Page 8 of Born in the Spring

But I did hurt him. I let him walk away. And now he’s dead. And that responsibility still sits on my shoulders. It’s lost its brunt, but it still bears a weight.

“Good.” Her praise this time comes out like a chirp. “Do you want to pencil out some of our weeklys? Not next week’s, because I would like to check up—”

“Are you trying to get rid of me?” I tease the cut in, but look to the floor after I do, my body starting a slow rock in place. I’ve talked with Helena once a week for months, sometimes more. She’s been a steady presence when I’ve needed one, and I have a second of feeling unsteady without having that.

I have to trust myself.

“You might get rid of me,” she teases back. “You’ve made great progress, and I’m going to be honest…there might not be much more I can help you with. You’ve lost someone important to you, and you’ve been grieving, but you’re not lost, Elara. You know your heart. Knowing what you need hasn’t been a problem for you,” she repeats with a confidence that straightens me up, even as she reads between my lines.

“Don’t count us out yet,” I tell her, my way of agreeing to keep me penciled in for next week.

“You bet,” she says, her smile warm through the phone and bringing mine back. “And something to remember,” she adds, as I shift the pillow off my lap and my bare feet hit the cold floor. “When someone pushes you away, it’s not always about you.”

I scoff my doubt. That’s what Amie has told me too, about Jasper. But in his case, it sort of was about me.

In my father’s case, I’ll agree, his pushing wasn’t about me.Or about my mom. He couldn’t help the issues he had within himself, but he still made us both feel at fault enough to the point we—specifically my mother—had no choice but to stop trying so hard to care for him and care more for ourselves—herself—resulting in my parents’ divorce.

I retrieve my glass of wine from the coffee table and give it a spin, staring at the last gulp of remaining red as it swirls at the bottom. “I don’t normally give up so easily,” I mutter, with another flick of my wrist.

“You weren’t giving up,” Helena assures. “You were giving time.”

I finish off the wine, warm and sour. Six months.

“Thanks, Helena,” I say, as I prepare to hang up and let the wine mute my mind, and, hopefully, lull me into a half-sleep. I don’t drink to cope, but a little every now and then does go a long way. But I still coachmyselfinto not getting drunk—again. A night like that was reserved for last week, for my thirty-fifth birthday.

Shepherd’s was just two weeks ago. He always joked about how we were born so close together, how it was like fate.A fate thing.His family celebrated us both on the same day with one big blow out. Shepherd loved his blow outs.

That’s what I did this year too. A phone call with Vanessa. A phone call with Amie. And more than a few filled glasses.

And Davis, who’s still sound asleep behind our closed door across the room. He was my attempt to moveon. An attempt at a new relationship. An attempt at something I could come to fail.

Within Helena’s pause, I can see her simple smiled response. “Goodnight, Elara. Try to sleep.”

“Cheers,” I say, holding up my empty glass, then end thecall, setting my phone onto the table. I eye the glass long enough to consider refilling it, then set it down next to my phone.

What I consider more seriously is staying on this couch for what’s left of the night. Davis is an early riser, and if I crawl back into bed now, he’ll wake up and stay up, ask questions I’ve already answered with Helena. He knows bits and pieces of why I moved back here, but I’ve stopped wanting to unpack with him.

I let my hair down, and fluff it out with my fingers. The tie is old, tattered and stretched enough to fit around the wine glass, and that’s where I put it, watching it slide to rest around the bottom of the bowl.

My phone finds its way back into my hands as I settle back against the couch—my bed—and turn the notifications back on for my socials. I’ve avoided being online, seeing the posts from the literal media about Shepherd, and the condolences messages I started to get from his fans. Several stareunreadback at me now after I tap in.

I conclude Jasper did the same, because when my finger bypasses Shepherd’s page for his, I see nothing new. The fall season has passed at the resort, which was his second favorite to the ski season, and I guess I expected to see him posting, but there are no pictures from this year’s festivities. Nothing with the scarecrows, or the roaming ghosts looking to sneak a scare onto unsuspecting visitors, or people casting spells with the witches.

Nothing from the haunted rides on the lifts. I’m not into the spooky and the scary, so I skipped those rides.

Everything from fall is all from last year. Shepherd is in a lot of them, loving the spotlight, even though he had plentyshining down on him. I’m in some of them too.

Jasper’s last update is still from a few days before Shepherd died. He teaches snowboarding lessons during the ski season, and in this picture, he’s smiling with one of his students, a kid in his teens. They both have their boards, and Jasper’s arm is around his shoulder, while the boy holds a thumbs-up. His name is Kaeden—I remember him, and I remember how much he struggled to learn. This was the excited aftermath of finally succeeding.

My heart aches as I study Jasper’s smile, seeing how full of life he was, then remembering the break to his spirit the last time I saw him. My finger slides down his face before I quickly flick out of the picture, and off his page, hesitating on tapping into Shepherd’s.

I close out of the app.

My heart beats and aches for so much. Too much at once.

I’m about to tap into my personal pictures stored in my phone when the bedroom door clicks open and Davis yawns his way out, squinting and blinking at the light until his eyes adjust to see me on this couch.

Every time I look at him, I try to feel somethingmore. Something deeper. Something less on the surface of what we really are to each other. But I can’t.

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