Page 964 of Deep Pockets

“We could make it a girls’ trip,” Julia said. “Free champagne?”

“No.”

“Humph,” Emery muttered. “Just think about it.”

“No.”

“I’m buying the dress,” Julia said, ignoring my protests. “Just as a backup. In case you change your mind and go with us.”

That wasn’t happening.

But, in the end, I couldn’t change their minds. And the dress came home with me.

Still, my mind wandered back to Landon. Even though I didn’t want it, too. I wondered what he was doing. If he had been getting drunk with Austin every night, like Emery had said. If he had been moping around, like Julia had said. If he was hurting as much as I was. My heart ached with the loss of him. I’d only just gotten him…only just fallen in love…and then it had all been tragically ripped away.

I couldn’t turn back the clock.

We’d known it was wrong, but it’d felt so damn right.

Now, it was all up in flames.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Landon

Day four of no response from Heidi.

Not even a text telling me to fuck off and leave her alone.

I was going totally insane. The only thing keeping me from banging her door down was the reassurance from Emery and my family that Heidi needed time.

Time.

That sick fucker.

It was turning into my least favorite word in existence. Something I had no control over. Something that constantly hounded me. Something that was impossible to run from or escape.

An endless snake eternally eating its tail.

Laughing at me.

And how finite my life was.

I brushed aside the thoughts that continued to plague me and sent Austin’s third call to voice mail. I knew he wanted to go out and drink. We’d done it every night since Heidi was unceremoniously fired and then dumped me. It had been a welcome reprieve from the ache that was so brutal, it was a fissure in my chest. But I needed a night away from it all. To be alone and decide my next move.

Without even knowing exactly where I was going, I pulled into the cemetery parking lot and cut the engine. It was a clear night, and the moon hung heavy in the sky as I stepped out of the car, threw on a North Face jacket from the backseat, and wandered out among the gravestones.

When my mom had died, I’d only been seven, and cemeteries had creeped me out for a long time after that. But, when my dad had died, I’d just stopped coming. I’d told Heidi that I wanted to introduce her to my parents when we were official, but the truth was…I hadn’t been out here more than a handful of times since they passed. And never alone.

But I felt drawn here tonight.

No more alcohol.

No more wasted nights.

No more forgetting.

I found my parents buried next to each other in the middle of the cemetery. They had ostentatious headstones that couldn’t be missed. The word Wright was in big letters on each of them. I sank into the grass between my mom and dad and just stared, unseeing. It was enough to be out there tonight and let my parents take the brunt of my pain.

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