Charlie checked his watch, and a shit-eating grin slipped across his face. “You’ve got about ten minutes, but she’s probably at O’Malley’s. Whatever is left was just bulldozed to the ground today. She goes there to talk to our momma sometimes, especially when she’s nervous.”?
I didn’t even say goodbye to Charlie. I just flew out the door and ran through the streets of Savannah as fast as my feet could take me.?
I had to see my girl.?
Chapter forty-seven
MAGNOLIA
Ipromised myself the last time I’d come here that it would be the last time. But there I was again, standing in front of the empty space where my bar, my home, used to be.?
I was never good at staying away from things that were long gone. Never good at ending chapters or at saying goodbye. And I was never, ever good at letting go.?
But this really was the last time. I’d given the land to the city with the promise that they’d use the space to build a home for orphans. I’d set up a separate trust, aside from the pre-established Wilder Trust, called the O’Malley Project, which would help orphaned children with resources they might need as they grew into adulthood. Prom dresses, suits for interviews, pep talks before the big game. I wanted there to be a space in Savannah for these kids to go that felt like home, even if they didn’t have one. Paying forward the support system that I was always so grateful for.?
And I’d elected Eunice Wilder as chair of the board. If anyone could raise funds for displaced children or come up with ideas on how to best support them, it was Momma Wilder herself.?
I opened my camping chair and pulled out my thermos of champagne, leaning over the threshold to my old apartment stairs, pouring a bit on the dirt. They’d break ground in a few weeks, but I wanted one last drink in the place I’d loved my whole life. The place where Uncle Cole lived and loved Eunice. Where my momma grew up and made memories with her best friend in the very same place I did with my own best friend. Where my parents met. Where I fell in love. Where I lost everything.?
In life, there are never any guarantees that what we wish for, what wedream for, will ever work out the way we expect. But there’s beauty in the journey, in the hope of it all. It just took me a long time to figure that out for myself.
One day, it felt like we woke up and were supposed to be adults, but deep down, we were still kids playing pretend. I once read that the mind of an adult isn’t much more mature than a teenager’s—we just have different bodies and bigger responsibilities. Maybe that’s why older folks can still be playful and why our twenties and thirties feel so confusing. Deep down, we’re still those sixteen-year-old kids, stumbling through life, trying to make sense of it all.
Maybe that was why Eunice and Uncle Cole always had that strange banter, like they were sharing some inside joke the rest of us couldn’t quite catch. Why my momma, no matter how grown she got, still played in the sand like a kid, scooping up shells and laughing wild and free while the waves lapped at her feet. Maybe it was why Dane and Kasey could never really let each other go or why Charlie still found himself sketching out comics, just like he used to.
And maybe it was why, after all this time, I never could let go of my first great love.
I leaned back in my chair and sipped slowly on the bubbly, giggling as the fizz tickled my nose.?
“I love that sound more than anything in the world,” I heard from behind me.?
I didn’t have to turn around to know who it was. It was the voice I’d know anywhere. The one that used to drift through my radio, the one I used to let sing me to sleep. And now, even after more than twenty years since the day we met, just hearing it still made my heart race like it had no idea time had passed.
“What? Did you hear that I was actually, for the first time in my life, doing something for myself so you decided to show up and ruin it?” I said coolly.
I could hear him snickering behind me. He strolled up to the empty space before us, hands in his pockets with his back to me, surveying the blank area before him.?
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, still not turning to face me.?
“It is what it is, Leland,” I sighed. “It was just a building, I have the memories tucked away in my heart, and I’ll pass them on, and my kids will pass them on, and their kids will, and on it goes.”?
I could feel myself tearing up, and my walls tearing down. Just beingnear him felt safe but vulnerable. Like I could finally say the things in my heart, because my heart was standing in front of me.?
He turned around to face me, and there were tears in his eyes, too.?“Loving you has always made me so sad. Like something I can’t put my finger on, you know? It’s bittersweet, I guess. Loving you my whole life has been the best—and the worst—thing I’ve ever done.” He rocked a little bit on his heels and drew in a long breath when he was done speaking.?
I studied him for a second and knew exactly what he meant.?
He stopped right in front of me, kneeling down and resting his hands on my knees. Normally, I would’ve pulled away—after everything that had gone down, this kind of closeness wasn’t something I wanted to let happen. But in that moment, neither of us moved. Maybe we needed it, both of us hanging on by a thread, standing at the edge of letting each other go.
“It’s been bittersweet—the best and worst thing all wrapped up together—but it’s been theonlything that’s ever felt right. Since the day I met you, this scrappy, frizzy-haired, freckle-faced redhead yelling at me in the middle of the street, I’ve wanted nothing more than to love you for the rest of my life. And I promised I would. And I have. No one, not once, has ever come close to making me feel the way I do about you.”
“Lee…”?
“Please, let me talk.”?
I grinned, handing him my thermos. “First of all, I suppose I don’t mind you being here if you’re going to keep buttering me up, but whatareyou doing here?”
He took a long swig, still wrapped up in the intensity of telling me what was on his heart. “I have a gig tomorrow night. I wasn’t going to stop by but…”?
