Page 63 of Where We Promise

I stood, needing distance from her as I sorted through my truth. I did want to move on. I had tried; it just never really felt right.

“I will, I promise.”

Mom smiled at me, but it came across as very weary. As if she was suddenly exhausted. “I’ve been having some headaches off and on, so if I sleep more often that’s why.”

That seemed strange, she’d never dealt with them before.

“Why are you getting headaches?”

She waved me off. “Probably just the caffeine withdrawals, I’m trying to cut back…don’t worry about it.”

I let it go and started unpacking, realizing I’d need to head out first thing to try and find a new job. One that likely had nothing at all to do with taking pictures, booking shoots, or anything that I had been doing since I left home at seventeen.

I’d be starting completely over, and I’d be doing it completely alone.

Dear Jamie,

This is weird writing you when you’re literally right down the street, but I miss our letters.

I’ve been back home now for nearly six months, and in that time, I’ve only seen you twice. Once while I was pumping gas, and you gave me that awkward wave, like you weren’t sure what to do, and the second when I came over to the club for that Christmas party with my mom.

You still acted as though I was just a ghost, someone you could see but wouldn’t acknowledge. I guess I’m not sure what I did wrong, you weren’t mad at me when you left that night two years ago…if anything, I should be mad at you.

But for some reason, I’m still here, still waiting and still fucking pining.

Mom says I should move on, start dating. I just don’t know how, Jamie.

Every man gets compared to you, and if someone made me list the contrasts, it wouldn’t even make any sense. No one would understand that my obsession for you comes from under the skin, down in my marrow. A sunlit backdrop to my turbulent life. You are the hope I always feel when things feel hopeless, and your smile feels like it has a rope tethered from it to my heart. Your lips turn up, my heart lifts too.

You make me laugh, and you breathe poetry, as if I was to crawl inside your head and found it was all purple night skies and constellations. I’ve missed you all these years, Jamie. All the times I’ve stared at you, only to have you ignore me. Or the times I’ve watched you, only to have you watch someone else.

This is toxic.

It needs to stop.

I need to move on.

I folded the letter and slid it into my journal, pressing the wildflower over it and made a wish.

Help me move on and let him go once and for all.

Closing the worn leather-bound journal, I stood and left the field of wildflowers and let the weight of finality fill me. Tomorrow I’d go on a date, and that would be that.

EIGHTEEN

PENELOPE

I had imagined my wedding day a thousand different times throughout my life. When I was younger, I would dress up in my mother’s high heels and find anything of hers that was white. I’d make a bouquet of wildflowers and even apply her lipstick. My guests were all my stuffed animals, and, on occasion, if I opted for a fairytale wedding, I would usually go into the woods, because most clubs didn’t have yards or grass for kids to play pretend.

Regardless, in every scenario, I was beautiful and happy.

In this one, I was so pregnant that my dress looked like a waterfall of white silk falling from a boulder. Not cute or a little bump, it was a massive, protruding mountain with an imprint of my belly button sticking out. I couldn’t wear high heels, so Laura had found me cute flats that looked like a thousand diamonds had been sewn into them. And my mom wasn’t here.

Natty carefully curled my hair and then went to work with bobby pins and clips for what felt like an hour—until my glossy black hair was in a half updo that mirrored something similar to what a princess would have.

Callie had applied my makeup with precision, creating the perfect smoky eye look, while plumping my lips with pink gloss. For the final touch, Red had found a way to twine sheer fabric in a halo of wildflowers. I nearly cried when I saw it because I had never told anyone of the wildflowers I used to love so much. But then she produced my bouquet and it nearly matched. Flowers that shouldn’t exist due to the cold, dead climate of winter and yet they were so fresh and beautiful.

“Sasha…” Red explained, with a bit of clogged emotion, “she’s Simon’s widow…she has a greenhouse where she grows things year-round. She sends these with all the happiness she can offer someone who is marrying into the club, especially a club president.”

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