The Memory of Us: A Standalone Soulmate Romance

by Claire Raye

  It’s been two hours since we left Crescent City and I still haven’t spoken a word to Alice. She has pleaded with me, cried and is now angry with me. I want to understand her motivation behind what she did, but right now, with both of us still seething, I can’t see anything but the anger I feel toward her.

  I’m not even sure whom I’m angrier at. Myself or Alice? I hate that I’ve let this control my life so immensely that I can’t relinquish the control and accept that Alice was trying to help. I told her I gave up and she did what she thought was right. Would I have been okay with never knowing if the Elliot living in Crescent City was the one I met in San Diego? Would I have been able to move on from all of this without that closure? There have been far too many moments in my life left incomplete. This would have been one more added to the list, one more thing for me to come back to, to dwell on and wonder about. Eventually it would have been too much.

  The silence in the car is deafening when we hit the six-hour mark. The fact that both of us have gone this long without uttering a word must be a record of some kind.

  Shit, I’m not sure I can go five years without talking to Alice. As much as she drives me crazy, we have a strange balance that keeps both of us moving forward. It keeps our lives from totally falling apart.

  I’m at my breaking point when we hit San Luis Obispo. Ten fucking hours of silence. It would make any sane person crazy. We have another five hours to go before we roll into San Diego and I can’t take another second of the tension-filled silence.

  Instead of opening with the reason why there is this stress between us, I ask, “Do you ever wonder why there’s a suitcase on the side of the road?” I glance out the window at the side of the road littered with someone’s belongings. A suitcase lying open as its contents blows around aimlessly, cluttering up the otherwise empty roadside.

  “No,” Alice says flatly. A few seconds pass and she lets out a long sigh and adds, “Some disgruntled girlfriend tossed that shit out of the car.”

  “You think?” I ask even though I know Alice is probably speaking from personal experience.

  “Yep. I’ve done it. Watched an entire suitcase spill out on the side of the road. It’s pretty impactful.”

  I laugh a little and Alice smiles at me. The tension slowly fades and the car begins to feel less like it’s going to burst.

  “Oh, Alice. Sometimes I wonder what it’s like to be you.”

  “See that?” Alice says smugly. “I’ve wondered what it’s like to be you.”

  “Bullshit,” I answer back, giving her a small shove with my hand and she shifts slightly in her seat.

  “No joke,” Alice scoffs and I can’t even imagine why she would give my boring ass life a second thought. “To just have my shit together is too difficult for me.”

  “Oh yeah and I lead such an exciting life. I’m driving across the country right now looking for a guy who is probably fat, married, dead or some kind of crazy asshole. Sounds like the path you totally want to follow.” I roll my eyes and Alice chuckles and I add, “And I work in the most boring career known to man. Who writes fucking descriptions for a fondue pot that costs as much as some people’s car payments?”

  “Then change it,” Alice says with more finality to her tone than I’ve heard in a long time. Alice is impulsive, but this time it doesn’t come across that way.

  I process her words, not answering, just thinking. She’s right. I can change my life, make it better, end all this craziness, find a new job, start my life again.

  “Nora,” Alice says, her voice soft.

  “Yeah?”

  “What you’re doing isn’t stupid or crazy or whatever else you’re thinking. Sometimes love isn’t spelled out for you, but in your case it was. There’s a reason you met Elliot the way you did and there’s a reason why you still feel so strongly about the whole situation and about him.” She takes a deep breath and turns to look over at me. I glance quickly in her direction, returning my eyes to the road when I see the tears well up in her eyes. “I know you want to give up and I understand why, but there’s a lot more here than you want to admit to.”

  “Alice, I get what you’re saying, but it’s time I start my life. I need to move on. This obsessive need to find him consumes me to the point that I sometimes feel like I’m losing my fucking mind.”

  Basically I feel like I’ve completely lost myself in all of this. That I live for this one time of year when I think I just might find Elliot and each time I don’t, it’s heartbreaking. The worst part is I’m still not even sure what I would do if I found him. I think it has always been such an enigma that I can’t possibly process what might really happen.

  “I know you don’t really want to talk about this, but why do you think you’re still trying to find him after all this time?” Alice asks and as much as I want to keep my feelings to myself, this is probably my opportunity to open up and finally figure out exactly why I keep putting myself through this.

  “I do need to talk about it. We need to talk about a lot of things,” I respond and Alice nods her head in agreement. “What you said back in South Dakota has some truth to it,” I say, finally admitting at the time I met Elliot I needed a distraction.

  “I think what you found with Elliot was real, but I also think you were trying to hold on to that feeling of belonging to someone and you still are.”

  “It was a hard time in both our lives. Losing Mom was awful even though she had been sick for so long. I just wanted to feel normal, feel loved and the time with Elliot gave me back that feeling. You wanted to run from it all and I wanted to hold on to what it felt like to have that unconditional love. Even if what I felt with Elliot wasn’t the same thing, it filled that void. It made me forget.”

