“I need to talk to Jill,” I tell my hung-over self. “I need to say sorry.”
I don’t move right away because I’m still thinking about what she said yesterday. She basically told me that she still loves me and wants to be with me, and that we owe it to Sadie to at least make something of us. I really think that even if it would have been hard for my sister at first, she would have accepted us eventually and we all would have been okay. The drama wouldn’t have lasted forever. Sadie had too much love in her heart for both of us. Even after yelling, she would have forgiven us, I’m knowit. If only she didn’t walk home.
That one hasty, angry, drunk split-second decision altered all of our lives forever.
I don’t know if Jill and I can be together now, not like we were, it’s too raw. But we are still going to colleges not too far apart, so we will figure this out somehow. We can at least be friends, until we’re healed enough to get back to the way things are supposed to be.
But nothing can happen while I’m lying in bed and feeling sorry for myself. As much as I don’t have the energy, I need to get my ass out of bed. I have to go and see Jill before she hates me forever for those horrible words I said to her. Words that I didn’t mean at all. I need to make it right.
“Mom?” I hear movement in the house, and there is someone else who I need to say sorry to first downstairs. At least I know that this apology will be easier, she’s my mom, she has to forgive me. It will be a good warm up for the harder ones. “Mom, is that you?”
Everything aches as I drag myself out of bed. I feel like I have been curled up in the fetal position for months. I tell myself that will getting up and moving on will get easier every day, not sure I believe that right now. But it has to be. The only way to get over pain is to get through it. This is going to suck.
Because things sure as hell can’t be worse than this, right?
***
Nerves grip tightly as I knock on Jill’s door for the first time in my life. I haven’t ever been around to her house like this because our relationship was a secret. Plus, Jill has always spent so much time at our house anyway, I never even came to pick up Sadie here when we were younger. So, it’s strange.
*Knock, knock*
I rock back and forth on my feet as I wait for Jill or her dad to answer.
*Knock, knock*
The door swings open but it isn’t Jill on the other side staring at me. It’s Paul, her father, and I’m immediately struck by how unhappy he looks. Is that because of me? He must have seen me being an asshole yesterday.
“Oh… Garrett, hi.” He sounds glum, but he doesn’t seem particularly annoyed at me. “It was a lovely service yesterday. Of course, that never makes up for the person who has been lost…”
God, he gets it, doesn’t he? He really does. He lost his wife. I could probably talk to him about this, but I can’t seem to find the words. Plus, I don’t know how keen he is on a heart to heart.
“Is Jill here?” I ask quietly. “I was hoping that I could say sorry to her for yesterday.”
“You don’t know?” He cocks his head to one side and eyes me curiously. “She’s gone.”
“Gone? What do you mean?” My brain isn’t in the right place to deal with this right now. “Gone where?”
“I don’t know exactly.” He shrugs helplessly. “She didn’t say in her note. Just that she is using her college fund to travel. She doesn’t want to go to school where she had planned without Sadie, which I understand. I just wish she hadn't made such a rash decision, but she’s an adult, isn’t she? I can’t stop her from doing what she wants now.”
He sighs loudly, the sadness radiating off of him, and I feel it too. I can’t help but wonder if Jill took off because of the harsh words I said to her. Another fucking person leaving because of me.
“Have… have you called her?” I beg, unable to stop myself. “Tried to stop her? She might regret this…”
“She didn’t take her cell phone. She doesn’t want anyone contacting her. She just said that she will email me when she arrives wherever she’s going. Of course I want to know where she is and if she’s okay, I need her to be safe, but losing Sadie changed her, as I’m sure you can imagine.”
She’s gone, left town, without even saying anything. She’s gone and there isn’t a damn thing that I can do about it.