The air is already hot as Luke drives me home this morning. Hot and sticky, but there's a breeze that makes it bearable. With my window down and my hand out of it, salty wind tousles my hair as we drive back to Grams. The radio hums quietly, stuck on an old, alternative rock station.
Luke's quiet. But not in an "I'm angry and sulking quiet," - just tired quiet. We were up late last night, I can hardly blame him.
But I was up even after he fell asleep, replaying his rescuing Finn again and again in my mind. The look on his face as he stretched in the mirror. The pills rattling in his drawer.
Luke's a good guy.
I spent so long hating him but... the truth of it is, he's really good. He sacrifices for the people he cares about, myself included. He harms himself, instead of letting the ones he loves suffer. He's proven it time and time again. This summer, at least.
The fact sits like a rock in my belly. An obnoxious thought I can't get out of my head.
Because how does this summer's Luke align with the Luke from that summer's accident?
A sharp pain in my finger makes me realize I'm clawing at my cuticles. I stop, a little droplet of blood forming beside my nailbed, as Luke turns the radio down and pulls into Grams driveway.
He's at my door before I can hop out, humming cheerfully to himself. He helps me out, holding my hips a little longer than absolutely necessary. I can't help my returning grin.
"You're in a strangely good mood." I try for light and airy but the sentence comes out tight.
"Nothing strange about it, Dyl." Luke smirks anyways, wrapping an arm around my neck and tugging me close to his chest, breathing deeply into my hair as approach the front porch. "I can't be in a bad mood after a night with you."
His eyes twinkle down at me. Something tugs inside my chest. This is the Luke Henson that is hard to resist, the one capable of getting me into trouble. The Luke I knew and loved and then hated.
And now...
"Noted." I say simply, letting his hand drop as I find my keys.
How can someone who makes me feel so good be the same person who destroyed everything, my heart included?
"I can't stay today." He murmurs, brushing hair from my cheekbone and planting a soft kiss at my temple. "I've got to open the store."
"Oh," I breathe, noting the disappointment as my heart settles. "When will you be done?"
"Already missing me?" Half of his smile quirks up, a dimple threatening to pop out and seduce me entirely.
"Missing part of you, more like." I tease, hand gliding over the front of his jeans as I grin at his faux hurt. And then his strained expression as he tries to maintain control.
"See, Dyl?" He smirks, reluctantly adjusting his baseball cap as he descends the stairs, a playful wink tossed over his shoulder. "I told you my new moves would win you over."
I only laugh, too nervous to trust my voice not to give me away as I step inside the cottage, even as Luke promises to be by for dinner tonight.
Because it's not the new moves that are winning me over, but the same, old Luke.
It's a while before I hear Grams stirring in her bedroom. She must have been up late last night and decided to nap this morning. Noting the still early hour, I set some tea on the stove and wait for it to boil.
Only when it's done, the scent of citrusy-green tea rumbling my belly, do I prepare the tray with fruit and yogurt and toast, and bring it up the stairs to Grams room.
Her voice, low and rushed like she's keeping a secret, greets me through the doorway. I halt, quieting my breathing, despite my subconscious scolding me for spying on my elderly grandmother.
"I'll ask her about cleaning out his room this week." Grams voice. On the phone, then?
His room? She doesn't mean... She can't.
I press my ear to the door, balancing the tray of tea in my hands.
"Alone? What do you mean, alone?"
The shell of my ear is sore from how hard I'm holding myself to the door, dying for more information. More than this side of the conversation can give me.
"Oh, I've had enough of this..." a pause. "He's good for her, despite all your efforts and-" Another pause, more like an interruption this time. "I understand you did what you thought you had to do but..."
You did what you thought you had to do... My head spins.
Grams sounds more and more frustrated. Even her silence sounds pressured. Then, a shout.
"Well, it isn't working! Isn't it time to try something else?"
In my heart, I know with everything in me, that they're talking about me. Grams and whoever is on the other end of the call. Mom, most likely.
My eyes trail down the hall to Casey's door, a sad shudder running down my spine. Go in there and... clean it out? How could I ... why would I?
My thoughts are silenced by Grams voice again. More resigned. Frustrated, but calm.
"Fine. If that's how you see it. But I certainly won't be keeping her from him." A second. "I'm sorry that you don't like it, but as I'm sure you've heard the saying goes, my house, my rules. We agree that cleaning out his room will be good for her, but she has to do it how she's comfortable. If that means Luke is with her, so be it. I won't make her do it alone to keep them apart. Whatever reasons you might have."
It's confirmed then. They, Grams, my parents, whomever, want me to clean out Casey's old room. And my parents, for all their hatred and resentment of Luke, would rather make me do it alone than in his company.
Hot anger boils through my veins. The teacups shake on the tray before I, unable to hear much more, finally take a few steps from Grams door and slam my own, alerting her to my presence.
Then I make a show of approaching Grams room again, keeping my snooping a secret.
