Page 82 of Knocked Up in Alaska

Chapter Twenty-Four

“Don’t cry, Lilah.”

She didn’t realize she had been, but as she stared at Shay’s glowing image standing solitary at the foot of the bed, she answered honestly. “I can’t help it. I’m so sad. Can you see her? Have you?”

His smile lit the room like a sunbeam. “I see her all the time. There’s never a moment I don’t see her. She’s the lightest, brightest, most amazing soul in the universe.”

“Really? The whole universe?”

His smile turned crooked. “Well, I can’t actually speak for the whole universe, but she’s brightest one I’ve ever seen, and Lilah”—he pointed to her—“I’ve seen some very bright souls.”

“Not me. I’m not bright.”

His smile shrunk a bit. He approached and knelt by the side of the bed. This close, looking at him stung the eyes, like staring into the dawn. “Not lately, no. There’s a shadow on your soul right now. One you don’t deserve. One you’ve cast yourself, and only you can cast it off.”

“Can you forgive me?” Her heart hammered painfully in her chest.

“There’s nothing to forgive. Nothing that happened was your fault.”

“I shouldn’t have told you like I did. I shouldn’t have run to you all desperate and scared and looking for you to fix everything. When you get right down to it, I shouldn’t have gotten in that hot tub with you since I was too stupid to know what the consequences could be, but Shayla wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t, so I can’t bring myself to regret that. Still, the rest”—she reached out to touch his cheek, but her hand passed through the air he occupied—“the rest I regret even more, because since she arrived, every day I see everything you’re missing…”

“I’m not missing anything. I promise. It’s not the same experience, no,” he went on when she started to deny his statement. “It’s different. It’s not a physical experience—that’s for you, and you’re absolutely crushing it in every way. It’s just…different.” He stopped, offered her a half smile, and shook his head. “Sorry. I wish I’d listened better in science…or church. I don’t have the vocabulary to explain how things are on my end.”

He paused, and then his smile returned in full force, with the slightly devilish tilt she remembered so well. “It’s sort of like sex. You can read about it, talk about it, even watch it to have an idea of what it’s all about, but until you actually do it, you don’t really know. And even then, sure, it’s a shared experience, but also pretty unique to the individual. It’s impossible to put into clear, meaningful words.”

It wasn’t so hard for her, though. Her experience remained brutally easy to summarize. “We miss you, Shay. So much. It’s like a wound—this feeling that you should be here, and you’re not—and I don’t see how it ever heals. Don’t you miss us?”

“I don’t.”

Wow. That hurt. “Because you’re busy having really great, unique sex all the time now, in your…whatever the heck it is. New existence?”

Her outburst brought another big smile to his face. Some things never changed. Shay and his temper had always been total strangers. “Not really, although you do inspire me. You and Ford.”

Something inside her flinched. “Don’t—”

“Oh, baby.” His eyes were all sympathy now. “Okay. I won’t tease you, but it’s all good, okay? No, don’t. I see that shadow you’ve cast deepening. Don’t add guilt about this to the load you’re already carrying. I wasn’t the one for you. I love you, and you love me, too—I know that—but we weren’t in love. We both know that. You’re finding the one for you, and that’s exactly what you’re supposed to do. It’s what you’re meant to do. It’s the whole point, actually. Make those human connections. Grow love all around you. Keep feeding it and watering it, even where it seems like the ground is too rocky and whatever grows too damn prickly and demanding.”

She sighed. “Okay. You’ve meddled in my sex life and my relationship with my mother. Maybe your work here is done?”

“Not quite. You wondered why I don’t miss you. I haven’t answered yet, but I think I can. Maybe. Here goes.” He looked at her, his expression serious. “I still have you, all of you, in a way that isn’t…limited, like it was before. Those human connections, the love? Those things never die. They’re bigger than the flesh and blood we carry them around in. Much bigger, once you’re on this side of things. Everything on your side, from that perspective, seems fleeting. Shit changes like the weather. One minute, you’re happy, but then something crappy happens and you’re sad. Friends come and go. Relationships evolve and sometimes they end. People make terrible mistakes that have huge consequences. People die. But on my side, I can see past the perspective that makes it all look so messy and chaotic. I can see that the love, the connections, are permanent. And vast. No beginning, no end kind of vast. Once you get here, the other stuff, transitory stuff like sadness, disappointment, and regret, falls away. I don’t miss you because you’re here. You’ll always be here. I’ll always be here. Shayla will always be here, shining light and bright and amazing.”

As he spoke, his eyes went so blue they pierced something inside her. She bled from a crucial organ she couldn’t name. What he described sounded like heaven—literally—but also like a misty dream. She remained stuck in sometimes cold, sometimes unfairly hard reality with her sadness, regret, and guilt, and they felt permanent. Bone-deep permanent.

Maybe he sensed her despair because his blue eyes deepened, and his voice softened to a murmur. “Feel sad if you need to. You perceive a loss, so some sadness is normal. Feel a little regret, too, I guess, for now. It’s part of that perceived loss. But know they’re not lasting. And know that I don’t regret anything. Know that and let go of the guilt. You don’t deserve it, and it serves no purpose. What does serve a purpose is for you to take what Trace and Bridget want to give you. It’s what I want, too. It’s the right thing to do, and your bullshit guilt is holding you back from doing the right thing, so to quote a played-out Disney flick—Let it. The fuck. Go.”

“Just”—she flung an arm out in a careless, liberating gesture—“let it go?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“It’s not that easy.” Frustration made her voice tremble. “I feel what I feel. I can’t help it.”

“That’s why I’m here.” He tipped his head to the side and smiled. “To tell you to cut it out.”

“Maybe you’re here because my guilty subconscious conjured you? Maybe I’ve spun this dream so I can have a twisted metaphysical discussion where you tell me all the things I need to hear to forgive myself?”

Shay shook his head like a teacher with a disappointing student. “God, everyone’s a skeptic.”

“Who’s everyone?”

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