Standing on tiptoes, I look overtop the crowd wondering what she's referring to. Garrett reaches over and puts his hand on my lower back to reel me in from the sting of the evening. Before I catch sight of what’s happening, Kate starts talking again.
“Just,” she pats at her eye with a ring finger and sighs. “Just a little something very special to highlight all of the joy Lydia spread throughout her life here on earth.”
The tips of my fingers go numb as she turns on the sixty-inch flat screen television with the remote, a slideshow appearing in all of its bright, high-definition glory. She steps down from the ottoman in her bare feet and scoots to the side of the television as picture after picture of Lydia streams through set to a Third Eye Blind song that used to be our favorite.
“What the fuck,” I say, out loud, garnering a few glances from people surrounding me including a forlorn-looking Moira. I feel Garrett’s hand leave my waist as Kate turns to me with one of the nastiest sneers she can conjure.
Across the television screen rolls photos of Lydia— pictures of her from birth to toddler years, pre-school and onward. Photos of Lydia and Garrett playing in their backyard sprinkler, Lydia, Kate, and me stretched out on beach towels on the sand, pictures from school dances and cheer competitions, sleepovers and birthday parties. In every single photo, Lydia’s sandy blonde hair falls smoothly down her shoulders, and the brights of her eyes seem so full of life. Even as I stand here enthralled by the visuals, I find it impossible to believe she’s actually gone.
Reaching my hand out for Garrett to steady myself, I can’t feel him beside me. And then, like a train suddenly slamming into my stomach, I remember.
The pictures.
Turning, I find an empty space where Garrett had been seconds earlier. Looking around, I spot the back of his head on the other side of the French doors as he descends the stairs of the back porch. I watch as he weaves through the twinkling lights on the ground, and I know exactly where he’s going.
Chapter Fourteen
Fighting my way through the crowd, I rush out of the house with an urgency I didn’t know existed in me. I’m not about to let Garrett go through this on his own, especially since I’d been the one to encourage him to come to the party in the first place. All of that for my backstabbing friend.
When I reach the door, he’s at the edge of the yard heading east. “Garrett,” I yell, my voice cutting out into the warmth of the night. I run to catch up with him, that same Third Eye Blind song growing dimmer over the loudspeakers as I hurry in my tipsy state through the golden-lit grass. “Garrett, please.” But he doesn’t stop. Leaving the property, he's heading straight for the lake. “I told her not to,” I finally scream in desperation, my voice echoing off the oaks lining the water in the distance. As if understanding my cryptic cry for help, he stops cold in his tracks.
When I reach him, he cranes his neck up toward the stars and sighs. “What?”
“I told her not to do the pictures like that,” I say, my breath heavy. “I begged her for no photos. You have to believe me.”
He shakes his head. “Why would you tell her that?”
Looking over at him in the onset of night, I feel stiff and achy. Like the heat of the summer has sobered me into a borrowed state of being standing next to him. Something makes it feel foreign, like we're two strangers sharing nothing but the same air. “I don’t know. I saw your photo album one night.”
His jaw twitches.
“I’m sorry, I just. It seemed like you weren’t okay with pictures of her. Of Lydia. I wanted to make sure you’d be okay here tonight.”
He shakes his head. “They’re just pictures, Rachel,” he says, an audible tension grating his voice.
Just pictures.
"Yeah," I whisper. But even as the word falls off my tongue, I know that's not true. Those pictures are not just pictures. They’re pictures that hold meaning and love and life. Those pictures stand for a time when things were easier. “Then why did you leave?”
“Came out for a walk. To clear my head. You should turn back.”
The way he says it makes it clear to me that he wants to be alone. But I’m not leaving him. Instead, I trail a few feet behind him as he continues toward the lake.
Though there’s a dock at the end of my dad’s property, we cross over a few neighboring yards. One of the houses belongs to Mr. Lang who is cooking out on his grill on the back deck. Noticing us, he shouts to run us off, but Garrett’s pace never falters. He just keeps going.
