Something else Melissa said stuck with me. “Move forward, not on.”
For the last three years, I’ve felt like I was moving laterally. Everything I did, I was still in copious amounts of turmoil and grief. Doused in grief and sadness. How about I just move parallel?
In the same way you love both your mother and your father. The way you love both the beach and the mountains, both the flowers of spring and the first leaves of fall. My love for Grant is insatiable. And it always will be.
Now, I just have to move with it, and make room for a little more.
11
Later that night, when my eyes are heavier than a marble slab, and the city is finally beginning to settle down, I hear my phone buzzing on my nightstand. It’s Jae.
“Hey,” Comes the crackling radio-ready voice from the other end.
“Hey.” I whisper, the weight my eyes feel not registering in my voice.
“What are you up to?”
“It’s almost midnight. What do you think?” I let him hear the eye roll. “What are you up to?”
“Calling you.” He sounds lonely. It must be lonely to live by yourself.I guess I would know.
“Why don’t you go to sleep?” I try to suppress my yawn, but it escapes despite my efforts.
“I’m not tired,” Jae lets out a heavy sigh. “Tell me a story or something.”
“About what?”
“Anything.”
I think for a moment. What can I possibly tell him a story about? I haven’t done anything worth telling a story about in three years. I had an uneventful childhood; a normal high schoolexperience and college was nothing exceptional. Until I met Grant. And he already knows Grant is dead.
“You already know my best stories.” I say, breaking the silence.
“No, I don’t.” Jae shuffles on the other end of the line. It sounds like he’s rolling over in his own bed.
Lily snores at my feet, and I pet her back with my left foot.
“Two months after Grant got sick,” I finally begin, “He asked me if I wanted to get a dog. He said having a dog would help solidify our future together. As if living together and being together wasn’t enough.”
I hear Jae let out a breath on the other end of the line.
“And he desperately wanted a French bulldog. So, for his birthday that year, I searched all over the city for a Frenchie. But Frenchies are so expensive. And so I cut corners, and found a questionable breeder. She was two thousand dollars. And not a Frenchie.”
Jae laughs quietly.
“But she looks like she could be one, doesn’t she?” I laugh in agreement.
“She doesn’t look anything like a Frenchie, Riley,” Jae tells me.
I know. But Grant didn’t. He was so delirious and tired from his treatments.
“If Grant ever noticed, he never told me.”
“He was probably just happy you found him a dog.”
“He probably was.”
We’ve stayed quiet on the line for a few minutes, when Jae finally speaks up.
