Page 7 of What I Should've Said

Okay, yeah. I’ve had enough of this guy’s bullshit.

Red-hot anger pulsates inside me until it finds its preferred exit out of my body—through my big, fat mouth.

“Listen here, bucko. I don’t need a lecture from some random muscle man!” I slap both of my hands down onto my thighs. “I need a ride to my sister’s house. So, either give it to me and shut up, or let me out here.”

On the one hand, I’m proud of myself for standing up to a bully for once. On the other, I wish I would’ve said just a little less.

Not even ten seconds later, the truck rocks to a hard stop.

His door swings open, and my suitcase hits the sidewalk before I can shove my foot any deeper into my mouth.

And all I can do is climb out willingly—scared of what my lack of cooperation might cause—and watch as he drives off in a cloud of speedy dust.

Way to go, Norah. You’ve officially started this new adventure in Red Bridge with a fan.

Norah

Apparently, when you combine embarrassment and anxiety and exhaustion and fear, time becomes a vortex.

It also doesn’t help when an alphahole in a truck dumps you in the middle of town, a good four miles from your actual destination, because you got sassy with his broody, lecture-giving ass.

Thankfully, cell service picked up in downtown Red Bridge, and I was able to successfully GPS myself to Josie’s. I know it took me just over an hour to walk to her house on Oak Street, but I have no idea how long I’ve been standing here since arriving. I’m drenched in sweat from the unexpected exercise, and Lil’s suitcase looks like it’s been involved in a hilltop battle with a conscientious cooperator named Desmond Doss.

Leaving a man at the altar, followed by a few days of couch time and violent movies with Lil at the Holiday Inn in Midtown—the whole reason I’m able to make a Hacksaw Ridge reference, honestly—and a journey from hell have left me feeling like I’m barely a person. But I’m here now, and that’s all that matters.

If only I could get myself to lift my hand and knock.

I take inventory of my sister’s house and yard again, for what has to be the hundredth time, but this time, it’s…different. Overwhelming nostalgia hits me square in the chest. I’m in a Lana Del Rey song, and everywhere I look are things that make me feel simultaneously happy and sad.

Everything is the same. The yellow shutters. The white brick. The pink door and porch swing. Even the little yard ornaments and knickknacks in the form of fairy statues and gnomes and frogs littering the garden beds surrounding the house.

This used to be our grandmother Rose’s cottage and our father’s childhood home.

After our grandmother passed away, Josie moved out of the small, studio apartment above her coffee shop and started living here. And from the looks of it, the only thing she’s done with the place is keep it maintained. Everything else is exactly as it was when we were kids, and that realization settles the smallest sense of relief inside my belly. I feel like I’m where I’m supposed to be.

I just hope my sister feels the same way.

I know I should’ve called her before I left New York—should’ve let her know I was coming—but Josie is stubborn as a mule, and we haven’t been on speaking terms since Grandma Rose’s funeral.

Truth be told, I have a fifty-fifty shot of her welcoming my presence versus pulling out a shotgun and firing it in my direction.

It’s time, Norah.

I take a big, deep breath, and just as I’m lifting my suitcase up the front porch steps, my phone dings from my purse. I stop at the top and pull it out, expecting to find more angry texts from Thomas—it’s been an onslaught today—but when I see Lillian’s name on the screen, I click to open her message.

Lil: Did you make it to Red Bridge?

Me: I did.

Lillian has been by my side since I was a kid. She was the only girl at the Manhattan private school my mother enrolled me in who didn’t care whether my family had money. Which, at the time, we didn’t.

We’ve seen each other through it all. Braces, acne breakouts, high school, relationship breakups, college, Lil’s first job at a marketing firm—she is still there and thriving—receiving family trust funds that twenty-year-old girls probably shouldn’t have access to, weddings-that-didn’t-happen, and losing said trust funds—which, yeah, that one only relates to moi.

She’s my best friend, and if I miss anything about my life back in New York, it’s her.

Lil: And how did Josie take it?

Me: I’m currently standing on her front porch, trying to find the courage to knock.

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