Because there was no turning back from that.
“Like I said, piles. Maybe we should start with the living room? I don’t know if we’re ready for the bedroom yet. That might be too personal.”
“Everything’s going to be personal here,” Sienna said wisely. “Even the bathroom’s going to have stuff that she used every day. Like her lotions and everything that reminds me of her. I just hate this. I want to know…I want to know why. I want to know why she’s gone. And I know we’ll probably never find out, and I hate it. It just makes me so angry.” Sienna threw her hands into the air. I reached out to my little sister but stopped when she glared at me.
“Sienna.” I didn’t know what else to say. There were no words for this.
“No, just don’t. Just let me be angry and a little whiny right now. I think I need that. I’ll let you do the same when you reach this part of the grief. Because I still think that you’re in that numb part right now, Violet. The part that hurts. I was there for a while. But I keep moving around from each set to another.”
“Stages of grief are crap,” Harmony said, her voice low.
“What?” I asked, confused.
“There aren’t just stages you randomly move through. No, you feel it all. You feel every single little part at all times, at every single point of the day. Sometimes, you move forward, sometimes, you move two steps back. It’s not a gradual progression, so everything is perfectly fine eventually. Because it’s not going to be fine. You’re never going to be fine. But, eventually, you might be okay with who you are as you find your way to breathe again. But there are no stages of grief. There’s just grief. Plain and simple. And there’s nothing simple about it. There is grief. There is loss. And there is you, finding a way to live through it and knowing that everything hurts around you. So, everything’s going to hurt. You’re going to be angry. You’re going to be sad. You’re going to be numb. You’re going to be all of it. And that’s okay. It’s okay to feel all of that. Or nothing. It’s just okay.”
I stared at my friend, wondering why she hadn’t said any of this before. But, then again, when would she have been able to? We hadn’t understood what she felt when she lost her husband. I still didn’t. I would never be able to feel that, and I swore I never wanted to. We had lost Allison, and it was a different kind of grief, but it was still grief. We were just trying to find our way.
Someone cleared their throat from the doorway, and we all turned to see the Connolly brothers standing there, looking awkward as if they had heard Harmony’s entire speech.
From the way Brendon was looking at her, I figured that they had heard every single word.
And I had no idea what we were going to do about it.
Not that I really knew about anything anymore. But that was enough of those self-pitying thoughts. There were important things to get done today, and feeling bad about myself wasn’t one of them.
And, speaking of feeling bad, I noticed exactly who was here. Brendon, Aiden, and Cameron were standing there. The only one missing was Dillon, but then again, he wasn’t a Connolly, was he? I didn’t even know Dillon’s last name.
I hadn’t asked many questions, or how old exactly Dillon was—though I figured he was eighteen if I did the math right about Cameron’s story. I hadn’t asked what Dillon’s plans were, or what Cameron’s plans were when it came to the kid. I hadn’t asked any of it because I’d been too hurt about having to remember exactly how I had felt when Cameron left all those years ago. Yes, maybe that made me selfish for those few moments, but I needed that. Because he had been selfish, and I hadn’t really wanted to lash out at him, but I needed those few moments to regain a bit of the person I had become when I put myself back together after losing him. I might not like every part of myself, but I had enough respect for myself to be okay.
“You guys showed up,” Sienna said quickly, moving forward. “I know you said you were, but I was afraid that you would get busy or decide that it was just going to be too hard. But, thanks for coming.” Sienna reached out and hugged Brendon and then Cameron and then Aiden. And because Sienna had done it, Harmony moved forward and did the same, saying something soft to each of the brothers that I couldn’t really hear.
“We’re here for you if you need us. We like you guys. Just wanted to make sure you knew that.”
“Thank you for coming,” I said softly. I guess we’re going to need help with the heavy lifting, after all.
“Do you have a moving truck or anything?” Aiden asked, frowning as he looked around the space. He had once loved Allison, and I didn’t know how he felt standing in the place where she had once lived that had nothing to do with him. Everything was just so complicated and connected, it was hard for me to truly understand what anyone was feeling when I didn’t even know what I was feeling.
“No moving truck today,” I said, trying to keep my voice strong. It wasn’t easy when all I wanted to do was break down. But I had done that enough recently. Today, I would work, and then I would get drunk. Really fucking drunk.
“So, it’s just packing up? When are you planning on the moving truck?” Cameron asked, looking at me and then pointedly looking away. I knew it wasn’t anger that I saw in his eyes. He was just trying to give me space. But I really didn’t have time to deal with any extra feelings right now.
“We have some time, and I don’t want to do too much at once,” Harmony said. “Today’s all about piles, maybe packing some things up. We brought some boxes.”
Brendon cleared his throat. “I did too, just in case. But you don’t have to use them if you don’t want to.” He added that last part almost as an afterthought, and I wondered why Brendon was acting so weird. Then again, I didn’t really know him anymore. Maybe he was always this way.
