When Gracie is humiliated after following her best friend's brother to college and finds he's moved on without her, she grows closer to his rival--the captain of his basketball team--the infamous Kalen Rush, and suddenly Gracie wonders just what len...
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The headstone was covered in old flowers, the dead leaves perfuming the air with the stench of floral rot as I clenched the necklace in my palm hard enough for it to slice into the thickness of my skin.
"Hey, mom. I brought something for you."
It took more than long enough for me to realize that this was what I needed to do with the necklace that Gracie had basically ripped from her neck to give to me.
The memory from the day before was enough to keep me distracted during not one but two practices, and when coach had yelled at me for about the thirtieth time, I figured enough was enough and it was time to put to rest what had been crawling around in my head since laying eyes on the pendant that had been burning a hole in my pocket since I'd finally gotten my hands on it again.
"I'm guessing dad gave it to her and then she gave it to her daughter, so I haven't had it all this time. I know it was always your favorite."
The only response I received was a light breeze ruffling the hair across my forehead.
Kneeling down to swipe the dead leaves from the top of the headstone, I caught the grooves of her name etched in stone with my calloused fingertips.
Faye Rush, Beloved Mother.
That was it—because certainly it couldn't proclaim "Cherished Wife" considering how well and truly her husband had fucked that one up.
"I know you can't hear me, but sometimes its easier coming here than keeping it all in my head. Anyway, I figured you'd want this back, at least."
Unthreading the pendant from my hand, red marks gouged where I'd been clasping it so tightly, too tightly.
Digging into the earth to create a hole big enough to bury it, the necklace was dropped unceremoniously into the ground where it should've been twelve years earlier resting with Faye Rush—beloved mother, avid painter, amazing storyteller, stubborn fighter of cancer until the bitter end, even when her own husband didn't believe in her.
"Maybe this will make it better, maybe not."
And so there I sat, a bundle of white roses I bought and threaded around with sapphire blue ribbon placed precariously atop the grey marble headstone while I kneeled and tried to make that sharp pain in my chest ease just the smallest bit, if not for myself then for my mother who would've never wanted me to act the way I had towards that girl—Gracie.
That girl who'd gotten under my skin so efficiently upon just setting eyes upon her as she toyed with my mother's jewelry around her neck like she was entitled to it.
And she'd given it away so easily, like it was some worthless piece of trash instead of something absolutely priceless that I'd have killed to get back in the aftermath of her cancer diagnosis and treatment and subsequent demise.
