This is What Goodbye Looks Like

by Olivia Rivers

  I take the phone back from Jeremy and hold it up. “We’re taking the money, and we’re using it for Camille, like the Ashburys want us to.”

  Dad balls his hands into fists. “It’s pointless,” he insists. “Camille is gone, Lea. We can’t just keep extending her suffering. I want you to give that money back immediately.”

  “No.”

  The word is so quiet, at first I think I’m hearing things. But then I look toward the voice and find Mom standing in the entrance of the room. She’s dressed in sweats and a loose t-shirt, and her face is too thin and darkened with fatigue. But her tear-reddened eyes are fierce as they focus on Dad.

  “No,” she repeats, her scratchy voice a little louder this time. “The money is for Camille. If the Ashbury family thinks this is what’s best, then we need to respect that.”

  Dad blinks a few times, like he thinks Mom’s protest might be a hallucination. Then he shakes his head and says, “Sophia, you’re not thinking clearly.”

  “And I haven’t been for a long time,” she says. “I don’t know much about the Ashburys, but I know they were good parents. They loved their boy more than anything. If they think taking Camille off life support is a bad decision...” She swallows hard. “I think I should trust their instincts more than mine. And... and I took so much away from them. If they want to help, I’m not taking that opportunity away from them, too.”

  Dad grits his jaw. “But this won’t help. It’s not right, Sophia.”

  Mom suddenly slams her hand against the wall, her shoulders crumpling like someone’s struck her in the back. “I killed their son!” she says, her voice a choked shriek. “That’s what’s not right! But they’re still offering to help my daughter. The least I can do is respect their wishes.”

  Mom doesn’t wait for any response before turning to me. “It’s settled. We’re keeping her on life support as long as we possibly can. The campaign and the trust will cover the bulk of a month’s payment, and we’ll have another fifteen thousand if we add the money we’ve set aside for my attorney fees.”

  Dad’s eyes grow wide with horror. “Sophia! If we don’t pay those fees, you’ll—”

  “—have no fancy attorney to represent me,” Mom says. She straightens her shoulders and faces Dad, her voice steadying as she says, “I’ll have little choice but to get up there and tell the entire courtroom exactly what happened on that night. I drank too much. I caused an accident. I killed a completely innocent boy with my actions.”

  I suck in a sharp breath. Knowing it was one thing. Seeing it on the video was another. But hearing Mom say those words out loud? It’s disgusting and heart-breaking and relieving in the most sickening way possible.

  “Do you realize what you’re doing?” Dad demands. “If you want even a chance at freedom, you need the best attorneys you can get.”

  “Freedom?” Mom repeats. She lets out a laugh that’s so choked, it sounds more like a sob. “No. That’s never been an option. I lost my freedom the moment I killed that poor boy.” She shakes her head suddenly. “No, that’s not quite right. The moment I first hurt my kids with my actions, I gave up any chance I had to live free.”

  Dad shakes his head. “I can’t let you do this.”

  “You can and you will,” Mom snaps, suddenly sounding stronger than she has in months. “I’m not behind bars yet. I can still make choices about Camille, and I say we respect the Ashburys’ wishes and keep her on life support. You can try to appeal that decision, but it’ll take months for the hospital to process that sort of request. And, in the meantime, Camille is staying on life support. I don’t care if I have to sell the house and everything we own to make it happen. I’ll find a way.”

  Jeremy sweeps me into a giant hug. I hug him back, pressing my face against his shirt and feeling dampness on my cheeks. Part of me wants to wipe away my tears, to hide them like I usually do, but this time it seems right to let them fall.

  Dad storms out of the room, and Jeremy finally lets me out of the embrace. He’s crying, too, but there’s a wobbly, relieved smile on his face.

  “You did good,” he says to me. And then he turns to Mom. His smile fades, and his expression grows harder, but he says, “Thank you.”

  Mom nods. “I’ll call Doctor Walsh right now. We have a lot to discuss.”

