I pulled away from his chest, reluctantly, so I could look at him.
His cheeks tightened in that way that would indicate a smile if you can go through with it. For the first time since he’d visited me, he looked truly sad.
I knew I was the one who looked like the ghost.
He moved a warm, warm, real hand to my left cheek under my freckle where he always did.
“Willa,” he said.
“I miss you so much it makes me ache like a nausea I know will never go away.”
He nodded. But it was as if he knew. I wasn’t any less sad he was gone, I wouldn’t waffle over bringing him back, but somehow when I’d wept and felt him here, something had finally, finally been bled out.
We both knew this would be the last time. I knew, somehow, that that was why he was so solidly here.
“It’s just hard,” I said. “When you’re young and you envision your life, you picture your wedding, your marriage, your kid, your other kids maybe … I never stopped to wonder what the next chapter would look like. The quiet chapter. The chapter without the busyness of checking off bucket-list items. But if I did, I thought we’d be quiet together.”
I shook my head, and didn’t realize how much I’d deflated until he lifted me up a little.
“I thought I’d have you to be bored with. I thought I’d have you … I thought I’d have you. Ben, I thought I’d have you.”
“I thought I’d have you, Willa. I thought I’d have that. I never will. And … you know how I told you it’s different here? You accept that things are different and that you’ll see your loved ones again.… Well, maybe it isn’t really because it’s mystical and all that…” He shook his head and shrugged. “I don’t know all that woo-woo.”
I laughed. Truly laughed. “Ben, good lord.”
He smiled. “If you accept that things are different now, that they aren’t over, and that we will meet again … maybe that’ll get you by. Because, I tell you, baby.” He made me look at him. “It’s not a magic spell they cast here that makes it so I can live without you. I just understand that it’s different. It’s different and I’m without you. But not forever. It’s the same for you.”
I stared at him. Just like the house had seemed to settle finally, something, a little, released in the back of my neck and started to spread down my shoulders.
“I love you and … and that’s all well and good, but the problem is that I miss you.” The words balled in my throat. “I want to laugh over things with you and share things with you.”
He nodded. Then gave a small shake of his head and a bite of his lip. He always bit his lip when emotions threatened to take over. “Baby, I think we’ll have a lot to talk about. You just gotta live it first.”
The visions of a few minutes before swirled in my head, then cycled down to my stomach, where they translated to sick, vertigo-like nausea.
“I can’t believe this is the last time I’ll ever speak to you.”
He looked miserable then, but gave me that suggestion again of a smile. “You’ve already talked to me for the last time, honey. And don’t forget, I’ve talked with you for the last time. You and I share that. But only for the last time in life. And now only the last time like this.”
He nodded when I shook my head.
I knew he was right. It sounded so ugly, so unimaginable, but suddenly he felt so long ago. God, I hated to even think that, but it was true. He felt … passed.
His solidity started to fade from beneath my fingers.
He looked at me hard and grabbed me by the shoulders, that smile showing his beautiful teeth, brightening his beautiful eyes. “I love you so much. I love you so much.”
I nodded, unable to unclench my teeth and respond until he was almost gone.
“I love you too,” I said, just in time before he faded.
I fell then, this time—no Ben to fall into. Only air. Only the floor. Only myself.
I sobbed so much I retched. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, I wanted to time-travel to a moment ago, a day ago, a year ago, a decade ago, and yet I knew I couldn’t and never would. It made me feel empty. Cleaned out.
But then, as if he’d left some sort of solid-gold strength in the pit of my heart, something that kept it from evaporating completely, I heard a voice tell me that it was okay. It was okay.
It was okay.
It was okay.
It was Ben, somewhere, in no particular voice, in no particular form, telling me it was okay.
And for probably the first time, and the worst time in my life, I believed him.
Also by Beth Harbison
A Shoe Addict’s Christmas
One Less Problem Without You
If I Could Turn Back Time
Driving with the Top Down
Chose the Wrong Guy, Gave Him the Wrong Finger
When in Doubt, Add Butter
Always Something There to Remind Me
Thin, Rich, Pretty
Hope in a Jar
Secrets of a Shoe Addict
Shoe Addicts Anonymous
About the Author
Beth Harbison is the New York Times bestselling author of One Less Problem Without You; If I Could Turn Back Time; Driving with the Top Down; Chose the Wrong Guy, Gave Him the Wrong Finger; When in Doubt, Add Butter; Always Something There to Remind Me; Thin, Rich, Pretty; Hope in a Jar; Secrets of a Shoe Addict; and Shoe Addicts Anonymous. She grew up in Potomac, Maryland, outside Washington, D.C., and now divides her time between that suburb, New York City, and a quiet home on the Eastern Shore. Visit her online at www.bethharbison.com, or sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Also by Beth Harbison
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
EVERY TIME YOU GO AWAY. Copyright © 2018 by Beth Harbison. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Cover photograph of champagne © vectorfusionart/Shutterstock.com
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Names: Harbison, Elizabeth M., autho
r.
Title: Every time you go away / Beth Harbison.
Description: First edition. | New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2018.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018001445 | ISBN 9781250043832 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781466842212 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Domestic fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3558 .A564 E94 2018 | DDC 813/ .54—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018001445
eISBN 9781466842212
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First Edition: July 2018
Every Time You Go Away Page 25