Life After Rehab ✓

[Chapter Sixty-Seven] Where Lacey Lives On

Chapter Sixty-Seven – Where Lacey Lives On 
Bailey's Pov

Seeing her parents again was the most nerve-wracking experience I've felt in a long time; worse than performing on stage. It's been just over two years since we saw them and I couldn't imagine the pain of losing a child.

Julian called them and they readily agreed to us coming over. When we got to the front door, I couldn't bring myself to physically knock; Julian had to do it. Her mother answered the door and it looked like she's aged more than just two years.

"Bailey, Julian; it's nice for you to come by." She left us a space to come in and my chest tightened from the anxiety when we followed her to the living room. There were photos of her as a child all the way up to ones that I could recognize of her from Rehab.

"Thanks for seeing us." My voice was little above a whisper.

"You're welcome over anytime; it's nice seeing Lacey's friends. It's almost like we get to see a piece of her again." Her dad was quiet and you could tell her death was hard on them. Lacey told me they were very loving people and after all these years; they would be the kind of parents to just kiss in the kitchen, right in front of the kids.

They were affectionate people, but his mom sat at a distance and you could be left wondering if they ever talked to each other anymore. Lacey looked just like her mother though; that couldn't be easy.

"How are her brothers?" Julian wondered

"They're okay. We all miss her; her birthday is still always the hardest." Her father's jaw was tight but his eyes were sad.

"We're happy to see you accepted our invite to the wedding." That did mean a lot to me; we were both trying to hand on to a part of her that we didn't know like the other did. I was the last person she talked to; we laid side by side in bed that night and every time I think back; I still can't see the signs.

"How is the wedding planning going? " No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't stop my eyes from watering. We invited them to the wedding and they accepted already.

"Alright, she's still going to be my maid-of-honor. It's why we're here, actually." Her mom hugged me and I froze for a minute before hugging her back.

"We were wondering if there were any photos of her that we could use. We want her to be in our photos of our wedding still. Our photographer said she could take them and add her in like a ghost with us." Her mom cried now. 

"That's very sweet of you. We have a lot of photos and you're more than welcome to go through them and we can burn you a disk. We also wanted you to have this." She handed me two discs.

"What is it?" I wondered out loud.

"They were the photos from her camera, the memory cards she had when she was in rehab. There are a lot of her, and quite a few of the two of you." The deep voice surprised me when he answered rather than her mother.

"We also don't want to intrude too much, we both very much can understand the pain is still there; but we were hoping one or both of you would say something about her, a short story about who she was. We want to honor her and who she was to us." This time they looked hesitant.

"You don't have to. We just want her a part of our happy day however you're comfortable." Her mom looked at her dad and they could barely look at each other.

"We'll think about it. Lacey had this blue bracelet and we weren't sure if you wanted to borrow it for your wedding. I'm not sure if you're following the traditional saying; but it could be the something blue or something borrowed."