“I’m sure we’ll need them. We always need a lot more boxes than we think at first. Anyway, we were thinking about starting in the living room.” Harmony looked sad and confused as she looked around. “And I don’t really think we can split up on this, because I think it’s something that we need to work on together to make decisions. I know what everyone thinks, and I know what I’m doing here because I have some experience, but I really am out of my depth. If anyone else has any ideas, I would really appreciate hearing them.”
I moved forward and hugged my friend close. “I’m here for you. Always. And, don’t worry, we’ll figure it out. How about everybody take one corner of the living room, maybe work in pairs, and we’ll just go through everything piece by piece. Some things are going to be easier than others, some things might take some discussion. And we don’t have to do it all today. We just have to get started. We just have to get started.” I repeated the last part, knowing it was for me. It sucked, it all just sucked. There really wasn’t another word for it.
Somehow, I ended up working with Cameron, and I didn’t know if my friends and sister had meant to do that or if it was just by happenstance. Brendon knew Harmony the best, so he worked with her and was so gentle with how he helped her. I figured that he knew that every single moment she was thinking about losing Allison, she was probably thinking about her late-husband, too. I knew I was.
Aiden and Sienna worked together, the pair quiet yet the only two laughing softly as they looked at things. They had known Allison the best, even though Allison was also my best friend. It was sometimes hard to remember that. Hard to remember that Allison had touched more than just one person. She had affected the lives of so many, and yet here we were, without her.
A hand grazed my shoulder, and I didn’t move away. I couldn’t. “These are her picture albums,” Cameron said softly. “Why don’t we stack these, and you guys can look at them later?”
I shook my head quickly. “Box them, and then we can take them to my house or something. I’ll look at them later. Way later. I don’t think any of us are ready for that right now.”
The others had been listening and agreed quickly, and Cameron boxed them up so I didn’t have to touch them, so I wouldn’t have t
o look at them. Maybe it made me weak, perhaps it made me shallow, but it hurt to think about everything, and I just needed some space. Just needed time to breathe.
We worked for three hours, slowly putting things into piles.
It was weird to think about putting someone’s life into a pile. I didn’t even know if I could do that for myself.
What was the pile of old bills that were already paid?
What about the stack of DVDs that she had watched at one time, but no one really needed anymore?
There were the CDs that hadn’t been thrown away when she went fully to digital. There were random knickknacks that people had given to her over time, or those I knew she had gotten from friends, or when she traveled. There were picture frames all over, Allison’s smiling face looking down at us as if she had held a secret that I didn’t know.
But I guess that was the case, after all.
There was so much we had missed, and I didn’t want to miss anything anymore. I didn’t want to miss any of it.
There was the TV, of course, and all her electronics. I had no idea what to do with some of the stuff. But Aiden, Brendon, and Cameron figured out where she kept her old boxes in the back and packaged those up. We would likely either sell or donate them since none of us really needed or wanted them.
“Would Dillon need any of this?” I asked, my voice soft. “I mean after we talk to Allison’s parents. I don’t know what Dillon’s plans are, but maybe he would like something to start out?” I didn’t realize I’d said the words out loud, or that I’d even thought them until they were already out for everyone to hear. Harmony and Sienna both gave me soft smiles as if they were happy with what I had asked. But I really wasn’t sure I’d done the right thing. Aiden glared and then turned away, not answering. Brendon gave me a similar smile to the girls’ as if he’d been thinking along the same lines but hadn’t spoken up. But it was Cameron who spoke first.
“Eventually, he’s going off to college,” he said quickly. “This is just a gap year for reasons I can get into later.” He sounded a bit angry about that, but I didn’t press. Not yet. “But, maybe? Let’s see what Allison’s parents say first, and then we can talk about it. I think that’s really generous. Really generous.”
“Allison’s parents said that we could have anything we wanted in here, that they wanted nothing to do with it. But I’ll double-check. I kind of like the idea of something that she enjoyed being used with something that a friend might like. I don’t know, maybe I’m just getting sentimental.” I sighed, stacking up the greeting cards from the latest holiday that Allison hadn’t tossed yet.
“You’re allowed to be sentimental. You’re allowed to feel whatever you need to,” Cameron whispered, and I ignored him. Or, at least I tried to. I was a little too confused to make any decisions right then. But at least I was trying to think of the future, trying to think of someone other than myself.
“I don’t understand why there wasn’t a note,” Sienna said quickly, anger back in her voice. “Why didn’t she tell us? Why didn’t we see it?” Aiden wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and Brendon looked at them both as I tried to find the words. I just didn’t have any. How could I?
Because I’d been thinking the same questions this whole time.
“Sometimes, there are notes. Sometimes, we don’t get the answers in life. Sometimes, we just don’t know.”
I wiped the tears from my face and didn’t pull back when Cameron leaned into me, giving me as much comfort as I would allow.
“And that’s a really crappy thing to say. And I really need a drink. Does anyone need a drink? I could really use a drink.”
Everyone was silent for a moment before they all got up and looked ready to go.
