Page 62 of The Best Worst Mistake
“He’s been right about everything?”
“Annoyingly so,” she confesses, smiling faintly. Then her lips twitch into a broader smile. “I wish I could have surprised myself by bouncing back. Not sitting home most nights watching oldSchitt’s Creekepisodes when I couldn’t sleep because it was the last series we watched together. Sometimes I still start laughing and look across the couch, expecting to see him laughing too. And I know it’s not good. Living in the past like that.”
Her eyes settle into the space between us as a collection of memories stirs within.
I want to open up her mind and let every thought spill out across the room, like a thousand tortured microcosms that need to have their moment in order for her to be at peace again — instead of having been locked up there in her head all year long with nowhere to go.
“He’s pretty convinced that I’ve spent the last year hiding out alone and that I need you to remind me that this big ol’ world out here still exists.”
I smile, knowing that this is exactly what the last year has been like for her. That she’s been holding back from taking part in the world fully, partially out of grief, but partially because no amount of living feels right when you’re wrapped up inside a storm.
“I tend to agree with Grant,” I tell her. She narrows her eyes at me, but then I go on. “I was only eight when she passed, but it felt like I was insulting my mom any time I laughed or forgot for even one second. I spent years being angry because it didn’t seem right to be anything but angry. Offensive, even. Then, well, you saw me after my dad died. I basically jumped off the deepend. That time, there was no moral compass left. I was an utter disaster.”
“And after losing Grant?”
“I hate to say it but I sort of felt like a seasoned pro by the time we lost him.” I tilt her chin up with the pad of my finger. She blinks a few times, confused.
“How can you say that? I can’t imagine it ever gets easier.”
“Easier, no.Never. I struggle with his loss every minute of every day, Jules. Losing Grant gutted me in a way that was different from losing my parents, and in a lot of ways, it was somehow more painful. I loved my parents, but IchoseGrant to be my family. He was irreplaceable to me, just as much as they were.”
Her eyes well up with tears. “I think I’ve needed to hear you say that.”
“And I’m sorry if I haven’t shown you that part of this journey for me. But what I mean is that I gave myself some time to go off the rails for a shorter window, then slowly swam through the parts of grief that I knew I could do without — like all the idiotic coping strategies I used in the past. And then went straight to the better part of the whole train wreck.”
“The better part? Excuse me if I think you sound crazy right now.”
She rolls her eyes, and I swallow down a laugh.
“You’re on your way to figuring that part out for yourself,” I tell her. “Even if you think you’re not, because against all odds, it’ll come next if you’re open to it.”
“Enlighten me.”
“I forced myself to skip past the scalding anger that comes with losing someone. The part where you wish the whole world would swallow you up with it so you don’t have to keep going. This time, because I knew I’d get there eventually, I made myself live betterforhim. More meaningfully. Because at some point,you’ll see the awful, gut-wrenching, life-altering, mindfuck of a gift that it can be. You see what can happen when you stop taking each day for granted like you did before losing them. Knowing they never got a February 28th, or a June 2nd of that year, but you did.”
“What’s so special about June 2nd?”
“Everything.”
She furrows her brows.
“The simple fact that you get to wake up each day with air in your lungs when someone else that should have didn’t makes that day extraordinary,” I tell her. “You’re not living and breathing just for yourself anymore. You’re doing it every day for them too. Twice as hard. For the people you loved that don’t get to.”
She wipes a lone tear from her temple as it slides off toward the bed.
I’ve never talked like this to anyone.
“Silas Davenport,” she says quietly. The saddest smile creeps across her face. “I never pegged you as such a deep feeling, little softy.”
“Even assholes have feelings,” I say, tapping gently under her chin.
She finally laughs at that, sniffing back future tears.
“I think that’s what Grant has been alluding to in all his letters,” she admits. “Like he somehow knew that I’d need you. But not just that, it’s almost like I need . . .” She pauses, trying to find the right word.
“Permission?” I finish for her.
“Exactly. Permission to enjoy my life again. Which is why these letters have been so cathartic, I think.”
