glass jar with a pink ribbon tied around the neck. Audrey hovered at the edge of the path that would take her to her mother’s plot.
“You don’t have to do this,” she said to herself. There was a trash can a few feet away—she could dump the flowers and head back outside to wait for Nicole. Or she could donate the flowers to another grave.
But something inside Audrey drew her up the path, operating her arms and legs like she was a puppet on strings. Her mind flicked between past and present until she reached her mother’s plot. She brushed her hands over the plaque, clearing the little twigs and other natural debris that the wind had blown across it. Her fingers caught on the raised lettering of her mother’s full name: Mary Patricia Miller.
Nobody had called her Mary. For some reason, she’d always been known as May. Maybe it was because she had that kind of personality—sunny, hopeful. Like a spring day.
Audrey’s knees sank into the wet grass, and she didn’t care one little bit about getting stains since her pants were already dirty. The flowers trembled in the glass, and Audrey realized she was shaking. It felt like there was a storm inside her, angry and thrashing.
“This is why I didn’t want to come here.” She shook her head, but the grief was too strong. It wrapped a hand around her throat and squeezed, cutting off her air. Her words. Her blood.
Her chest heaved as she drew a deep breath, fighting against the boulder clogging her throat. She wanted to scream, but nothing came out. The breeze caught her cheeks, and they were cold. No, wet. Tears rolled unchecked down her face. Audrey’s hands tightened around the glass jar, the blood draining out of her joints, and she applied so much pressure it was a wonder the damn thing didn’t shatter.
“Why?” She dragged the word in through tight lungfuls of air. “Why didn’t they save you?”
Her chest was so tight she was worried her rib cage might crack from the pressure, but she couldn’t move. Everything poured out of her—everything she’d bottled up and swallowed down and tucked into a safe corner of her mind all came roaring out of her. It felt like she was being exorcised, that the ugliness of her emotions wasn’t really her.
Only it was.
“I hate you for leaving me,” she said, swiping at her cheek with the back of one hand. “I miss you so much.”
She placed the jar of flowers down and pressed her palm to the grave’s plaque and felt…something. It was like a vibration, so small it was barely perceptible—or maybe it was simply her imagination desperately searching for meaning—that rippled through Audrey’s body. She could almost feel her mother’s presence wrapping around her like a warm blanket.
“My life would have been so different if you were here.”
Ronan was right. She had a fear of living. A fear of the future. Because at fifteen, Audrey had thought she’d figured it out—top marks at her high school, acceptance into one of her dream universities, travelling around the world, a husband who loved and respected her, giving her parents some grandbabies to snuggle. But that had all been ripped from her grasp.
What was the point of planning for the future when life might take everything you wanted and rip it to shreds?
I’ve thought about you and me and what a life might look like.
Ronan’s words circled in her brain—he thought about their future. Thought about them together. Any time Audrey’s mind had wandered to what could be, she’d shut it down. Forced herself to think about something else.
The present was the only thing she could control—not what came before or what might come next. But now. Tomorrow was unknown. Next month was a blank page. Ten years from now…nothing. It was like her brain had been rebooted.
Wanting was pointless. Trusting was pointless.
“Audrey!”
At the sound of her name, she turned. Nicole rushed over to her, worry splashed across her face. She was wearing a pencil skirt and a pale blue top, and her long, dark hair swirled around her shoulders with the breeze.
“I was so worried.” Nicole all but skidded to a stop and dropped down next to her, wrapping her arms around Audrey’s shoulders. “I saw Big Red, and then I couldn’t find you, and you weren’t answering your phone…”
Audrey hadn’t even noticed it vibrating. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
The two of them stayed like that, glued together, for what felt like an eternity.