Page 43 of About Time

I look up to the stars and try to will the tears to retreat, but those little fuckers insist on streaking down my cheeks. Wiping them away is pointless. When you lose a loved one people tell you that you need to grieve, as if it’s a singular event. That pain doesn’t go away. It dulls a bit, and you learn to carry the weight, but it’s always there.

I often wonder what Elisa would think about how my life has turned out. Would she and Martin have been able to get over me being in a relationship with Charlie? I like to think they would, but I’ll never know for sure. Shit, their daughter has four kids with her former father-in-law, but then they might blame me for that too. I can’t deny that Griffin makes her happy, even if I was worried when I found out about them.

“I need a minute,” I tell everyone and slip away from the fire.

The moonlight is mostly filtered out by the canopy of leaves. There’s enough light to see the ground right in front of me, but everything else is hidden behind a curtain of blackness. The frogs are calling to each other back and forth, crickets accompany them with their chirping. I like that it isn’t silent. It’s too hard to block out unwanted thoughts without the raucous din of the woodland critters to drown them out.

They’re so loud I don’t hear the footsteps until they’re right upon me. I turn around and see Donovan coming down the path we’ve all worn into the ground. I’m surprised he’s seeking me out. While we’re still friendly, we haven’t been close since Ileft twenty-four years ago. Even the decade that I’ve been back hasn’t helped us reconcile.

His hands are in his pockets, and his shoulders are slumped forward. He leans against the trunk of a tree across from me. “I think I owe you an apology.”

This makes my forehead furrow. “How do you figure that? I left and didn’t say anything to you. For years. You were my best friend, and I left you behind like collateral damage. How do you figure this is on you?”

“Because you were my best friend. I knew something was up, but I just let you deal with it. I should have known whatever it was you weren’t dealing with well on your own, but I let my ego get in the way. I wanted you to come to me for once.”

Shame washes over me. The truth is, even after all this time, Donovan is still my best friend. I never let anyone else fill that role. “I should have. You let your ego get in the way, and I let my pride block me from asking for the help I needed. That’s no excuse though. At any point in the last ten years, I could have come to you and begged you to forgive me for being an asshole.”

He shakes his head, takes two big steps, and pulls me into his arms. It’s still weird, not because of the years, but because this isn’t us. I slip out of his embrace and my nose crinkles.

“That was weird, right? We’re so not huggers,” he says.

“Then why did you hug me?”

Donovan laughs. It’s a big, healing laugh that fills my empty cup. “Honestly? I just wanted to fuck with you. I think you’ve earned it. I’ve got about two decades of being a pain in your ass to make up for.”

I roll my eyes. “Why are you my best friend again?” And I know that he is that, my best friend once again.

“Probably because Harriston was so small we didn’t have a lot of options,” he says with a straight face.

“I’m going to dump you for your wife,” I tease him.

He shrugs. “I would. She’s hot.”

We’re quiet for a moment, then a serious expression comes over his face. “Are you doing okay? It can’t be easy to look back at all of this.”

The urge to cry rises again, and I twist up my face trying to keep more tears from falling. “I was just thinking about the next time I saw Charlie. It’s not a time I like to remember.”

He nods. “It was Elisa and Martin’s funeral, wasn’t it?”

I nod and lose the fight to keep the tears from falling. He hugs me again, but this time he’s not trying to fuck with me. “I miss her every damn day.”

With a final squeeze, Donovan lets me go. He waves for me to follow him. “I think Charlie is right, you need to rip the bandaid off. Besides, I think Wren needs to hear why you weren’t there for her the way I know you wanted to be.”

He’s not judging me. It’s no secret I tucked tail and ran the first chance I legally could. I’m lucky she gave me another chance to make it right, but we’ve never cleared the air about why I left her to deal with the loss of her parents alone. It’s pretty unforgivable, but yet she’s found a way. Wren is probably more forgiving than most people could be. Liam is living proof of her enormous capacity to forgive and move past being hurt.

I owe her this.

Hattie Past- Age 26

After a twelve-hour shift at the hospital, my arms have the consistency of limp noodles, and about as much strength. It takes all of my concentration and willpower to convince mymuscles to do simple tasks, like sticking my key in the deadbolt to my apartment.

It’s harder than it sounds because every time I blink it’s like rubbing sandpaper over my eyeballs. It’s my last shift this week, and even though I have the next three days off, my plans consist of using every drop of hot water in my water heater, then face planting on my bed for the next twelve to fourteen hours.

This is pretty much my routine. I accomplished what I set out to do, finished school on time, and immediately went to work as a nurse. I’ve stayed in Florida since I left Harriston, and I haven’t stepped foot back in town since. I wish I could see my family more often, but I like that we take an annual vacation together. It’s nothing fancy. Sometimes it’s just Elisa, Martin, and Wren camping out in my apartment and hitting the beach. We always make sure the time we spend together is quality time, especially since we don’t have a great quantity of it anymore.

I’m barely two steps inside my door when my purse starts buzzing. Digging through the random crap I have shoved inside my hobo bag is too much for my exhausted brain, instead I turn the bag upside down over my small dining table and dump everything out. My phone dances across the surface, and I manage to flip it open and answer the call before it can go to voicemail.

“Hey sis,” Elisa greets me.

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