This One is For You

Chapter Eighteen

Hudson

I got the call yesterday morning that my mother's ashes were ready to be picked up. It's been two weeks since she passed.

Josie kindly offered to drive my sister and I down to Tybee Island for the night so we can spread her ashes.

I didn't know where else to do it, and even though Rylie doesn't remember, I recall coming to Tybee Island as a young child with our parents. It's the one faintly good memory I have of us all together.

"Reebok! R!"

"Dang it." Josie slaps the steering wheel. "I'm still stuck on P."

We're—well, mostly they're—playing the alphabet game. They each have to find a word that starts with whatever letter they're on, and see who can make it through the alphabet first.

I was playing, but I gave up around H because lyrics popped into my head, and I needed to jot them down.

Angel off the shots of tequila

A dance floor romance, I was glad to finally meet ya

The real you, not the one you are for show.

We took a chance, something to kill the time

I didn't know you were gonna change my life

I guess it turns out I write love songs after all.

Looking up from my notebook, I sneak a glance at Josie. She's laughing while she talks to my sister, and her glossy lips shine against the sunlight.

Today should be a sad day, but Josie is even keeping Rylie happy. It's like she can turn even the worst situations into something not as heavy.

We didn't see each other much last week. I saw her for dinner once, and we finished recording the single a couple days ago. Now we just have to wait for the final cut.

But Josie got back on track with her school work and I picked up a couple shows, preventing us from spending much time together.

I've been craving her again ever since the long night we spent together. It makes me nervous that I've started to dread the days where I won't see her, and wait for the days that I can. I'm just trying to go with the flow.

We haven't talked about if we're together, or seeing other people. I don't get the vibe that she's going to see anyone else, and I sure as hell have never been as into a woman as I am her.

I guess we'll just go from there.

When we make it onto the island, we head straight to the beach, wanting to get the hard part over with.

The girls follow me to the water's edge, where I take out the bag. It's weird, the finality of it all. I still think my mom is on the couch in our apartment, but she's gone.

To be so young and without any parents at all is scary. I guess our dad is out there somewhere, but he might as well be dead to us.

It really is just Rylie and I.

The sun is just beginning to set, casting deep orange hues over everything.

"Rylie, want to say anything?"

"She was a shitty mom." Rylie shrugs, twisting a lock of her hair. She looks away, and I know if I turned her to face me, she'd be tearing up. "But even as shitty as she was, she gave birth to us. I mean, Hudson, you're alright."

"Thanks, sis." I scoff, "You're so nice."

"I don't want to say goodbye to her. I didn't want it to end this way, but she wasn't really living. A heartbeat and working lungs don't make you alive. She was an addict, and as much as I want to blame her for starting in the first place, addiction is a disease. I think at some point we need to find a way to forgive her."