Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 94106 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 471(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94106 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 471(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
Though, that fleeting thought didn’t last long. In fact, it disappeared the moment I opened my eyes and started to get out of the car.
What the fuck?
What the actual fuck?
How had I not noticed that when I pulled into the driveway?
I’d come out here searching for something—maybe a sign that it was time to move on. But what I hadn’t expected was that sign to be literal.
Greeting me from the lawn next door was just that.
Sotheby’s
For Sale
Exclusive Listing
***
I felt like I was sitting in someone else’s house—like I’d walked into an Airbnb I’d rented for the weekend, rather than the back deck of a place where I’d pretty much felt at home my whole life. It was fucked up to feel like I didn’t belong here anymore when this summer it had felt like the only place I belonged. What a difference in a short period of time.
I’d considered going into town and picking up a bottle of, well, anything, in order to forget the sign outside. But I’d come out here for clarity, and drowning my sorrows would only make things blurrier.
So instead, I sat on the back deck and finished watching the sun go down. I looked over at the empty deck next door and then back to the spot where we’d first danced to her favorite music. She’d smelled so good that day. I took a deep breath in and closed my eyes. I might’ve been nuts, but I could actually smell her scent, see her laughing as I took her in my arms, feel the way her soft body felt pressed up against mine. That’s what felt like home now. Without her, everything felt empty. It wasn’t the house or the place—it was me, inside.
I opened my eyes, and the most fucked-up thing happened. Right where I’d imagined myself dancing with Valentina, I saw my parents dancing—the same way they used to. My mother wore that white flowy dress she used to put on after she got out of the shower, and my dad had on navy blue swim trunks. They looked so goddamned happy. What a farce.
I sat outside, seeing things that weren’t really there for a long time, until it was so dark I couldn’t see the deck next door anymore. Then I went inside. I figured I’d crash here for the night since it was late. The end-of-season cleaning crew had stripped all the beds, so I went up to my parents’ room where the spare blankets were kept and planned to just sleep on the couch. But when I pulled a blanket down, something came tumbling down along with it—straight to the floor and smashed all over the place.
My parents’ Mason jars.
One of them, anyway. The other I saw tucked into the back of the closet behind the rest of the blankets.
Great. Just what I needed. Shattered glass to clean up and more memories of a life that was built on a lie.
I went to the kitchen closet to grab the broom and dustpan, and then back upstairs to the bedroom to sweep up the glass. God knows why, but I picked the folded little strips of paper out of the glass pile and set them aside on the dresser. Without looking at them, I wasn’t even sure whose they were—my mother’s or father’s.
After I finished cleaning up, I scooped up the papers and opened the top drawer to put them in there for the time being.
But as I went to close the drawer, I couldn’t do it.
I picked up one of the little slips and stared down at it in my hand. It felt like an invasion of privacy to read them, but it also felt like I was here for a reason and maybe this was part of it. Fate had been drawing me to this place all day, so why stop now. Wary, I slowly unfolded the first one and read.
Because I told you you’ve been hogging the sheet at night lately, and today you made the bed with two sheets so we could each have one.
I smiled. That sounded like something my mother would do for sure. Apparently, I’d gotten my father’s jar. That made it feel a little less intrusive—or I gave a shit about intruding on his privacy a hell of a lot less. I took another one from the drawer and unfolded it.
Because you swam with Annabella for an hour this afternoon, when all you really wanted to do was sit on the beach and read your book.
That was nice. Although it didn’t make me any less angry with him for what he’d done.
Because when I went into the bathroom to get ready for bed, you’d already put the toothpaste on my toothbrush for me.
I kept going.
Because you drove all the way to the Hamptons to get the book I’d been dying to read the day it came out and surprised me.