Page 92 of The Life We Left Behind

“We all have to leave eventually, honey. That’s why life is so beautiful. We spend all this time here experiencing the world, loving as fiercely as we can, and learning all the lessons that life can teach us. And then when our time is done, we take all that knowledge, and we move on to the next step.”

“But what’s the next step?”

I’d known this question would come eventually, and I wished I could give him the answer.

“I don’t know, and I don’t think we’re supposed to know. Think about it, if you knew there was a beautiful heaven waiting for you, you wouldn’t live your life to the fullest. Because what would be the point? There wouldn’t be any chance of an end and all the things you didn’t get to do, you’d just do in heaven, right?But not knowing. Not having a definite answer. That’s a gift. It makes you want to take the opportunities in front of you because you might not have the chance again.”

“I guess.” He was quiet for a moment and then added, “We can still be sad, right?”

“You can be as sad as you want to be, sweetheart. It’s okay to miss him. It’s okay to not be sad, too. There is no right way to say goodbye to someone we love and no right way to feel about it. I’m sad. I’m very sad. And I’m thinking about all the things I wish I’d done differently. But I won’t be sad forever, and neither will you.”

Cade hugged me tighter, and I heard a sniffle come from Blake as well. When I looked up, she was looking at me with a watery smile as she gently stroked Cade’s head.

Of course, I was sad that my dad was gone. But there was also a part of me that was looking around at everything I had with so much wonder and gratitude that it pushed a bit of that sadness to the side. I would never have met Blake if I hadn’t moved to the city. She was such a massive part of my life now. The rock I didn’t think I’d survive without. I could never regret the part of my journey that had led me to her because I couldn’t imagine my life without her. I just wished there had been a way to take Trace there with me.

As if my thoughts had summoned him, Trace quietly slipped through the back door and closed it behind him.

“The last of the people are heading out now. Booker’s seeing them off and Dex is clearing away the food. You’ve probably got enough casseroles to see you through a month.”

“Thank you. That was all just a bit too much,” I admitted.

I should have been there to thank them for coming, but I knew how hard it would have been. Trace taking this off my hands meant more than I could say, and I didn’t even have to ask him to do it. He just stepped up and did what needed to be done.He saw how I was feeling, how we were all feeling, and cared for us.

“Can I get you guys anything?” he asked, kneeling down in front of the swing and putting his hand on Cade’s knee. “You want a snack or a drink, buddy?”

“Can I have spaghetti?”

“Spaghetti?” The laugh that came out of me with the question surprised me more than Cade’s answer itself. “Why spaghetti?”

“It’s impossible to be sad when you eat spaghetti,” he told us with a shrug.

Trace cocked his head to one side, and the grin that lit up his face reminded me so much of the teenage Trace I’d first fallen in love with. “Spaghetti it is then.”

And that’s what we did.

We all sat around the table, eating spaghetti and telling stories about the stupid things we’d done when we were young and pranks we’d played on my poor father. We laughed, and there were points when we cried too. But they were mostly happy tears because Cade was right. It was impossible to be sad when you were eating spaghetti. Or maybe it was just the people we were eating it with.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

TRACE

Ihated driving in the city and doing it with a U-Haul on the back of Booker’s truck was possibly the worst experience of my life.

Cade sat in the back seat, pointing out all his favorite things, and I tried to nod and smile as what felt like every other driver on the road tried to kill us all.

“You sure you don’t want me to drive on the way back?” Delaney asked, the smile on her face proving that she knew exactly how I was feeling.

“Nope. I got this,” I said through gritted teeth as I tried to hold in the need to swear at the driver who had just swerved in front of me.

“There! There!” Cade shouted from the back seat, and my foot automatically went to the brake before I managed to catch myself.

“Yes!” Delaney shouted, making me nearly jump out of my skin. “There!”

“What is happening right now?!”

“There’s a parking space.” Delaney was all but leaning over me now as she pointed at a gap that had to be smaller than the truck and the U-Haul combined.

“We’ll never fit in that.” I was shaking my head already, wishing I really hadn’t insisted that I be the one to drive us into the city. “It’s too small.”

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