  An awkward silence descends over us, and Jeremy tugs the phone out of my hand, pointing to the document still lit up on the screen. “Um, I’m going to go do some research on this. Figure out the best way to process the paperwork and stuff.”

  He moves to leave, but then hesitates and raises a questioning eyebrow at me. I nod, telling him I can handle being alone with Mom. He gives a small nod in return and then heads down the hall, his nose buried in the phone as he scrolls through the email’s contents.

  Mom clears her throat a little, and suddenly it’s like all the strength just slumps out of her. She stares at the ground, pressing a palm to her forehead, her shoulders shaking with barely-controlled emotion. Tears stain her cheeks as she meets my eyes briefly, but then she looks away.

  I walk over and reach out a hand, resting it on her forearm. We both flinch a little, but Mom doesn’t try to pull out of my grasp.

  “Mom,” I say, my voice choked. “You must hate me for turning over that video. And, just...that’s okay. I get it. But I need you to know that even if it doesn’t seem like it, I love you. I never wanted to hurt you. Really.”

  “I love you, too, sweetie,” she murmurs. “More than you could ever imagine. And I could never, ever hate you.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper, because even if the pain in her voice isn’t my fault, even if it deserves to be there, I still regret having to hear it.

  “Don’t ever apologize for loving your sister,” Mom says, shaking her head. Then a wisp of a smile brushes against her lips. “I’ve made so, so many mistakes and done so much wrong. And...” She swallows hard and reaches out to take my hand, folding it into her own. “And thank you.”

  I give her hand a tight squeeze, trying not to sound too confused as I ask, “For what?”

  “For being proof that I did at least one thing right.”

  Epilogue

  Four Months Later

  I’m staring into my closet, trying to decide what to wear, when I hear the knock at my door. I shoot a glance at the clock on my nightstand and curse. My first college class is about to start in thirty minutes, and I’m still in my PJs, too panicky to get anything right this morning.

  It’s just a community college class, and it’s just a simple World History course, and it shouldn’t be anything to panic over. But it’s also something completely normal, and after the past few months, that’s almost more frightening than all the long hours I’ve spent in court.

  Mom’s second trial should be ending sometime next week. A “guilty” verdict is inevitable, but I’m just hoping the prison sentence will be light. Although I know it’s something I have no control over, so I’m distracting myself during the wait by starting up my fall semester of college. I’m just hoping all the media attention on the case doesn’t haunt me at school, because I’m not going to be hiding my identity anymore.

  I poke at a blouse with polka dots, wondering if it looks cheerful or just corny, and snap a picture of it to text to Brie. She’ll tell me if it works. Her fashion magic still seems to function just fine, even though we can only text from a distance. Brie got accepted into a study abroad program in London, and she left almost two full weeks ago to fulfill her dream of living in Europe.

  But I know I’ll still get to see her often, because even if she loves Europe as much as she expects, she’ll be back in San Diego frequently to see Bailey. And to see Nathan, of course. Nathan finally made it out to California to attend culinary school, and he’s been dating Brie for a couple of months now.

  The knock comes again at my door, and I glance toward it. “Give me a second, Jeremy,” I say, feeling a little bad for making him wait. He was nice enough to offer to drive me
to school today, even though he’s catching a flight back to Colorado in just a few hours. He’s been visiting San Diego about once a month, but he’s spending most of his time in Denver, where his own college is starting up just next week.

  From out in the hallway, a breathless, excited voice says, “It’s not Jeremy!”

  Camille doesn’t give me any chance to reply before jiggling my doorknob, twisting it in that special way she figured out years ago so my old lock simply pops open. She stands there with a triumphant grin on her face, using one arm to lean heavily on a cane and the other to hold up a small envelope.

  “I got the mail!” she squeals. “I walked all the way to the mailbox and back!”

