a world in which I didn’t belong, because that’s as far away from my real life as I could get. Then you mentioned the work you did for the charity, helping kids at the hospital with epilepsy, and I felt haunted, like maybe I couldn’t completely escape the memory of her.”
“Why would you want to? I understand the heartache behind losing her, but I can’t imagine you truly want to forget her.”
“It would be so much easier if I did.” He wiped a tear off his cheek. “I really never wanted to have this conversation with you.”
“Why? Because it hurts? Everyone has had their own share of heartbreak, Miles. Maybe it looks a little bit different for everyone, but it’s part of who you are.”
“I’m trying to be everything else.”
“The world doesn’t work that way.”
“It has until I met you.”
“Well I’m sorry to ruin your streak, but I still don’t understand all of this. My feelings for you wouldn’t have changed if you were honest with me. Having a sad past – the scars from that – that’s what truly shows the magnitude and experiences of the life you’ve been through, not the boats or cars or fancy hotel rooms. The marks we carry on our hearts – those are a greater testament to the people we are, Miles. If you’re who you are now because of those trials, that matters.”
He stared back at me with such a somber expression. I was glad he was sharing this with me, but hated that he felt like he was forced into it. Would I never know these things about him if I hadn’t traveled to Grange Hills? That’s what really broke my heart – the thought that we could’ve gone on forever without me knowing the depths of the life he experienced before me.
“What about your parents, Miles? There are so many other things that are wrong here. I can’t even begin to understand all of it.”
“I did see them, V. First my dad. There’s a cemetery on the hill. It’s a sad place covered in weeds and brush – except for his spot. That was the only fresh dirt in the entire place.”
“He recently passed?”
“Apparently,” he said quietly. “I didn’t even know it. Can you believe that? I stopped by to pay my respects to my Uncle Craig who was buried there, and maybe just to think for a bit, I don’t know. I came up on the hill and I saw the stone with my dad’s name. That’s how I found out he’d passed.”
“Miles,” I whispered. More tears fell down his cheeks.
“The worst part, V, had I know when it happened – I wouldn’t have gone to the service. I hated so many things about that asshole. He was a drunk and a coward and he made our lives so much worse. Yet somehow when I saw his stone on that hill, I broke down. I hated that man, V. He was so drunk all the time he couldn’t keep a job. Maybe Maycie could’ve had better medical attention if he’d kept our insurance. Maybe she would’ve had more options. The crazy thing is, even knowing his time is up, that’s still not enough solace for me. That man doesn’t deserve to have his last name carried on, which is why I changed it the second I left that damn town.”
“Miles, I think you need to talk to someone about all of this.”
“I didn’t even want to tell you about it, so who else would I talk to? A stranger?”
“I don’t know, a specialist? Another family member you were close to? That’s a lot of heavy stuff, Miles. The grief you’re carrying, over all of this – your sister, and your father - I don’t know how to help you get past all of that.”
“You already were,” he whispered back.
“I don’t think that’s how it works. How can you heal if we don’t talk about it? Simply pretending it doesn’t exist won’t fix you. I’m certain of that. You have to share those things with someone. It’s a big deal. You have to talk about her.”
“It’s just…hard. We knew Maycie was sick. Her seizures started when we were thirteen. By fifteen, they were so much worse, and much more frequent. Yet that girl still smiled through it all, even knowing how bad the prognosis was. We made some grand exit plan of what we were going to do as soon as we turned eighteen and could leave town. I think she realized somewhere along the way that she wasn’t going to make the exodus out of there – not the way we planned it anyway.”
“So you’re living out the life she would’ve wanted?”
“I don’t know,” he replied quietly. “We didn’t get that far. She was gone sooner than I think we both expected. I didn’t handle it well, I went crazy. I took it out on everyone and everything in that God-forsaken town. I started getting in trouble at school. Tickets for reckless driving, loitering, dumb stuff. I was such an idiot. Then one day I was helping my mom clean out Maycie’s room a year later once she was ready to do it, and I found a journal. There was a picture in there, her name with wings around it, and this poem about how she was going to fly away into the most exciting, extravagant, adventurous life she could possibly imagine. The date on it was two days before she passed, V. Lord knows by then she knew there were no adventures left for her. So I realized it had to be me.”
“And you left?”
“Yeah, I was seventeen. First I set fire to her journal, literally, and I promised that I would live out the adventures she never did. I left town in a jankety Dodge Cavalier with six hundred bucks to my name, and that was it.”
