I want desperately to believe that, but I also witnessed everything Leighton went through when we were younger. And what I didn’t see for myself, Callie and my mom talked about. I thought I was enough to help her overcome all that. Turns out that just like my baseball career, I’m just one step away from being good enough.
Just the one to catch the ball for the first-round drafted pitcher.
Just a throw-in for another guy’s trade.
Just the guy to have fun with but not steady enough to have as a serious boyfriend.
I felt on top of the world with Leighton. The way I saw myself looking through her eyes, man, talk about an ego check. But in the end, I didn’t have “it” once again.
I look out the window and watch the clouds drift by underneath us, unsure where I go from here.
Chapter
Fifty-One
Leighton
* * *
The kids are at Art and Julianna’s. This is their last visit over there before a final decision is made on who they’ll live with. I feel as if I’m in the world’s longest competition.
Over the last few days, I’ve been thinking about Hayes’s words, about Sky and Patrick’s room… can any of us really move on when we walk by this door that remains shut? It’s a constant reminder of what happened, as though we’re stuck in time, bound to relive the tragedy. If we want to move forward, we need to move on. At the same time, we need to bring them to life in our memories. Sky deserved to be honored, not forgotten. And right now, this room represents us all trying to forget, trying to pretend as though their deaths never happened.
I rest my hand on the doorknob and close my eyes as I twist it.
Then I push the door open, step in, and instead of shutting it, I leave the door open.
All I can do is stare at the bed and see Sky lying there, her head propped up on her pillow, reading her Kindle until the middle of the night. She’d always tell me how tired she was the next day, but how it was such a good book that it was worth it.
Her walking out of the bathroom in her robe with her hair twisted in one of the microfiber towels she was always buying me so my hair wouldn’t be frizzy.
How am I supposed to pack all this up and erase her? Once all these things are gone from here, where does she live? Only in our hearts? How do we show that she was once on this earth? She was a daughter, a mother, a cousin, a friend. She was an amazing human being. She and Patrick both.
I force myself to be brave and walk through the room. It all looks so daunting. But I need to face the pain, push through it, and move on so that all of us can move forward.
When I reach her closet, I take out her UIC sweatshirt and press it to my face, inhaling her scent as if she’s hugging me hello or goodbye again.
“I miss you so much,” I mumble into the fabric.
“Hello?” Callie’s voice calls from downstairs.
I’m tempted to drop the sweatshirt, run out of the room, and shut the door, but I stay put. She swears when her foot hits the third step, and it creaks loudly.
“Leighton?” Her voice is softer as she steps into the room. I emerge from the closet, and she smiles softly at me. “Want some help?”
I didn’t think I did. I wanted to do it myself. I told her as much this morning on the phone, which was perfect since she had a podcast recording planned. But she’s here, and I’ve never been so thankful.
“Yeah. Thanks.”
“I’ll be right back.” She holds up her finger and rushes down the stairs, swearing again when the third stair from the bottom squeaks again. When she returns, she has a box of trash bags and empty moving boxes. “Just put me to work.”
We spend the afternoon designating piles for keep, giveaway, or trash, and I put together a box of Patrick’s things for Art to go through. We share stories and memories about our time with them, and for the first time in a long time, I remember them as the couple they were, not the perfection I envisioned after they died.
How Sky would complain about his boxers not making it into the hamper.
Or Patrick telling us about how Sky is hyper-organized, but she squeezes the toothpaste in the middle. Callie pulls the toothpaste from the drawer and says, “She really did,” and we laugh with tears in our eyes.
Sky was always picking on Patrick for not finishing the last few drops of water in a cup.