  I open my mouth to congratulate her, but all that comes out is a squeal even more high-pitched and excited than hers. She laughs, and it sounds just like it used to—bubbly and carefree and utterly beautiful.

  It’s been ten weeks since she woke from her coma, but it still amazes me every time I hear that laugh. Her doctors are calling her recovery a freak miracle—as best they can tell, laying still for so many months caused a blood clot to form in Camille’s veins, which isn’t uncommon in coma patients.

  What is uncommon was how the clot effected her—it ended up traveling to her brain and causing a small stroke. If it’d happened to a healthy thirteen-year-old, it would have been considered a medical disaster. But for Camille, the little stroke managed to work as some sort of natural “restart” button, and it shocked her brain into resuming consciousness.

  Luckily, she remembers almost none of her time in the hospital. But she does remember drifting in and out of a dream-like state for a couple of weeks after her stroke, before she managed to actually open her eyes. She told me I was in her dreams a lot, and she’d always try to chase after me, but she could never quite reach me.

  I told her she was wrong. She reached me just fine.

  She still has all sorts of problems left over from both her head injury and the stroke—memory loss, migraines, muscle weakness, and partial paralysis on her right side, just to name a few. But there’s a small chance she could make a full recovery, and if there’s a chance, I know Camille will never give up on it. And I won’t, either.

  Camille shuffles over to me, her gait stiff and wobbly from all the muscle she lost while lying still for ten months. Half of her hair is pulled back, while the rest frames her face. It hasn’t quite grown out enough to be held in a true pony-tail, but Camille keeps stubbornly trying to style it into one, even though it always escapes.

  She flops down on my bed and gives a dramatic sigh as she drops her cane on the floor. I walk over to her and pick it back up, resting it against the bed next to her. I haven’t had to use my cane in over a month, but it’s become somewhat of a full-time job making sure Camille uses hers properly so she doesn’t fall.

  She’s breathing hard, like she does now whenever she exercises even the smallest bit, but she’s still smiling. I poke her gently in the side. “I thought you weren’t supposed to go further than down the hall without someone helping you?”

  Dad and I have been helping her constantly, and I know she’s getting sick of it. Especially since Dad won’t stop hovering. His shock when Camille woke up quickly turned to elation, and then to overwhelming guilt. I haven’t dared to tell Camille how close he came to yanking her life support, but I think Dad might give her the truth someday and tell the full story. In the mean time, he still has a lot of healing to do, maybe even more than Camille.

  She rolls her eyes at me. “I got bored. I wanted to go outside.”

  “I can’t blame you a bit,” I admit. I pull myself onto the bed next to her, not caring that I’m still in my PJs, and Jeremy’s probably already waiting out in the car. If Camille can survive ten whole months in a coma, then surely I can survive being ten minutes late to class.

  I pull her into a hug, squeezing her close to my chest. “I’m so proud of you.”

  She blushes. “All I did was walk out to the mailbox,” she mutters, but she hugs me right back. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

  “It is to me,” I insist. Then I pluck the envelope out of her hand and raise an eyebrow. “What’s this?”

  “Don’t know,” she says with a shrug. “Everything else in there was just bills and stuff for Dad, but that came for you.”

  I flip over the envelope, and my breath freezes as I read the front. The return address is from San Diego, but the name of the sender is Seth Ashbury. It only takes me a moment to realize the address is from the neighborhood that San Diego State University is in, and I remember Seth’s plans to follow his brother to the same college.

  I can’t help but smile, despite the ache his name causes in my chest. He made it.

  “It says ‘Ashbury,’” Camille says, hesitantly poking at his name. “Is something wrong?”

  “Not at all,” I say, and I somehow know it’s true. Seth hasn’t been in contact with me since he sent me the information about the trust fund, but despite that, I know that he wouldn’t send me a letter just to stir up trouble.

  Camille nudges my shoulder. “Aren’t you going to open it?”

  I hesitate, brushing my fingers over the front of the envelope. Then I nod and tear open the top.

