Hello, Goodbye

Chapter Thirty-Five

Her phone rang so much in the hours after she left the hospital that she turned it off. She didn't want to talk to anyone. Not Kiel. Not Doris or Gabe. Not her mother. And especially not Zeke. She drove around Coupeville for a while hoping to clear her head, but she couldn't get the fight with Zeke out of her mind no matter how much she tried. So she went home and headed straight to her art studio, thinking maybe working on her paintings would help. But when she walked in, she sucked in a breath as more than a dozen images of gravestones surrounded her. Tears stung her eyes, and shaking, she began grabbing all of her paintings, one by one, and throwing them in the dumpster outside.

Part of her hated doing it. Of chucking away pieces she'd thought were so beautiful. But now they were just ghosts, haunting her and reminding her of a summer that had been completely fabricated. When all the paintings were in the trash, she reached for anything she could find in the studio and started throwing it around. Paint flew everywhere. Brushes snapped beneath her feet as she danced around in a rage, feeling the need to destroy. Sketches of headstones went flying around her in pieces. She stabbed half painted canvases with knives. Her fury held no bounds, and no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't get it all out.

A scream ripped through her chest as she fell to the floor, her fingers brushing up against pieces of paper and splintered brushes. She dug her nails against the hard floor and sobbed. Everything inside and outside of her ached with a pain she had never faced before. A pain so raw she worried it would never go away. She had no idea how long she was lying on her studio floor, tears streaming down her cheeks until she thought her eyes would bleed. Snot slid down to her upper lip, and she brushed it away angrily. It wasn't fair. Nothing was fair. She'd never been in love before, and now she was in love with someone who, by his own admission, was probably dying. It was beyond unfair. It was cruel.

A knock sounded on the open studio door, and she didn't need to look up to know it was Kiel. He gasped when he saw the mess she'd made of the old studio, and then squatted down beside her, placing a hand on her shaking shoulder. "Emersyn," he whispered softly, and she knew by the way he said her name that Zeke had told him too. Her puffy eyes met his, and she wasn't surprised to see they matched. He gave her a tearful smile and helped get her to her feet before wrapping his arms around her, holding her tightly. "I'm so sorry, sweetheart." This time he didn't say everything would be okay. Because she knew he knew it wasn't going to be. And she didn't think anything would ever be okay again.

He didn't say much of anything else, because there was nothing else to say. All he could do was hold her and let her cry, and a few times she thought she heard him shed a few tears of his own. They'd both gone through so much pain together. Her dad, her grandparents... all losses he'd felt as hard as her. And now they would most likely have to go through it all over again with Zeke. This young man they'd only known for a few months, and yet somehow he'd made them both fall in love with him. There was nothing in the world quite like the pain that only grief could cause. And so the two of them did nothing but sit in that destroyed mess of a studio and grieve together. Not just for the potential loss of Zeke, but for the losses they'd already had to suffer through.

That was the thing about grief. It never stopped. It was always there, following you around like a shadow. And no number of hours, days, weeks, months or years could make it go away. It was a permanent stain on an otherwise pristine carpet. Emersyn felt so much anger. It was so strong she could barely breathe. Could hardly think straight. Kiel walked her back into the house and to her room, where he helped her to bed. Then he mumbled some words about how she should get some rest, and that he would be back soon. And he left.

She curled into the fetal position, holding her knees to her chest and rocking. It was hard to believe, less than twenty-four hours ago, Zeke had been in that very same bed with her. She closed her eyes, trying to picture that last night with him. And she hoped, when she opened them again, he'd be lying next to her still. That the events of day would be just a terrible nightmare, and he'd hold her and tell her it was all going to be fine. That he wasn't sick and dying. And she would believe him, because he'd never given her a reason not to. She squeezed her eyes closed tightly and wished and prayed for it not to be true. And at some point, between the wishes and the prayers and the continuing cries, sleep finally took over.