Page 112 of Finding Home

“I missed you, baby.” Ryan cooed, as he pressed a gentle kiss against Viet’s forehead.

Elle stopped watching the happy reunion between her friends. Viet was her ride or die, but Ryan had become a friend in the years he dated and then married her best friend. A swirl of emotions fizzed through Elle. Joy at her friends’ deep love for one another. Gratitude for Viet and Willa flying to Perry to be with her over the last few days. Jealousy that there wasn’t a pair of loving arms for her to walk into at baggage claim. Not just any arms, but Clayton’s arms.

An hour later, Ryan dropped Willa in front of her apartment a few blocks away from Elle’s and then drove Elle to her building. Viet jumped out of Ryan’s silver SUV, offering to help Elle lug her bags upstairs and unpack before walking back to his place. Elle waved him off, saying she was beat and just wanted to take a shower.

It was a half-truth. She just wanted to be alone. That choking lump in her throat needed to be released, and she didn’t want to do it with Viet there. He’d want to ease the pain and wipe away her tears. She didn’t want to be comforted; she just wanted to feel the grief. So much of her life was spent tucking her feelings away. It was time to just let them out, but in the safety of her own condo with herself as the only witness to her sorrow.

Unlocking her door, she dragged her two suitcases in, setting them in the small hallway by the front door. Hanging her purse on the hook by the door and placing her laptop bag next to her suitcases, she slipped her sandals off and tucked her feet into the slippers she kept by the door. Ned, Willa’s cousin who had been renting her condo while on a contract with a local hospital as a nurse, had moved out to stay with Willa for the last week of his time in Long Beach. He’d be leaving for Alaska next week.

Elle walked around her condo like a visitor to a museum, taking it all in. Ned had made sure that the place was clean. It looked just as it had before she left. Dull light, tinted in gray, came in through the large windows overlooking the ocean.

Wandering her condo, she surveyed each neatly organized closet, clean counter, the perfectly folded purple throw blanket hung over her gray couch, categorized bookshelves, and the picture of her with Pete, Janet, and Tobey at her college graduation that sat on her nightstand. That lonely picture would soon have company. One of the pictures she planned to add would be that picture of her and Clayton at the Anchor Bar.Seeing the photo each day would stab painfully but that ache would allow her to remember when she was an “us.”

She pulled her suitcases into the bedroom to unpack and settle back into this place that used to be so beloved, but now was just a condo. Not the home she’d left as she’d flown away from Perry.

At the bottom of a stack of folded shirts was Clayton’sTeam Paw Patroltee that she had worn the first night she slept over and so many nights after. Taking the soft blue shirt in her hand, she sat on the corner of her bed, tracing the T-shirt’s white lettering. With each stroke of her finger, another tear fell. Clutching it to her chest, she released the rest of her tears, letting them rage like a long awaited and much needed rainstorm. The hot tears tumbled down her cheeks and onto the shirt, dampening it in her sadness. She hadn’t put the shirt in her suitcase. Clayton must have. She’s not sure when.

She pressed the shirt to her face and mumbled into the well-worn fabric, “Thank you for everything, Clayton.”

She wept, pressing the shirt close to her heart. She had left a memento of “us” with him, and he had sent one with her. When Elle’s dad left, she took all the mementos of when her mother, father, and she were a “Them,” tossing them in the trash in the hopes it would erase the pain. It hadn’t. This was a different kind of pain. That had been the pain of the left behind, the unchosen. This was the pain of the leaver, the chooser. She was more like her father than she’d believed possible. She had left. She had chosen her life here and his life there.

“Goodbye, Clayton.” She folded the shirt and tucked it, and her heartbreak, into the bottom drawer.

FORTY-TWO

“Elizabeth had never been more at a lost to make her feelings appear what they were not. It was necessary to laugh, when she would rather have cried.”

~Jane Austen,Pride and Prejudice

It had been five days since Elle returned to Long Beach. Five days full of an aching heart each time she saw the color gray, making her think of Clayton’s eyes, smelled the aroma of Braedon’s afternoon snack of peeled orange, making her think of Clayton’s citrus scent, or Malcolm asked her how Clayton was doing, making her think of…well Clayton.

The pang in her chest rattled as she met Willa and Viet for happy hour, although nothing felt happy to Elle. A bottle of rosé on the table greeted her as she slipped onto the tall stool across from her two friends, cautious smiles on their faces. Their stale conversation hovered around the unseasonably hot weather and work for their first glass of wine.

Almost done with their second round, Willa placed her half-filled glass down, and declared, “Okay, I’m pulling off the bandage.”

“Wills…” Viet cautioned.

“Noah says Clayton is heartbroken. He's been miserable since you left.”

Breathwhooshedout of Elle like she’d been punched. She’d known Clayton would be hurt, but this was confirmation of it. Noah would only say something to try to help, to try to fix. It wouldn’t be a throwaway comment likehow’s the weatherorhow about them Yankeesorby the way my lifelong bromance bestie is heartbroken.

“You’re talking to Noah?” Elle blinked.

“That’s your takeaway on what I just said?” Willa scoffed. “Yes, we’re friends. We’ve texted and we spoke last night, but we’re not going down that rabbit hole. We’re going down yours.”

“I don’t know if I like the analogy of going down Elle’s hole.” Viet quipped, lightening the tension.

“He said that?” Elle’s fingers tightened on her wineglass. The cool smoothness of the glass soothing her jackhammering heart. The confirmed certainty of Clayton’s sadness flayed her.

“I’m not telling you this to make you feel bad. I just don’t understand why this is happening. Even before I met Clayton, I knew this was so different. Youneverlike anyone I’ve set you up with.” Willa shifted off the backless stool across from Elle, taking the one beside her. “When I saw the two of you together, I thought this is him. This is the man finally worthy of my friend’s heart. I just don’t understand why it needed to end. The way you two looked at each other was like there was nobody else in the world.”

“Willa…” Viet’s tone was firm. “Elle’s life is here, and Clayton’s is there. They talked about it and decided it was best not to drag it on.”

“Did they decide or didshe?”

“Elle? Did you ask Clayton what he wanted, or did you just decide what was best for him and tell him?” Viet’s assessing gaze pinned her.

“It’s what’s best for him.” she whispered.

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