  Inside the envelope are two pages, both filled with writing. One is a photocopy of a diploma from San Diego State University, granting Parker Gregory Ashbury an official Bachelor of Arts degree in Photography Studies. I let out a relieved laugh and don’t bother holding in my grin. Brie had told me months ago that Parker’s thesis project was accepted, but this makes it official.

  This small part of Parker’s journey ended just how he wanted it. He finally got his degree.

  I flip to the other piece of paper, which looks like it’s been torn from a book. I run my fingers across it, half expecting to find the texture of one of Seth’s souvenirs on it, like the ones he decorates his walls with. But the page is smooth.

  I quickly scan over the printed writing and recognize it as the opening of the Walt Whitman poem Seth and I read together all those months ago. In the margins, Seth has scrawled his phone number and a message in his spidery handwriting:

  “I once told you that I never leave a chapter of my life behind without taking a souvenir. I still don’t know what to take away from you, which makes me think it’s not time to let you go. Call me.”

  I trace my fingertip over each of the digits in his number, treasuring the familiar messiness of his handwriting. I don’t realize I’m crying until Camille brushes a tear away from my cheek. Concern puckers her face into a frown, and her blue eyes stare up at me anxiously.

  “Are you okay?” she whispers.

  I pull her into another tight hug, smiling as I watch her concern melt into a look of comfort.

  “No,” I admit, holding both her and the letter close. “But I’m going to be.”

  ******

  Thank you for reading “This is What Goodbye Looks Like.”

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  About the Author

  Olivia Rivers is a hybrid author of Young Adult fiction. Her works include the independently published novels “Frost Fire” and “In the Hope of Memories,” along with the traditionally published novel “Tone Deaf” (Skyhorse 2016.) As a certified geek, she enjoys experimenting with new publishing technologies, and her online serials have received over 1,000,000 hits on Wattpad.com. When Olivia isn’t working as a writer, she’s a typical teen attending college in Northern California. Olivia is represented by Laurie McLean of Fuse Literary, and nothing thrills her more than hearing from readers.

  Want to get in touch? Please don’t h
esitate to send her an email, contact her on Facebook, follow her on twitter, or visit her website.

  Also Available

  Now Available in Ebook and Hardcover

  “Tone Deaf”

  A Young Adult Contemporary Romance

  His world is music. Her world is silent.

  Ali Collins was a child prodigy destined to become one of the greatest musicians of the twenty-first century—until she was diagnosed with a life-changing brain tumor. Now, at seventeen, Ali lives in a soundless world where she gets by with American Sign Language and lip-reading. She’s a constant disappointment to her father, a retired cop fighting his own demons, and the bruises are getting harder to hide.

  When Ali accidentally wins a backstage tour with the chart-topping band Tone Deaf, she’s swept back into the world of music. Jace Beckett, the nineteen-year-old lead singer of the band, has a reputation. He’s a jerk and a player, and Ali wants nothing to do with him. But there’s more to Jace than the tabloids let on. When Jace notices Ali’s bruises and offers to help her escape to New York, Ali can’t turn down the chance at freedom and a fresh start. Soon she’s traveling cross-country, hidden away in Jace’s RV as the band finishes their nationwide tour. With the help of Jace, Ali sets out to reboot her life and rediscover the music she once loved.

  Praise for “Tone Deaf”:

  “A smart, sexy, and fast-paced story with a swoon-worthy love interest. Tone Deaf will be music to your ears.” —Jessica Taylor, author of Wandering Wild

  “Much like its hero, Tone Deaf’s flashy, rock-star exterior surrounds a sweet, vulnerable soul that made it impossible to put down. It is equal parts fun and touching, with a dash of humor and lot of heart. The friendships, as well as the romance, have intense, believable chemistry, and with a giant pitbull named Cuddles thrown in the mix, I was in love!” —Laura Lee Anderson, author of Song of Summer