Save for the crunch of grass under our shoes, the journey is silent. Five minutes into the walk, we reach Carson Beach— a pristine strip of sand that makes this side of the lake feel like the edge of a calm ocean. The water is full to the brim and shines colors under the muted night sky. As we pass the empty, faded lifeguard stand on the shore, Garrett sighs. He must feel my desperation because he reaches back and takes a gentle, firm hold of my hand, pulling me forward to walk at his side. He’s heading straight for the spot, and my heart plummets the closer we get.
Toward the center of the beach, he stops us four feet from the water’s edge. Through the fading light, I can tell the beach is clear. The only sound besides our breathing is the stinging hum of cicadas from the trees behind us and the gentle lapping of water at our feet. If the place didn’t hold such a heavy piece of grief, it would’ve felt mystical down here. But I can nearly taste the pain of that afternoon in the air.
Without the jostling of our steps, I can feel Garrett’s warm hand trembling in mine. “Garrett,” I breathe, turning to him.
He lets out a long, wavering breath. “Ham sandwiches,” he says slowly, bringing his free hand up to rub at his eyes.
I study the depth of his silhouette against the shimmer of the lake, his hand still trembling in mine. “What about them?”
“We had ham sandwiches that day,” he says after clearing his throat.
My stomach drops. The sharp pinch of oncoming tears lingers at the bridge of my nose as I fight back the urge to burst into sorrow. Never has Garrett said anything about those final hours except for that one whiskey-fueled night five years ago.
Turning my attention back to the lake, I keep silent for fear of puncturing the quiet. Training my attention to the far side of Lake Carson, I stare up at the treetops. What little light the rising moon is putting off gathers at the edge of the horizon.
“You two begged me to bring you down here. Your dad was busy at the lakehouse and wouldn’t take the time. My parents— they were at a conference in Charlotte or something. But you weren’t allowed down here unsupervised, so I caved after awhile.” He pauses, and one of his fingers twitches against my sweaty palm. When he speaks again, it’s slow and full of pauses.
“It was hot out here. Hot but dark. Cloudy. I don’t know. Too dark for a Thursday afternoon in July is about all I can say to that.” He scratches the back of his head. “There was only one other man on the beach over there,” he says, nodding to the left. “Kept pissin’ me off because he was staring at you two for way too long. I remember wanting to beat the shit out of him every time his eyes would find you.” I feel him tense, and then he pulls his hand from mine.
“I had to carry all your shit down here that day,” he says with a hint of a laugh. “The food, couple cans of Coke. Your beach towels. The bag with your sunscreen and hats. And that damn pink inflated float.”
Feeling the tears well up, I smile remembering the float. I can still smell that manufactured plastic scent it put off in the heat. Lydia and I always played rock, paper, scissors for it when we both wanted to lay on it at the same time.
“You and Lydia were racing the lake most of the afternoon." He spits something into the sand in front of us. "It was close to four, and you ran back up to the house to go to the bathroom. Or somethin’. I don’t remember. But Lydia was desperate for me to race her. You two had been doing that for what seemed like— fuck. An hour and a half.” He lets out a long sigh. “Way too long for it bein’ that hot
. I finally agreed. But I knew I’d beat her because she was so worn out.”
He shoves his hands deep into his pockets and kicks at the sand. "I don’t remember everything. But I remember this. Before we took off, she tried to push me over in the water. Didn’t work though. She looked so,” he sighs, “so disappointed. When she tried again, I made a show of it, pulled her down with me. She was laughing. That's the last I ever heard her laugh.” The words catch in his throat.
When I look over at him, his eyes look as glassy as the surface of the lake.