“Miles, all of that matters.”
“Does it? The memory of it is still the worst damn thing in my head. Her passing was unjust. It was cruel. It was pointless. So I guess it’s on me to give it a point.”
“I just don’t understand why you can’t do all of that while being honest about it.”
The emotion still weighed heavy on him, and I was glad we were talking about all of this, but I hated the way he was still holding back on me.
“It all spiraled out of control ever since,” he admitted, wiping a tear from his eye. “I’m not proud of that, and I’m working on it. Anything I kept from you though, it was with a purpose. Please know that. It wasn’t to deceive you, or…”
My phone rang for the third time in a row during our conversation, causing him to pause in the middle of his sentence. I felt rude glancing down at the screen, but it seemed odd for Sophia to keep calling without just shooting me a text. Ma
ybe she wanted to make sure Miles picked me up? Maybe she wanted to make sure I wasn’t mad at her for changing the plan?
“Miles, this is all a mess. I feel hurt, and mislead, and…” I stopped talking once a text from Sophia flashed across my screen. I need to talk to you ASAP. It’s Grandma Eve. Please call me back.
“What’s going on?” Miles must’ve picked up on my concern as I read her text.
“I’m so sorry, it’s Sophia. Something’s wrong.”
“You can call her back,” he said politely. I truly appreciated his understanding while we were in the middle of such a heavy conversation – unless of course he was just hopeful for a diversion.
I called immediately and I hated the fear in her voice as soon as she picked up. “She collapsed, Olivia. The doctors think this is it. They think she is going to pass from this. They don’t feel confident that she’ll make it until tomorrow.”
“Oh, Soph.” My heart was already overtaken with heartache right now. I felt like I couldn’t hold anymore. “Is she at Grand Harbor Memorial?”
“Yeah. Room 315.”
“I’m on my way now. Maybe forty-five minutes? We just left the airport. We haven’t made it very far, but I’ll tell Miles to hurry.”
We said goodbye and I disconnected the call. I didn’t feel equipped to deal with this today, but that was always one of life’s cruelest tragedies – there was never a good time for a call like that. The old saying ‘when it rains it pours’ – this felt like a full-on monsoon.
“I need to get back to Grand Harbor now,” I said quickly, setting my phone in my lap.
“I can’t take you, V.” Miles looked back at me and I couldn’t read him. He couldn’t take me back, or he just didn’t want to?
“Miles, Sophia is losing the person closest to her. Right now. This is one of those moments that trumps everything else. I have to be there for her.”
“I understand, but I just…can’t.”
I stared back at him in disbelief. We had so much left to talk about, if anything here was even salvageable enough to bother with it, and I agreed this was an inappropriate time for an emergency – but I hated the way he felt like his problem was bigger than this. My person - my favorite person - the girl who had been through almost my entire life with me, her heart was being ripped open right now. Nothing would keep me from being there for her.
“This is a moment, Miles, when I really need you. This matters.”
“I can’t go back there, V. Not right now. I just can’t.”
“I knew it. Dammit, I knew it.”
“What?”
“That you would be my greatest heartbreak, Miles.” I climbed out of the car, slamming the door behind me. I hit the button on my phone for an Uber, and then completely broke down.
Chapter 14
The compassion of a complete stranger in the form of my Uber driver named Patrick, he understood my level of urgency far better than Miles clearly did. He peeled out of there and got me to the hospital in a record thirty-four minutes. I was more than grateful for his effort, and gave him an extra twenty dollar bill.
I ran into the hospital where Sophia and Lexi both greeted me on the third floor. Both of their faces were streaked with tears. Lance was standing close by, talking to one of the doctors.
“What’s happening?”
“The pneumonia came back worse this time. Her lungs are so full of fluid. Her breathing is really labored and it’s not looking good,” Sophia explained, more tears dropping from her eyes.
“Isn’t there something they can do? There has to be something.”
“They’re trying, but her heart is weak as it is, and this is taking a toll on that too. They said it would take a miracle for her to get through this.”
“Miracles happen all the time,” Lexi added. “It can still happen, Soph. She’s still hanging in there.”
Lance rejoined us and reiterated what the doctors told him. They were giving her breathing treatments and were still trying to drain the fluid. They would take new scans in the next couple hours to look for any changes, despite sounding pessimistic of any progress.
