Page 109 of Fall for Me

“Chels, I haven’t even told my therapist about it.” Eli said, his expression one of deep shame. “He keeps saying I’ve been making such great strides… I didn’t want to disappoint him with this thing I can’t seem to deal with.”

My heart hurt for Eli. Those same words from Mom I’d remembered myself came to mind. The fastest way to heal is straight through the pain.

I’d been leaning on those words, facing the hard stuff head on, since the moment Seamus left. But when Eli told me about the locker, I realized I’d been avoiding the thing scaring me the most: acknowledging that I was ready.

Ready to go to Seamus, to see if he’d still have me. To see if I wasn’t too late.

Truthfully, I’d been ready—on paper at least—for a while now.

The first few days after Seamus left, I’d given myself the week to grieve. It was a strange process, I’d discovered, because I wasn’t just upset about Seamus leaving. I was grieving the fact that I’d finally be leaving the old me behind for good. I loved that part of me, messy as she was. She’d done the best she could with what she had. But it was time to say goodbye.

When the week was up, I got to work. I made a list of all the things I was wanted to do: Write a business plan for my new events business. Take on a few clients. Quit my job at the Rolling Hills. Start running again. Start going to therapy. Make art. Make real friends. Spend time with Cass, Eli, Griff, Jude, and Dad. Visit Mom’s grave. Get a house. Get a dog.

I posted that list on my fridge, and then I went through the list one by one, making notes about my progress in my sketchbook in both words and art. One of the first things I did was visit Mom’s grave, with Dad. He’d brought me a gift—a box so heavy we’d had to lift it into my trunk together. When I opened the lid, I found rows upon rows of notebooks. Only these weren’t like my sketchbooks; these were lined notebooks, filled with Mom’s neat handwriting. Her diaries, dating all the way back to her childhood.

“She kept them the way you kept sketchbooks,” Dad said. “I never read them, and you don’t have to either, but I thought you should have them.”

I was so shocked, both at the diaries and the sketchbook comment, that it took me a moment to understand this was what he’d been trying to give me when I’d been so caught up in Seamus, when I’d kept putting him off. “I’m sorry, Dad.”

“I am too, Peanut. For not trying harder.”

I wasn’t sure if he meant about the diaries, or something else. I didn’t ask.

By some miracle, I matched with an amazing therapist in Greenville in week two—one Mia recommended. I went through all the items on that list, the easy and the hard, the straightforward and the complex. I cried, I got scared, and I failed at times, but I got up again.

By the time springtime rolled around, I’d checked off every item on the list except the last two: the house and the dog. When I got to those, I froze, my ambition suddenly stalled.

At first, I’d told myself it was because I’d already filled my calendar with clients at Chelsea Kelly Events Management—several of whom had come through Jamie’s recommendation at the party, even though I hadn’t finished it up myself. I was just the right amount of busy, and thinking about moving my venture out of my living room and into an office downtown. The thought of packing up and moving on top of that tipped me into stress territory, which my therapist and I agreed was not the point of this whole exercise. Plus, Cass was house hunting with Blake. Maybe that was enough excitement for both of us.

But not being keen on these two important items was just as stressful. This was the final piece. I had to be true to my word to myself.

It wasn’t until the drawing that I understood.

I’d been working all day on a sketch of Mom and Dad. Mom was pregnant—with Jude, I thought, based on the fact that they were at Dad’s parents’ place, when they still had their house. Mom looked beautiful: round and happy and leaning against Dad, grinning on a porch swing. I’d been thinking absently of Seamus like I did most mornings, wondering what he was doing right at that moment and trying to put off the itch that had started coming up around him.

It’s time.

I’m not ready.

It’s time.

As I shaded a small structure next to the house where my young parents sat, I froze, picking up the photo I’d been working from. I’d been drawing a chicken coop. And there, in the dirt by the house, were chickens.

That’s when I knew. I didn’t want to get my own house because I already knew what house I wanted to live in. A white clapboard cottage in the hills, with a special view right onto the valley.

I’d dropped my pencil and run straight for Eli’s door.

“Eli, now’s the time.”

“What?” he’d asked, his eyes bleary with sleep. I realized what time it was—not even seven in the morning. I’d gotten up to the draw the sunset, but after discovering it was raining, I’d switched to this drawing instead. I had a client meeting later, but I could move that to tomorrow easily enough.

“You need to deal with that storage locker. I need to win back Seamus. It’s time to go straight through the pain.”

We were driving through the rain with Betsey’s muffins and coffee to-go an hour later.

I was prepared for it to be painful. Seamus could well have moved on. Even if he hadn’t, he might not want to be with me. Even if he did want to be, he could run screaming if I told him I wanted to move in with him. Not that he was there right now, anyway.

It was ludicrous.

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