“We were only supposed to go out that far,” he says, pointing to a dock jutting out from a property to our right. "Those were the rules, and she promised. No further than that. When I got there and turned to come back, she must’ve kept going or somethin’. Then I reached the shore. I looked back, couldn’t find her for a second.” Wiping at his nose, he sniffs and clears his throat again. “Couldn’t see her or— shit, I don't know, Rach. I guess I thought she was still swimming or somethin’. I remember yelling at her, but she wouldn't answer. Just stayed there in the water splashin’. It only hit me what was happening when she dipped down under the surface. That's when I realized somethin' was wrong. That’s when I knew. I took off after her.” He slumps his shoulders.
“You think,” he says, tears rising in the back his throat. “You think when a person is drownin’ that they’re out there screaming and fighting against the goddamn water, but.” Shaking his head, he unloads a huge breath, catching himself from his waterfall of emotion into which he's trying not to fall. “It wasn’t like that. Not at all. I don’t know why. It just— wasn’t.”
Stepping in front of him, I turn and search for his eyes in the night. I can see tears rolling down his cheeks, dragging damp paths across his skin, and I want to wrap my arms around him. I want to kiss his eyelids and get him through this pain. But I can tell by his small posture that he doesn’t want to be touched.
“I called her name, Rachel. Yelled it, screamed it, but she never answered me. By the time I made it back out there, it was too late. She wasn’t breathing just was under the water there like—” The gut-wrenching sound that heaves from his chest echoes out against the water, and I wrap myself around him, kissing his shoulder.
“If I’d known CPR, maybe. Maybe I could've saved her but. It was my fault she—”
“It was an awful accident,” I say in the softest voice I can manage over his sobs. “It wasn’t your fault, okay?”
“Yes, it was. And you weren’t there. I should’ve been able to stop it from happening. She died out there, Rachel. Because of me.”
"Hey," I snap at him, grabbing his head between my hands. My voice is stern and honest when I speak. "This was not your fault."
His continued sobs into the top of my hair pull me from the night, transplanting me to that July afternoon. Twelve-years-old and hot from the sun. Garrett was right. I’d gone up to the lakehouse to pee. When I came back down, I was eating a blue raspberry popsicle and was carrying two more, one for each of them. I found Garrett hovered overtop Lydia on the shore, nearly pounding on her trying to resuscitate her. At the time, I didn't know what was happening. It looked like she had fainted or fallen asleep there in the sand. But when I said Garrett's name, he looked up at me and screamed for me to go get help. His voice that afternoon, I will never forget it. Dropping the popsicles, I ran as fast as my legs could carry me back to the lakehouse. Back to my dad who was stuffed away in his office in the house working.
I can feel Garrett shaking in my arms now, his tears falling onto my neck. “Garrett—”
“It was my fault. You can’t prove otherwise. I brought you here, I left her out there, and she fucking died on my watch,” he says through gritted teeth. He pulls away from me and turns toward the grass behind him. “This,” he says, motioning over to the lake. “This is the closest I’ve been to a body of water in years. I can’t do it anymore.” The panic in his voice shatters my heart. “I can’t go swimming or fishing, no boating. Nothin’. The only thing I can manage are the sprinklers at the golf course. I just can't do it anymore, Rachel.”
"Hey," I say, reaching for his arm. But he pulls away from me. With every step I take to close the distance between us, he skirts further away from the lake, from me.
“You and I,” he says shaking his head, pointing a frantic finger between us. “We’re not a good fit.”
All the air inside me rushes from my lungs. “Garrett. You’re just—”
“No.”
I feel a lump form in the back of my throat. I keep swallowing to ease it, but it’s heavy as a boulder.
“This back and forth bullshit we do. My dragging you down. All of it.”
“But you don’t drag me—”
"I’m not doing it anymore, Rachel,” he says finally facing me.
The tears that had welled up during Garrett’s memory of the afternoon Lydia drowned start to spill down my cheeks, but I try to keep my voice from wavering. “What do you me—”
“I mean I can’t deal with you anymore.” The sudden sharpness of his voice blasts me backward. “I can’t be with you, Rachel. I can’t look at you without thinking of Lydia. Every time I’m with you, that pain gnaws at me, and this," he says, lurching a finger between us again. "I can’t fucking do this anymore.”
