The Best I Could
Page 37
She ushered everyone to the back of the house. Pops followed, pushing Mom’s wheelchair.
We froze when we made it to the path, eyes wide.
“She did it,” Pops whispered.
There before us was a wonderland of memories and dreams. A trellis arched over the back of the garden, the white wood covered in roses like the picture my grandfather had of my grandmother. Stepping stones branched off, leading into separate flower beds, each one full of dazzling color, but it was the center bed that drew my eye.
It was an explosion of blue, the flowers made to look like a body of water, a fountain rising out of the center, the boat we’d found in the boathouse displayed on top, soaring through the sea. Max, it read.
A sign hung above the trellis, a small pair of boxing gloves painted on it. An Oscar Wilde quote rising above it all. Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.
Wheels squealed down the drive, and my head shot up, my lips spreading in a grin when I saw the cars coming. Ray and my boxing class of misfits.
Life, and my girlfriend’s garden of love, was good.
No, let me rephrase that. Not good. Great.
Epilogue
Tansy
New beginnings …
Death, although tragic, also has a way of bringing people together.
Death stole from me, but he also gave me a new future. He gave me Eli.
Here’s the best part. It isn’t just romance with Eli. He isn’t my crutch. I don’t need him in order to keep walking and being every day, and I’m not his crutch. We’re sounding boards. These people who understand and love each other, who want the best for the other and yet still understands who we are, what our experiences have made us. Me, especially.
I’d learned something huge. Everyone, and I mean everyone, says to someone at least once in their lives, “I’m doing the best I can.”
I used to believe that was wrong. That doing the best a person could was a cop out, was this way of saying I’m trying but just enough to make it look like I am.
Now, I understand that it means something deeper. That sometimes we have issues which limit us, but not enough to keep us from loving the people in our lives.
In those moments, we truly are doing the best we can, and that’s okay.
Because, in the end, it’s doing our best that matters.
From the moment I walked into my first class at the college in Atlanta, I began living my life doing the best I could.
Did I keep cutting? Sometimes, but most of the time I conquered it. I think learning I can control more than just my pain is going to be a life challenge for me. Therapy has helped. Moving forward and taking my future into my own hands is healing me.
Even though Eli and I are no longer in the same place, we keep our relationship strong. It’s weird, I think it’s what we know about each other, the things that we shared that keep us held together. Distance can’t erase what we are.
To be honest, I think we grow stronger every day. Like a garden sprinkled with fertilizer and water. By strengthening myself, by growing as a person on my own, I am making myself something more for me and for him.
Eli and I talk on the phone, and we see each other on long weekends and holidays. Our family has grown closer. With Ivy’s paralysis, Pops has needed more help than he cares to admit. Lincoln has taken over most of the casino operations. Mandy went off the pain meds and gave birth to a healthy baby girl. Pops has the child more than they do.
Jonathan doesn’t come around much. Occasionally, he visits on holidays. The last time I saw him, he’d gotten taller and broader, his face less boyish and more rugged. The red hair works in his favor, like he’s a sculpted statue lit up by fire.
Deena is conquering school and boxing. Ray says she’s going to be great one day, truly great, and I believe him. Her anger issues are an uphill battle, but she’s better with the boxing in her life. She’s better with the strange group of friends she’s made.
Hetty is thriving with Deena in her house, and she’s still trying with me. Even though I refuse to admit I need the extra help, I’ve gone to pay my rent on several occasions only to discover it had already been paid. I know it’s Hetty because my landlord has a crush on her, which means I get long, stuttering speeches about how amazing she is. I happen to agree with him.
As for Eli, Pops was right about him. He is going to be great. He’s at the top of his class, his designs already getting attention from outside businesses. When he’s not in school, he boxes. He’s training two classes at a local boxing club, and he’s taken a few matches of his own. I was ringside for two of them.
I’m looking at Ohio State for graduate school. It puts me closer to Eli. It also makes us college rivals, which is ironic because it reminds me how we got here. My parents, their ill-fated love, and the pain their deaths pushed us through.
I am stronger for the pain.
I am braver having survived the grief.
I am happier having accepted that love doesn’t have to weaken me.
Today, I am graduating with a two-year degree. The crowd around me is loud, the room is stifling, and my shoulders are cramping. I refuse to drop them. My head remains high, my shoulders back.
My family—Hetty, Deena, and Jet—are all in the crowd. Eli is there, too. Probably sitting next to my stoic, troubled brother. One day, when Jet quits pushing people away and stops running, he’ll be great, too.
Today is my day.
When the graduating class stands, I brush my fingers down my arm, rolling the rubber band on my wrist off onto the floor.
It stares up at me.
My therapist told me I’d know when to let the pain go, when I’d get to a point where I didn’t need the band on my wrist.
Today is my day.
No one has to tell me I’ll be great. I know I will be. I know this because I’ve taken each day a minute at a time. Like the turtle in the race against the hare. Slow but true.
The ring of olive leaves peers up at me from my hand, and I smile.
The future, no matter what happens, will be mine. It’s full of promise. It’s full of hope. And even though I know there will still be dark times, today I can let go of the pain.
PLEASE READ
Author’s Note:
While this story is fiction, the issues it deals with are very real. Suicide, mental illness, cutting, and depression are not easy topics to write about, and they are even harder for those who suffer from them. Not only has this book been a hard story for me to tell, it was also a very personal one. I, like the characters in The Best I Could, have been touched by many of the things this book addresses. To those reading, if you are one of the people touched by any of these issues, please know you are not alone. There are places you can reach out to. Know that you are not weak. That you are strong, you are capable, and you are a warrior. Each day when you wake up and move forward, no matter how slowly, you win. My love to you.
Below are some hotlines you can call or sites you can go to for more information/help:
National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1(800) 273-8255
To Write Love on Her Arms: http://www.TWLOHA.com
Self-Injury Foundation Hotline: 1 (800) 334-HELP (4357)
About the Author
R.K. Ryals is the author of emotional and gripping young adult and new adult paranormal romance, contemporary romance, and fantasy. With a strong passion for charity and literacy, she works as a full time writer encouraging people to “share the love of reading one book at a time”. An avid animal lover and self-proclaimed coffee-holic, R.K. Ryals was born in Jackson, Mississippi and makes her home in the Southern U.S. with her husband, her three daughters, a rescue dog named Oscar the Grouch, A Bull Mastiff named Luther Von Kiesel, and a coffee pot she honestly couldn't live without. Should she ever become the owner of a fire-breathing dragon (tame of course), her life would be complete. Visit her at www.authorrkryals.com or subscribe to R.K. Ryals' Newsletter
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