“I feel the same sometimes,” I admit. “But I guess, on days like that, I try to feel the joy for other people, even if I think I don’t deserve it myself.”
“I only feel like I’m allowed to grieve. Any other sensation seems stolen to me.” She’s quiet for a moment before she continues, “That’s why I left. Why I moved to New York. I hated seeing my family try to help me when I didn’t want to be. When I came to you that night…” She lifts her head, meeting my gaze with glistening eyes. “I knew that you could be the one to do it. You could heal me. You could love me, and I didn’t deserve it. I guess I was so focused on my own self-loathing, I didn’t think deeply enough about how it would affect you. Or maybe I thought you deserved it too…” She presses her hands to her temples, shaking her head. “I don’t know. I can’t make sense of what my headspace was like back then. All I know is…” She knots her hand in the fabric of my shirt. “You’re the love of my life, but he’s the boy I loved to death. How am I supposed to move on from that? Why do I deserve to?”
“The presence of grief does not equate to the absence of happiness,” I say, grasping her jaw and tilting her head so that she can see my eyes. “What a disservice to the human condition it is to believe something like that. We’re so much more complex, Elena.”
She stares back at me, contemplative, searching my eyes for some kind of answer before finally asking, “How am I to call lifehappy when it ends in death? What is it to search for a happy ending if it still means there is an end?”
I search her eyes, too, but I find every answer I need. She’s the answer, always has been. “Everything ends. Choosing joy with the certainty that it’s fleeting is the purpose of life, I think. The ending is preexisting. Happiness is what you aim to find.”
“Do you think that we could still find one?” she asks just above a whisper. “A happy ending?”
“I think we’ll have to work harder for it, harder than we expected to.” I brush my thumb over her jaw, watching her eyes flutter closed as I press my lips to her forehead. “But yes.”
One of her tears cascades over my finger, and I swipe it away as I lower my hand, letting her head fall against the crook of my neck. I hold her there, savoring her touch as the sea breeze kicks up. A gust bursts across my face, and something rolling across the bottom step of the deck catches my eye.
One lone rosebud must’ve fallen off the bushes from the back of the lawn, now fluttering in the wind, as if answering in agreement.
27
VICE
“NOTHING’S GONNA HURT YOU BABY” - CIGARETTES AFTER SEX
“Augustus,”I whisper, clutching his head against my chest to quell his trembling limbs. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
Sitting back against the headboard, I sway gently in my bed, holding him to me.
I woke to the sound of him screaming, the second night terror he’s had since I moved in. It’s normally his bedroom I fall asleep in at night. His bed is bigger, and he has a television and a bathtub. Plus, I like the way the sheets always smell like him.
Tonight, we fell asleep in mine, though.
He brought me upstairs after we stared at the stars and spoke of Zach, being more open about our grief and our fear than either of us have been before. I never found the courage to speak to him directly, but it kind of felt like he was part of our conversation, and after we finished, I felt settled in a way I haven’t experienced before during bouts of grief.
There are many, many things I want to say to Zach, and I hope someday I’ll find the courage to voice them, but I think those moments are better left between the two of us alone.
As cathartic as it was, the whole evening exhausted me. I know August hadn’t intended to stay here; he merely wanted to help me up the stairs and into bed, but I found myself unable tolet him go. I’ve done it too many times before. I can’t find the will to push him away anymore.
I’m not sure if the change in sleeping location is what caused the night terror, if it was our conversation from earlier, or all just a coincidence. All I care about now is calming him.
I brush my fingers through his hair, his screaming has finally stopped. His heart still beats wildly against my stomach, and the breath leaving his lips is rapid and distressed.
“I’m right here, baby,” I whisper, watching him wince with closed eyes, as if whatever is raging in his mind is causing him immense pain. “I’m here,” I say again, brushing my thumb over his brow. “I’m here.”
He finally begins to settle, snaking an arm over my thighs and gripping me tightly, as if my skin is his anchor to reality—my heartbeat his guide home. As his breathing evens out, I continue stroking his face, brushing my hands through his hair, letting him slip back into a more peaceful rest.
I don’t know how much time has passed, my eyes drooping and my head lulling against the back of the headboard when I hear him whisper, “Elena?”
I startle, snapping my gaze down to find his beautiful face tilted toward mine, green eyes bright in the darkness of my room. “Hi.” I smile. “You had a night terror.”
“I’m sorry,” he groans, stretching his limbs and rolling over so that I can move back down the bed. We both lie on our sides, facing the other.
“Don’t apologize,” I whisper. “Do you want to go to your room?”
“No.” He shakes his head. “But if you want me to leave, I can. I’m sorry.”
That pulls a breathless laugh from me. “I’m sorry, let me rephrase that. I’ll be sleeping where you are tonight. Do youwant to stay here, or do you think you’d sleep better if we were in your bed?”
His lips twitch. “We can stay here.”