Complete shock freezes me in my spot. I'm immobile, and the cicadas drown out into a sheer blanket of silence. When I open my mouth to speak, denial grabs hold of my stomach and twists. “You don’t know what you’re saying—”
"Jesus, Rachel." Garrett sighs. “I’m not an idiot. I’m a grown man standing here telling you I don’t want to do this anymore. Whatever this is.”
“No, you—”
“You deserve someone better. Someone who has more to offer than I do.”
I feel my lips quiver through my tears, and I’m glad the last of the light has disappeared so he can’t see me crying. “But I want everything you have, Garrett. All of it. I don’t care about anything else.”
“Well.” He sighs heavily, releasing his uncertainty into the air between us. “It’s not really up for discussion. I’m not letting you deal with any of my shit any longer. This, my fucked up mind, all the pain. I’m not doing it to you, and that’s final.”
The tone of his voice tells me this might be it. My breath catches me as I cave into the sobs that have locked up in the back of my throat. Anger taking hold of my heart, I throw my hands down at my sides and scream at him, my madness showing loud as it can. All of my sadness and hate and shame takes root in me there in front of him. “And what if I WANT all that shit?” I scream.
“You. don’t. get it,” Garrett says, enunciating each word like the drop of a hammer. “I’m not giving you an option,” he says firmly, taking a few steps backward. “You and I, we’re done.” Turning on his heel, he takes off toward the opposite end of the dark beach, his words cementing my grief.
Still sobbing, I stare at his back as he walks away from me. In the sorrow of the moment, I memorize the broadness of his silhouette as he leaves, the tilt of his hanging head, the dragging of his footsteps in the sand as he walks away from me one last time. Not only had I lost Lydia down here on the lake a decade ago, but now I've lost Garrett, as well.
Chapter Fifteen
Slowly, I make my way back up through the neighbors’ yards in the dark until I reach the perimeter of the twinkling lights settled in the grass. I come to a halt when I see that the party crowd has gathered outside, the three paper lanterns just having been released by Kate, Moira, and one of Garrett's friends. Unnoticed, I stand under the closest weeping willow tree at the edge of the property and watch from afar. The white orbs float into the deep purple of the sky forming three ghosts dancing Heavenward together. I choke back my hollow sobs as Kate says a few last words that I can barely make out from this far away. She raises her arms at the rising lanterns, wishing them a gentle farewell, answered only by a sea of hushed cheers. Once the lanterns have faded into the d
epths of the night, everyone heads inside to get out of the evening heat.
With a throbbing head and my tears all dried up, I consider leaving, just hopping in my car and driving away from this once and for all. But, headache or not, I don’t want to be alone tonight. Not like Garrett wants to be.
Here under the dark cover of the tree, I retrace my thoughts calculating where everything had gone wrong. Garrett had finally started opening up to me, told me he wanted to be with me. What did I do to chase him away so suddenly?
But then I gain the sound part of my mind. Screw him. It’s not like he’s given me anything other than a little company and a few good fucks. I curl my hand into a fist and slam it into the tree trunk, skidding my knuckles on the rough bark. Wincing in pain, I realize the only thing that’ll fix me tonight is more whiskey.
After catching my breath and reining in my anger, I head back into the house in search of alcohol. The crowd seems to have grown since I fled with Garrett during Kate’s unnecessary presentation, but rounding the corner to the living room for more booze, I nearly collide with Moira who sneers at me in delight.
“So you really fucked him, huh?”
Not giving a shit about the rise Moira’s trying to get out of me, I ignore her and head for the table of alcohol. Cracking open the last remaining bottle of cinnamon whiskey, I pour some in a red plastic cup and take a swig, the music and pain of the whiskey going down throwing my focus off of everyone around me.
“Hey, I’m talking to you,” Moira says, following me over to the table.
I glance up at her with uninterested eyes. The pink tips of her hair now hang in a tangled mess over her shoulders.
“I said did you fuck him?”
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