Page 21 of Revelry
Her words might as well have been a hammer when I needed a drill, they were so useless. How did Momma Von know what Dani would have wanted, or anyone else for that matter? She didn’t survive long enough to tell anyone how she felt about the things I’d said to her, and so the comfort Momma Von tried to bring with her assumption fell flat.
I didn’t have anything else to say, and nothing had been resolved, nothing talked about really. But it was enough, and I stood, ready to shower and turn in for the night.
“Yvette and Davie are having a little bonfire tonight,” Momma Von said when I started down the stairs. “You should come. It’s been a while since you’ve seen Benjamin. He’s so big now.”
“I’m tired,” I answered. That was my answer for everything.
“Wren will be there,” she said, but I kept my eyes on my boots as I kept walking. “If that changes your mind at all.”
“It doesn’t.”
“Okay,” she added with a laugh. “So I’ll see you there later then?”
“Goodnight, Momma Von.”
She just laughed harder, and I shook my head, dislodging the thought before it had a chance to even attempt to stick. I hadn’t been to a bonfire in years, hadn’t been in a group setting with anyone but Momma Von and Ron in years. I’d tried a few times before, but every time I remembered why I couldn’t.
Because Dani couldn’t.
How could I live a normal life, a fun life, one with laughter and drinks and friends and fun when she laid buried six feet under less than a mile away?
The answer was that I couldn’t, and I repeated that over and over all the way back to my cabin.
REAL
re·al
Adjective
Not artificial, fraudulent, or illusory: genuine
I never realized how much more I had to learn about myself, not until I spent nearly every second of every single night alone.
The days were easy, because there was sunshine and other people to talk to. Even when the clouds hung low over the cabins or the sky opened up and poured down an afternoon of rain, there was always someone around. Momma Von on her porch, or Yvette and Davie walking Benjamin in his stroller, or Tucker swinging by to see if I wanted to do anything, which I never did, not with him, anyway. I kept myself busy during the day, working on little projects around the cabin and enjoying the scenery.
Nights were the hardest.
I was thankful the days were long, at least. The sun didn’t sink behind the mountains until around nine each night, but as soon as it did, I’d be alone with my thoughts. Sketching still wasn’t happening, which meant the thoughts I was left alone with weren’t even productive ones. No, usually they were filled with everything I’d yet to truly face—like my fear of failure, not only as a wife but as an artist.
Broken was the best way to describe how I felt.
I couldn’t sketch, couldn’t articulate my feelings, couldn’t fix everything in my cabin, couldn’t stay in the cabin for longer than three months anyway. I didn’t have a home, didn’t have a future that spanned further than tomorrow. Everything I thought my life would be,whoI thought I would be, it had all vanished.
I didn’t have a husband. I didn’t have a child. I didn’t have a five-year plan. I didn’t have anything I thought I would at twenty-seven. And some nights, when I was weakest, I didn’t even remember why. Why did I leave? Was I really that unhappy? Every couple has problems, that’s what everyone around me said. Was I just immature, or stupid, throwing away a marriage I should have “fought for?”
But Ididfight for it, for years. And years, and years. No matter what I did, or who I was, it was never enough for Keith. It never would have been, not until I’d given him every last piece of myself so he could rebuild me the way he saw fit.
Yeah, nights were the hardest.
Which was why I was more than excited to be sitting around a low-key bonfire at Yvette and Davie’s.
There were a dozen of us seated around the fire, with another small group playing drinking games on a long table behind us and a few more in the hot tub. I was buzzed, pleasantly so, and so was Yvette, which I learned quickly didn’t happen often for her.
“Oh, yeah, rub it in,” Davie teased as she popped open another beer. “Just remember paybacks are a bitch.”
“Don’t be salty because I beat you fair and square in rock, paper, scissors for baby duty tonight,” she teased right back, blowing him a kiss with a wink. He smacked her ass playfully as she scampered back to the hot tub, baby monitor still glued to his other hand.
“Well, you guys aren’t adorable or anything,” I said.
