Can't Let Go - By Michelle Brewer Page 0,26

the country, unlocking the door. She closed her eyes for a moment, wondering what she would find waiting on the other side of the door.

Her eyes watered instantly as she stepped across the threshold and looked around. A jacket hung on the back of a dining chair—a to-do list on the refrigerator. Pictures hung every where—photos of the scenic beauties of the places they’d been, of the people they cared about, of themselves. To each picture, a memory was attached for Abby and Logan—if not a personal memory, then one that had been related to them.

“We’ll have to pack all of this up,” Abby realized as she looked around, the tears blurring her vision.

“We have time.” Logan was trying to reassure her. “Come on, let’s just get what we came for. We don’t have to stay.” Abby nodded, following Logan toward the back of the house, where the master bedroom was located. She tried not to look around too much—tried not to notice that the bed was unmade, that a book sat open on the nightstand. She tried to ignore all of the small details that revealed that only two days earlier, her friends were alive and moving about this house as if they would return that night.

An urgency formed within her to complete their task and move on. She crossed the room to the walk in closet and was overcome by the scent of them—Hayley’s sweet perfume, Blake’s musky cologne. It wasn’t at all overpowering, and if she closed her eyes, she could almost trick herself in to believing that they were there in the room with her.

She took slow shallow breaths, trying to keep her emotions at bay. After a long moment, she finally lifted her sunglasses to the top of her head and began thumbing through the clothes. She heard Logan in the bedroom, opening drawers.

When her eyes landed on the clear bag through which she could see a plain white dress, her heart stopped.

It was Hayley’s wedding dress.

She removed it carefully, a memory dancing through her mind of the day Hayley had found it. “This is it, Abbs. This is the one. I could spend an eternity in this dress.” Hayley’s voice was as clear to her now as the day they had stood in the small dress shop.

“This,” Abby said, walking out of the closet. Logan glanced in her direction.

“That’s her wedding dress.”

“She loved this dress,” Abby told him, staring at it through the plastic material, careful to avoid his eyes. Logan only nodded before disappearing inside the closet. She laid the dress on the bed and glanced around, though she told herself not to. She heard Logan rummaging through the closet.

She was standing in front of the dresser when something occurred to her.

“What happened?” She asked quietly, realizing that she still hadn’t found out the details of this “accident” that had shocked her life so dramatically.

“Nobody knows for sure,” Logan responded. It sounded as if he had stopped rummaging, as if he was closer now—but she couldn’t look up. Because there, hanging on the wall directly in front of her, was a large framed photo from the day of Hayley and Blake’s wedding—the last time the four of them had been together. “I mean, there weren’t any witnesses. The Sheriff thinks that a deer must’ve run out on the road and Blake tried to miss it—but—” Logan continued on.

“Was it painful?” She reached out to the photo now, longing for the happiness she’d felt in that moment. The four of them stood together, smiling happily at the camera.

“Abby…”

“It’s okay, Logan. I can take it.” She didn’t necessarily want to know, but she needed to. She had to know what her friends had gone through.

“Hayley—” She could tell it was difficult for him to talk about—and it was probably going to be just as difficult for her to hear. “Hayley went quickly. Blake survived until about an hour into surgery. A passerby happened to notice their car rolled over in a nearby ditch and called 9-1-1. ”

Abby imagined the scene being laid out in front of her. She saw Hayley and Blake, driving home on a near-deserted road. It was late—dark out. They were probably laughing about baby names or possible futures for their child when a deer darted out in front of them. She knew Blake—he would have done anything to avoid hurting another living thing. She saw their SUV swerve—saw it roll. It was when she saw their faces—once she imagined the heartbreak