Between the pounding he’d given my front door earlier and scaling the rough bark of the giant maple outside my window, he’d wreaked havoc on his palms and fingers; the knuckles were swollen and bloodied and at least two were turning an angry bruised-purple color, which meant they were likely broken.
He made his way to the door, pausing in the frame for nearly a full minute. Keeping his back to me,he whispered into the dark hallway so quietly I could barely make out his words.
“I love you, Brooklyn Grace Turner. I always have, and I always will. It took me nearly thirteen years to find you; I’m not about to lose you now. And if you decide you never want to see me again, I’ll try to live with that decision; but you should know that the way I feel about you? It’s been the one constant in my life. This is permanent for me.Youare permanent for me.”
With those words hanging in the air, he disappeared out into the hallway. I listened until I heard the front door click closed, then headedacross the room to lock my window.
I’d thought Icried out all my tears earlier, but as I climbed in bed and hugged my pillow to my chest, I found there were still more to be released.
Chapter Eighteen
100% Guarantee
Rock bottom: I thought I’d hit it the night Finn left.
Isn’t it funny that when you think it’s simply not possible for life to get any worse – that, no matter what else life throws at you in the future you’ll be able to handle it, because there’s just no way it could ever be as bad as the pain you’re experiencing at this very moment – life takes one good look at you and says,“You idiot, don’t you know by now? Things can always, always, always get worse. Watch, I’ll prove it.”
Days passedwith an excruciating slowness that made me feel like I was losing my mind.
I left my room only for trips to the bathroom and kitchen. I skipped my classes, cancelled my sessions with Dr. Angelini, and refused to talk to Lexi when she came in to check on me. I had no appetite.I didn’t even bother to shower. Worse, though, I wasn’t sleeping.
As in, not at all.
I was afraid I’d see him in my dreams, whether as a little boy or as the man he’d become, and that prospectalone was enough to keep me awake for the rest of my life. After two full days without sleep, though, my body had different ideas. I had to be on guard at all times – if my mind wandered even for a minute, I’d find myself on the brink of unconsciousness, forced to pinch or slap myself back from sliding down into dreamland.
I became obsessed with alarm clocks – my own personal bastions against the threat of sleep. I spent hours on my laptop, reading about sleep cycles and REM stages. A concession to my body’s needs, I became the master of naps, nodding off in exact ninety minute intervals before I could fall into the deep sleep where dreaming occurs.
At some level, I knew that none of this was rational or remotely healthy, but I didn’t really care.As soon as Finn had walked out my door that night, I’d accepted the fact that my heart would never be the same; all I could do now was try to stitch the tattered shreds of my soul back together – and if it took weeks of reclusive, Howard Hughes-like behavior to get there, so be it.
I kept waiting for the moment when things would start to get better. It couldn’t go on like this forever, I reasoned; people every day, all over the world, got out of bed and faced their own heartbreaks. One day, they woke up, opened their eyes, and decided that the pain had lessoned – maybe not a lot, maybe not even enough to make a tangible difference in the devastation clinging t0 them like a dark cloud, but enough to give them hope. Hope that one day, in weeks or months or years or decades, the pain would dissipate to the point that it no longer pulsated like a physical wound, with every aching heartbeat a reminder of what had been lost.
Maybe, if Ilay in bed long enough, staring at the constellations he’d left behind on my ceiling, I’d finally feel better.
Or worse. It was a toss-up, really.
That first morning I’d woken up without him, as soon as I’d opened my eyes and caught sight of the ceiling I’d leapt out of bed and driven straight to the nearest Home Depot. I threw the first can of white paint my hands had landed on inside my cart, wheeled it to the counter, and purchased it without a second thought.
When I got home though, I sat on my bedroom floor staring at that can of whitewash for almost two hours unable to even crack the lid. With a frustrated scream, Ieventually just shoved the unopened paint into the back of my closet along with Finn’s leather jacket, where didn’t have to look at them anymore.
For the first day or so, I tried not to think about him at all. Then I realized how insanelyuseless and counterproductivethatwas, so I gave up and started acting like a girl – or, in other words, I began obsessing over everything he’d ever said or done in the months since we’d met.
I began to realize that, in many ways, Finn actually had tried to tell me – maybe not with words, but certainly with actions…
The night he took me out to look at the fireflies by his lookout point.
His strange song dedication when he sang at The Blue Note.
How he’d always, from the very start, called me ‘Bee.’
How protective he’d always been.
Even the way he’d phrased certain things…
There’s never been anyonereal for me except you.
It’s always been you.
You’re so different from what I expected.