  “Running from it was probably the single worst thing I’ve ever done in my life,” Alice states simply. “Not that I blame Mom for any of my poor life choices, but I just didn’t want to cope with anything and there came a point when I felt like I was too far gone to fix any of it.”

  “I don’t think we’re ever too far gone to fix the mistakes from our past. It’s just much harder to let go of the person you think you’ve become.” I smile willfully at Alice and I can see the sorrow in her eyes. I never realized how much we both kept our feelings inside and how alike we really are. “How about we both make some changes when we get back?” I suggest.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know, like you get a job and keep it, for starters?” I say poking fun at Alice but she misses the humor and I feel a little guilty for making fun of her. “But seriously…” I say trailing off and without saying anything, Alice nods her head as if she completely understands.

  Chapter Eight

  San Diego looks exactly as it did last year when I stood in this exact spot looking out on the water. The beach where Elliot took me the night we met holds firm in my memories. It’s unchanged and like the rushing tide, it all comes back to me.

  The sky is growing dark and Alice has returned to the hotel to give me some time alone. Twelve years of searching only to come up with nothing every single time. It’s painful and idiotic and lonely and in the end it has given me nothing but emptiness.

  I watch the water recede taking with it a few trampled daisies, sucking them out into the endless ocean and with it I want it to take my memories, too. I don’t want this to consume me any longer. The pain is too much to bear at times and sharing it with anyone just makes me sound crazy. I’m certain I am crazy.

  My mind trails back to my night on the beach with Elliot. I can hear his voice, see his face, and while it’s been twelve years, it doesn’t feel that long ago. His smell will forever be burned into my memory and I can almost feel his arms around me. A rush of memories so honest and pure that I hate my mind for holding onto to them so tightly. I hate myself for not being able to forget.

  “Nora.” I hear the deep softness of his voice say my name and a shudder runs through my body. I sit down in the sand, my toes buried and my h
ands braced against its coolness as I let my memory fall back to that night on the beach.

  Laying in his arms, I had never felt so safe and comfortable, like I had known him my entire life. There was nothing I felt like I couldn’t say to him, being honest with Elliot felt natural. I told him everything. The horribleness of watching my mother die, my jealousy of Alice’s life and her freedom to live as if nothing but her matters, the endless wondering if I’ll ever be good enough to be a writer and if I’ll ever fall so deeply in love that it will consume my life.

  “You will, Nora,” he said, his voice confident, but hushed. “You care so deeply and with that you’ll find love. The obsessive kind, the kind that consumes you, because it will be what completes you.”

  I remember wanting to tell him it was him who completes me. I had never felt such a connection to someone in my life. I felt like I was going to melt or burst into flames or lose myself in him. And I wanted every one of those feelings to last forever.

  When I looked into his eyes, I saw everything I felt reflected back at me. I wanted to spend every day of my life with him. I wanted him to be my forever.

  What I felt for him was love. And after twelve years, it’s still what I feel. But how do I continue on a path that is ultimately destroying me with each passing day?

  I can’t.

  This is goodbye.

  The tears begin to fall, running down my cheeks and soaking my shirt, but I don’t have the resolve to control them.

  I stay too long, desperately clinging to what I have left of all of this. Memories and a beach and the idea of true love. It’s a sad mess I’ve found myself in, but willing myself to leave, to stand up and walk away from what I know will be my last time here, guts me. Painfully aching, my heart breaks just like it did twelve years ago, and I’m not sure it will ever be whole again.

  When I finally pull myself together, it’s well after midnight. The beach is dark and desolate, but I still can’t bring myself to leave.

  I know Alice must be worried so I check my phone and I see I have a few messages from her.

  Alice: Giving up doesn’t make you weak. Btw…I’m starving. Where are you?

  Her first message makes me giggle. So typical of Alice, something to make me feel good and then something to remind me that she’s the queen of the universe.

  Alice: I know you’re sitting on that beach feeling sorry for yourself. Stop it. You did what you could and I know this is hard, but it’s time.

  Alice: FYI…I love you.

  She isn’t all that great with putting someone else first and this is her best attempt. Something about it makes me feel a little better, but no matter what she says, Elliot will always be a part of my life.

  He holds my heart, a piece I will never get back and right now, I’m okay with that. And I hope, one day, I’ll be okay with saying goodbye.

  We get an early start the next day so Alice and I can return to the place where we scattered our mother’s ashes back almost fourteen years ago. Before meeting our father, our mother was born and raised in San Diego and while she had a deep love for the beach and the area, she longed for something different, which led her to travel across the country to go to school in Boston. After meeting and falling in love with our father, she just couldn’t bring herself to return and she ended up making a home for us in Boston. But as she grew sick and came to the realization that she would never get to see the beauty of Southern California again, she requested to be cremated and have her ashes scattered on the beach near where she grew up.

  Pacific Beach Park isn’t terribly far from La Jolla and Alice and I take the scenic route driving along the water and through all the little beachy areas around it.

