Page 143 of Honeysuckle
“Are you okay?” I asked him as he got settled.
“Yeah, Tuck.” He put his hand on the mattress between us like he always did, palm down and fingers spread, waiting. I tucked mine in his and he looked down at it. “For once, I’m really okay.”
“Good.” I smiled back. "‘Cause that was fucking insane, and I’m going to need you to do that again…”
Josh surged forward, catching my lips in a quick, smiling kiss. “Shut the fuck up,” he said, but all I heard was compliance, and as I fell asleep with him next to me, all I felt was love.
LOGAN
“Wow,youbroughtmeup here just to rub my nose in your generational wealth?” I asked, staring up at the massive cabin. Silas sighed.
“Ourgenerational wealth, asshole.”
“I’m still a Logan.” I followed him around the back of the cabin.
A few weeks after the Gala, the committee came back with a decision: Ian had been suspended pending further investigations. Turned out that I wasn’t the only fellow student he had assaulted. On top of another former Lorette, two girls came forward with accusations. It was enough to make the school pay attention, and whether or not they believed me didn’t matter anymore. As long as he was being punished for what he had done.
I started spending Sunday with Mark after Riona suggested that I figure out who was important to me. She hadn’t liked my answer at the time when Dean’s name was the only thing off my list.That’s not healthy, she scolded me on the importance of having people outside our relationship that I could rely on.
So I started bringing dinner over to Mark’s, and sometimes we’d go out, sometimes even Dean would join us. And I’ll admit it to her, but she was right, making an effort to keep him in my life meant something. Aside from our troubles, communicating with Silas was getting easier… Thanks to Dean, who forced the friendship at every turn, we were starting to learn that we had more in common than expected.
“Just give him a chance, he’ll surprise you,”Dean said this morning when Silas called asking me to drive up here with him ahead of the team. It was the Hornets family weekend, and despite not fully understanding what that term meant just yet, I’d agreed to join him for the drive.
“In name, sure. But your bank account says otherwise,” he added, carrying a cardboard box under his arm as he wandered down the path.
I followed close, avoiding the branches that threatened to whip me in the face. "Did I ever tell you guys how much I fucking hate the outdoors?” I cursed as one scratched my arm in passing. Silas laughed from ahead of me but kept walking, ignoring my struggle to follow him.
“Did you bring me out here to kill me?” I asked him.
“I’d pay someone to do that. These hands are too soft and smooth,” he called over his shoulder as we reached a set of stairs.
“Like father, like son,” I jabbed.
“I walked into that one,” he laughed.
“This place is ridiculous,” I said as we reached the bottom of the stairs. The stained wooden slats continued down off the store and over the lake. Bushes of lavender covered half the hill and made the air smell sweet.
Silas walked across the dock and set the box down, kicking off his shoes and settling down on the rocking wood. He rolled up his pants and stuck his feet into the water without an invitation for me to join, but I did anyway.
“This is where we laid Lorraine Cody to rest,” Silas said after what felt like an hour of silence. The trees bristled in the wind, and the soft ripples of the lake tickled the shore as the sun grew lazy in the sky.
“Cael’s mom?” I asked, and Silas nodded. “She meant a lot to you guys…”
“She’s the reason most of us even made it to graduation,” he said, eyes fixed on the horizon. “I just thought that maybe you’d want some closure.” He picked up the box and handed it to me as I sat shoulder to shoulder with him.
It was heavy and unmarked, but inside was a bag of ashes. I stared down at it, realizing that he had collected them from the morgue. They had called every day the last two weeks, but I couldn’t be bothered. I was done taking care of her, and there were just so many other important issues that took priority over a box of dust.
“They called you?” I tapped the side of the box with my fingers.
“Small towns… when you didn’t answer, they went for the next best thing,” he said. “You can lay her to rest here if you want.”
“With Cael’s mom?” I scowled. I couldn’t do that. Lorraine Cody was a legend at Harbor, a ghost story they told when they spoke about unconditional love. Cael talked about her like she was the winning statement in every argument that involved parents being imperfect.They all did. My mother was nothing but dust. I looked at the box, grinding my teeth together and trying to remember even one good moment about her.
Nothing surfaced.
I never faulted her for being sick, for having her soul shattered in such an intimate way that there was never a chance of putting it back together. Over the last weeks, I had lots of time to mull over the what-ifs. What if I had gotten to her sooner? What if I had never left her? But the reality was I was never enough to fix how broken she was, I would have never been the rush of her next high, the sting of her next bottle. I had to understand that, live with it, grieve with it.
But to bury her in a place like this, with a woman held in such high regard.