Grams, too, when she sees me, pretends nothing is amiss. "Hi honey. Have a good night?" She asks, smiling at the tea and slipping an arm through mine as she nods to the stairs. "Why don't we drink outside today?"
So be it. Silently, I walk her down the hall, but before we're at the stairs, she nods towards Casey's door. "Have you been in there? Since getting that shirt for Luke?"
Tight lipped, I shake my head no.
We're down the stairs and on the front porch, me setting up the tray and grabbing small stones to hold our napkins in the breeze, Grams settling into the wicker chair, by the time she speaks again. Her eyes seem tired as they scan my face.
"I think it might be time, honey."
I figure playing dumb is my best best. To hold off this conversation, the task I'd rather walk across broken sea shells barefoot than complete.
"Time for what?"
Grams is patient, sipping her tea deeply before eyeing me again. "To go into Casey's room. Sort through it all."
The way she says all... like it's not just his things I'll be going through, but other stuff as well. My stuff. My emotions, my baggage. I swallow hard, the tea in my own mouth going down wrong.
"I can't... I... Why would I do that?" I stammer, fingers working my cuticles again.
Grams tone is matter of fact, collected. Like she expected resistance.
"There might be things you want to keep, things Casey wouldn't want his Grams or parents finding," She chuckles, like any of this is funny.
I don't have it in me to laugh, my breathing becoming more rapid with each passing second.
Anger, usually hot and red, is like ice in my voice. "What're you doing with Casey's stuff?"
The thought of it, everything that made him him, thrown out or packed away, collecting dust somewhere, makes me nauseous. It's like admitting there's no need for it, no one to use it. It's like admitting he's really gone.
"Oh Dylan..." She grabs my knee firmly. "We're only moving it to storage, the important stuff. Donating some, maybe. We won't toss anything you don't want to."
"Why?" Barely a breath, a strangled, suffocated breath. Like a weight is crushing my windpipe, pressing hard against my chest.
"Dylan, it's time." Grams is still rubbing my knee with her old hand. "It's been years, and-"
My voice cracks. "Time for what?"
She continues uninterrupted. "And this isn't healthy, to hold on so tightly, to live in fear of things, places that make you think of him-"
"Time for what?" I snap louder, tears clouding my vision, wetting my cheeks. Strangling me. Choking me.
"Time to let go, Dylan." She replies finally, using my hand to pull me out of my chair and in front of her. "Just a little bit."
I clutch her knotted hands for dear life, holding her gaze, despite my tears, using her to keep it all together. But as her words sink in, it's like everything crashes down around me, and any bit of control I'd had crumbles with it.
And then I'm falling to my knees on the sandy porch, my head falling into the tiny lap of my grandmother, and I'm sobbing. Sobbing and sobbing and sobbing, like I'll never stop. The tears and the weeping just keep coming, like all of the sadness in the world is pouring out of me at this exact second as Grams strokes my hair, wipes my cheeks.
Because it hurts and it hurts and it never stops hurting. And when it isn't hurt, it's guilt and anger and wishing more than anything that something, anything, could've been different, could've prevented us from ending up here.
And I sob and sob and sob because even with all of this pain and all of the pain cleaning out his room will cause, I know Grams is right. I know it, deep in my bones.
It isn't that she needs the space for anything in particular. It's that it can't be his space forever. Not when he isn't here to fill it anymore. Not when it probably hurts her too, the reminder every day, even on good days, of what's missing when she passes his door.
What used to be, who used to be, and who never will again.
It has to be done. And it has to be me to do it. Of course if does. It wouldn't be right for it to be anybody else.
It's Casey, it's his life - all of it, every summer we spent here, sleeping at Grams, the last bit of it, that last summer, the summer when the world truly opened up before him, before it was all so violently ripped away far too fast, sitting in that one room.
Waiting. Just waiting.
Waiting for someone to go through it, to finally unpause his story, kept in that last summer forever.
But I know... When it finally unpauses, though, it won't continue playing. There won't be any story left.
It isn't unpause and keep going.
It's unpause and let end.
Let end and let go.
Let him end.
And make myself let him go.
Give him that last bit of peace. Maybe give a little bit of that peace to myself, too.
I gasp for air in Grams lap, the tears still falling as horrified acceptance washes over me.
Of course... Of course it has to be me.
okay! sad chapter ): our girl is really trynna trudge through, isn't she?
if you didn't see the announcement we're looking at like 14 ish chapters and an epilogue left! (but if you know me you know holding to the chapter count I estimate doesn't always work😩😂 sometimes I end up splitting what I think will be one chapter into two or even three so that's just a rough estimate! probably will end up being a few more!) Lots of drama still I promise!
Do you have any predictions? Theories? What're you hoping will happen before the book finishes?
Oh! If you're interested in connecting in other ways, I made a TikTok / Instagram: kjobrienwritesit ♥️