  This is a deviation from what I usually do while I’m here in San Diego. I’ve never once visited the place where my mother’s ashes were scattered, and it isn’t because I’m being insensitive or coldhearted. It has more to do with the fact that my search for Elliot is intense enough on it’s own. I’m not sure I could handle the emotions that come with thinking about my mother.

  We step out of the car to a deserted beach, unusual, but purposeful. We intentionally woke early to have a few quiet moments to ourselves. Alice and I both returning to this place for the first time since her passing.

  Both of us stand, staring out at the water, not speaking, an uneasy feeling swelling up inside me, as if I don’t know how to proceed from here.

  “Do you think she thought we’d both fall apart after her death?” Alice asks.

  “No, but yes,” I answer back, knowing full well our mother knew our father would be grieving too and our life would never be like it had once been. “I think, because she was forever an optimist, she dreamed we’d move on and grow up and be happy.”

  Alice takes my hand and I can see she’s crying. Her tears silently spilling down her cheeks, her hand clinging tightly to mine.

  “Which is why I never got over it,” Alice says softly. “I never wanted her to think her death ruined me. But it did, Nora. I felt if I didn’t grieve her, I would never have to admit she was gone. And if I just kept running, I’d never slow down enough to remember.”

  Chapter Nine

  By the time we arrive home, I’m resigned to the fact that I need to give up and even though I know it’s the right decision, I can’t stop the tears that begin to fall. Alice wraps her arms around me, pulling me into her embrace as she shushes against my hair. I feel her body shudder against mine and I know she’s crying too.

  It’s far harder to let go than I thought. I’ve spent so many days, hours, minutes, years…a lifetime thinking about Elliot, obsessing over him, and although I know it’s time to end it, it’s hard.

  I feel like I’m giving up a piece of myself. My search has become part of me, part of my identity and as ridiculous as the whole thing has been, a part of me always thought I would eventually find him.

  “You don’t have to stop,” Alice says as she pulls away from me and wipes the tears from her cheeks.

  “I know, but I do,” I answer back, sniffling. “What kind of person searches for someone for twelve years?” I pause not expecting an answer from Alice, but more for the fact that I’m letting it sink in that I’m fucking insane. “Alice, this whole thing has changed my life. I thought meeting Elliot had changed my life for the better, but it has just made it a fucking mess.”

  “Letting go is hard,” Alice adds, trying to sympathize with me. I know she can’t find the right words to make this mess go away, but she’s trying her best.

  “No. Letting go isn’t hard. Admitting that I’ve held onto something that wasn’t even real is what is killing me.”

  I’m crying even harder now. Taking a step away from Alice as the anger boils inside me. My hands are shaking and my jaw is clenched. I want to scream out loud, hit something, sob alone in my bedroom. I’m furious with myself for letting it go on this long, for wanting something that never belonged to me and for allowing it to consume my life. It’s sad and depressing and in the end it has always been unrealistic. Admitting this all to myself hurts like hell.

  Alice is just standing there staring at me, looking like she wants to say something, but we both know there are no words to heal what I’m going through right now.

  Without saying a word to her, I walk away and into the solace and comfort of my bedroom. Closing the door behind me, I collapse on the bed and within a few seconds I feel the pull of sleep.

  The weeks pass slowly and there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of Elliot. But with each passing day, I realize I became complacent in my life, the whole time figuring I’d one day find Elliot and my life would change. It was a stupid dream, idiotic, actually.

  The more time I spend at my job, the more I despise it. It has become everything I never thought I would be and some days I can’t even bring myself to complete the menial task of writing a description of a slow cooker or a fondue pot.

  It’s depressing. Fuck that. My life is depressing.

&n
bsp; I arrive home one evening after spending two weeks working on new descriptions for the fall catalog roll out that is coming up. It’s late and each minute I stayed late at work had me questioning my life’s choices and why I’m still subjecting myself to it all. I hate my job with a passion.

  I’m crabby and annoyed and I need something to help me forget that everything sucks right now.

  I change out of my work clothes and into sweats as I flop down onto the couch and begin eating the frozen pizza I just pulled from the oven. I’m scrolling through jobs online when Alice comes flying in the door, arms flailing and her voice high-pitched.

  “Oh my fucking god, Nora,” she shrieks and it’s the first time in weeks that I’ve actually smiled. Alice is genuinely happy and something about it makes me feel slightly better. “I got a job!” she yells jumping up and down. The smile on my face falls and I give her a curious look.

  Alice has had multiple jobs, like enough to consider herself a professional at nothing, but a novice at everything. I’m not sure why she’s so excited.

  “Okay,” I respond hesitantly.

  “No, seriously, Nora. It’s a job as a photographer’s assistant,” she says, looking right at me and smiling. “She’s looking for someone to mentor and she saw my portfolio and loved it. Oh my god!” Alice screams again and my smile returns.

  “You have a portfolio?” I ask and Alice slaps my arm playfully.

  “Yes,” she says, feigning like she’s insulted. “Well, not until a few days ago, but yes.”

  The two of us sit down on the couch and Alice grabs a piece of cold pizza from the coffee table before I switch off the TV and say, “So tell me about the job.”