IthinkI’m ready for this.
“You okay?” Peyton asked.
I nodded. “Yeah. It’s just hard. Coming back to…” I gestured around us.
He gave my hand a reassuring squeeze. “We can do it another day if you want to.”
“No.” I kept walking. “It’s going to be hard no matter what, but… I want to do this.”
He didn’t argue or protest. He just stayed with me as we followed the path.
Peyton and I had flown into Örebro, Sweden, a week ago with Rachel and the kids, and we were staying at a hotel in town while they stayed with her in-laws. Since coming here, we’d divided our time between helping her with the little ones, spending time with Leif’s family, and playing tourists.
The whole time, today had been in the back of my mind. I’d needed to do it. I’d wanted to. I’d just been afraid I couldn’t handle it.
It had taken me until today to work up the courage to come here. No one had pushed. Not Peyton. Not Rachel. Not Leif’s family.
This morning, I’d finally been as ready as I would ever be, and now here we were.
When we stopped, my skin prickled with goose bumps and my eyes stung, but I didn’t cry. Mostly, I just took in my surroundings, letting reality settle onto my shoulders.
There’d been people crowded around last year. A casket. A hole in the ground.
Now it was just us and a headstone:
Leif Adrian Erlandsson.
There was more inscribed, most of it in Swedish, but I was too fixated on his name to try to parse any of it.
I pushed out a ragged breath as I knelt. I tucked a crisp hundred-dollar bill into the bouquet—I had lost the bet, after all—and carefully put the flowers along the base of the headstone. Then, with my heart in my throat, I traced my fingertips over his name. Seeing it carved in stone like that was just so…final.
I can’t believe you’re not here anymore.
My therapist had assured me that moments like this were normal. Moments when it took my breath away to realize Leif was gone, and I had to recalibrate to this new normal. These moments, she assured me, would be fewer and farther between over time, but if one hit me a year from now or twenty years from now, it didn’t mean anything was wrong with me. It was just how grief worked.
“They’re hard,”she’d said.“They’re painful, though they will probably hurt less over time. But it’s okay to sit with those moments. Pause and let yourself think about him and how much you miss him. Part of keeping his memory alive means keeping a certain amount of grief alive, and that’s okay.”
I’d understood at the time what she’d meant, but it was times like this—when I was running my fingertips over my best friend’s name carved in stone—that I felt it to my core.
Yeah, it still hurt. Sometimes it even hurt physically, from my aching chest to that uncomfortable lump in my throat to the sting in my eyes. But that was the price of having someone as amazing as Leif in my world. I couldn’t love someone that hard without grieving them this hard. Especially now with some time, distance, and therapy, I wouldn’t trade the friendship we’d had for anything. Not even if it meant never feeling grief like this again.
I traced a letter in his name one more time, then rose, my knee cracking because I’d been crouched for so long. I exhaled and rolled my shoulders.
Peyton’s hand landed gently on the small of my back. “You all right?”
“Yeah.” I turned to him, and his concerned expression ignited a completely different ache in my chest. Leif would’ve been insufferable, watching me fall for Peyton like I had. He’d have gotten back at me for all the playful teasing I’d done when he’d been stupid for Rachel, because God knew I was that stupid for Peyton now.
I wished Leif could’ve been here for this. To see how ridiculous I was over this man. To give me all the heckling and chirping I richly deserved. And to, at some point when we were alone, look at me and say in all seriousness,“I’m glad to see you this happy with someone, Avery.”
That moment had never come, but I could see it and hear it and feel it as clearly as a memory. I could feel its absence, simultaneously hating how it had been taken away and being grateful that I’d had time—however short it had turned out it be—with the man who I was sure would’ve eventually said those words.
Peyton must’ve seen something in my eyes, because without a word, he reeled me in close. Arms wrapped around me, he stroked my hair as I leaned on him. I didn’t cry. I’d been sure all the way here that I would, but now, I just relaxed into Peyton’s embrace and let the peace settle over me.
“I’m glad to see you this happy with someone, Avery.”
Yeah. Me too.
Carding his fingers through my hair, Peyton softly asked, “You sure you’re okay?”