“How about we drive back to our places, and I’ll set up some ride shares to get us back to the bar? That way, we can drink to our hearts’ content and not worry about driving.” Brendon was already looking down at his phone at something, and I just nodded, knowing that was probably the best answer to everything.
“Usually, I just drink alone at home,” I said quickly and then laughed. “But that makes me sound sad.”
Brendon snorted. “No, that makes you sound like any other American who lives alone. We just happen to own a bar so we can make drinking in public feel like you’re drinking alone. But we’ll have a drink in Allison’s honor, and we’ll try to make it to the next day. How does that sound?”
I looked at Cameron, wondering why we were always in each other’s presence when I knew that we should stay away. But it wasn’t as easy as just walking away like he had before. And yet, it hadn’t exactly been easy then either.
“Let’s go, then. Let’s go see what we can do so we can make it to the next day.”
And maybe that would be our new slogan for the rest of this period. What could we do to make it to the next day? Because Allison hadn’t made it to her next day.
And, somehow, I would have to make it for the both of us.
Chapter Eight
Cameron
It was probably around the second drink of the night that I realized that we shouldn’t be here. That drinking away our worries wasn’t going to help anything in the long-run. But considering that I was already a little numb where it counted, I knew the others had to be way further down the rabbit hole.
Because, yes, I had known Allison, and I missed her. Going through her things was hard, and I’d hated every bit of it, but watching Violet and the others deal with it, each of their emotions playing out on their faces so bright and vivid that it hurt to even think about...that was harder.
There wasn’t anything I could do about it though, except to keep drinking and make sure that the others didn’t drink too much. We had each taken a car service so we could get home safely, but I knew none of us wanted to deal with the aftereffects of a hangover. We weren’t in our early twenties anymore, and drinking too much and feeling bad the next day wasn’t really something that any of us needed to put ourselves through.
But nobody really seemed to mind just then.
Thankfully, we were in the back room next to the pool tables so others wouldn’t be able to witness our drunken debauchery unless they came back here. And they never seemed to since we weren’t busy.
Brendon brought by some shots, probably making our third drink of the night, even though I think we might’ve been on our fourth at this point. I wasn’t really sure. Maybe our fifth.
It was tequila, my arch-nemesis because I was usually an Irish whiskey kind of guy. But since we started with tequila, that meant I couldn’t add any more liquor. Just beer and tequila. I’d probably throw up later, but it’d be better than adding whiskey on top of it. Or even something stronger or sweeter.
My stomach rolled. Yeah, best not to remember that night when I was barely twenty-one and drank way too many fruity drinks alongside Violet. She hadn’t wanted to drink alone, so I had been stupid and said that I would drink the same thing she was.
We both ended up lying on the bathroom floor, sick, pale, and not wanting to touch each other, even though we had both promised to have the hottest sex of our lives.
That’d taken another three days to get to, considering that we had both been hungover for more than forty hours.
Jesus, I’d been young. Too young.
“Okay, this shot is for us. For the fact that we’re here. Together.” Brendon held up his shot, and I did the same, doing my best not to remember that sweet-tasting drunk night as I looked at my brother and then the rest of them. Aiden had his arm around the back of Sienna’s chair as the two of them laughed, telling some joke that none of us heard, but was apparently hilarious to the two of them. Sienna held up her other arm, grinning. And, for the first time, I thought the expression might just reach her eyes. Though not fully. I didn’t know when that would happen, but I hoped it did soon.
Harmony sat between Brendon and Violet, rolling her eyes as she held up her shot. For some reason, I didn’t think she was going to be as
drunk as the rest of us. Either she wasn’t finishing her drinks, or she had a higher tolerance for liquor than any of us did. Considering that the Connolly brothers could drink almost anybody under the table, that was saying something.
Violet sat by me and gave me a look that went straight to my balls. Yes, I was an idiot for even thinking that, and I knew she was drunk—I was on my way to being drunk, too. But she was so damn sexy. Always had been. And I could never resist her. So, I was going to do my best tonight to just keep drinking and do that whole resisting thing that I wasn’t very good at.
“Yes, I’ll drink to that.” And then we all took the shots and banged our glasses on the table, though not too hard, thankfully. After all, this was our bar, and I didn’t want to break shit.
Considering that it was a Saturday night, it should have been busier than it was, but it wasn’t, and that worried me. I knew that all of us were working on ideas for how to increase the bar’s presence and keep it afloat, but right then, with a couple of empty chairs at the bar, and the fact that it should’ve been filled to the rafters with people, it worried me. So, I sipped at my beer and tried not to worry. That could be left for tomorrow. God knew I stewed enough for everybody here.
As did Brendon. And Aiden.
Aiden took a bite of the nachos that Beckham had brought to the table earlier and frowned.
“They aren’t using my recipe,” Aiden grumbled. “What’s the point of me telling them what to do when they won’t fucking do it?”
“Maybe you shouldn’t curse at them and growl?” Sienna asked, batting her eyelashes like she was so sweet.
“I am fucking nice. And a damn good boss,” Aiden said before he took another bite of the nachos and scowled.
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