“What about you, Olivia? Your text didn’t sound good last night, but Miles contacted me and said there was just a simple misunderstanding and he promised he could fix everything. I thought you would want that, so I agreed to let him pick you up before you spent any more time dwelling on something that may not even be a thing. I know you do that sometimes, so I thought he deserved the chance to make things right. How did it go?” Sophia was so sincere as she asked, and I hated how concerned she was about my situation when she was going through something so much worse.
“A simple misunderstanding? That’s how he put it? That’s like saying a train went off the tracks, when really, it hit a bridge, flew over the edge, and slammed into five o-clock traffic. Casualties everywhere. And no, a train like that can’t just simply get back on track after it’s become shrapnel, thrown in every direction, in case you’re wondering. I would be fine never talking about it again,” I muttered. Okay, maybe that was a little melodramatic, but I was too spent to see anything differently at this point. He wouldn’t even drive me to the hospital. I was still too angry to talk about it. “Can I go in and see Grandma Eve for a minute?”
“She can’t speak right now, with all of the tubes. But they told me she can still hear what’s going on,” Sophia explained. “Go in there. She would love to know you’re here.”
I quietly walked into room 315. She looked so frail and I hated all of the wires and cords coming out of her. I smiled when I saw her hair though, perfectly set like she still took the time to do it this morning without feeling well.
“Grandma Eve,” I began, sitting down in a small tan chair next to her bed. I squeezed her hand, and I swear I felt movement in her fingers. “It’s me, Olivia. I hate that I have so much to say to you, but you can’t give me back all of your usual wisdom. At least not now, until we can get you out of here. I know you’ve given Sophia so much great advice and truth over the years, but whether you realize it or not, you’ve been doing the same for me too.”
I swear it felt like she gently squeezed my fingers.
“No love story could ever rival the life you shared with Harold. I’m certain of that. But how do you know which guy is worth risking everything for?” I paused, as if I was waiting for her to respond, but of course there was only silence. “Sophia found that guy in Lance. You told her over and over, love ain’t sunshine, but yet your love story feels as warm to me as the best summer day. I hate how badly I want to feel that, and how I try to pretend like that’s not what I’m searching for, while believing deep down your love story is the kind everyone is searching for. I hate that I know it exists. I hate that I watched it first-hand all those years Harold was still here, every time I came over to your house. How do you know when to push through a storm versus when to take shelter so you can let it pass and start over? And why can’t I stop speaking in weather analogies?”
I swear she cracked a smile, but it was hard to tell with the breathing contraption in her mouth. I think I was trying to convince myself that she heard and understood everything I was saying, though even on her best days lately, the Alzheimer’s made everything seem muddled. Except Harold. So much of who she used to be was taken away, but not that. She always remembered that. I hated thinking about what losing her could do to Sophia.
“I know you’re ready to be with Harold,” I said quietly, squeezing her hand one more time. “You’re always waiting for him to come and pick you up, and we all know one day he will. But please, there’s just one more love story you need to witness first. We can do it as soon as you get better. Please, just hang on for that girl you mean so much to. I’m not ready to put her back together. Not just yet.”
I kissed her gently on the forehead and quickly left the room before my sobs could find me. I wiped off the tears already collecting on my cheeks.
“I know what we have to do,” I said, rejoining Sophia a
nd Lexi in the waiting room. “We can’t wait until August for the wedding, Soph. As soon as she gets better, maybe in a few days, or a few weeks, or a month, whatever it takes, you should get married early. Don’t wait until the end of August. I promise you she so badly wants to be a part of it, I could feel her squeezing my fingers when I mentioned it, Soph. Let’s do this as soon as she heals. She’s been sick a lot this year, but I feel like she’s hanging on because of it. Let’s do it as soon as we can get her out of here.”
“They aren’t too optimistic that she’ll even make it through the night,” Sophia explained. “I don’t know that she’ll be leaving this hospital.”
“Give her a reason to,” I suggested. “Tell her to hang in there, at least for that. I know it’s important to both of you.”
“The venue was booked until late August. That’s why we had to wait so long in the first place.”
“Forget the venue,” I cut in. “Five years from now no one is going to remember where it happened. Having her there means everything, I know it does. And I know you always think there’s more time, but maybe she’s trying to tell you something else. I really believe she wants to hang on until it happens. She’s getting weaker and it’s so much harder on her every time she’s hospitalized, but I can’t help but feel like she’s going through all of this for you, Soph. Like she’s rebounding each time just for you, because it’s one last thing she needs to be a part of before leaving to be with your grandpa.”
The Weight of Forever: (Grand Harbor: Book Two) Page 12
