Page 30 of When We Had Forever
A jolt shoots through me. As if I’m watching from outside my body, a detached part of my mind turns that logic over. At what point did I become this someone else, this person who goes running instead of letting herself feel?
The moment stretches. Something hot and red writhes in my guts. I’m angry, I realize. At myself. At Michael. But most of all, I’m livid that he died. I want to punch life in its stupid, smarmy face, because for all that Kate’s mostly right, she’s gotten one thing wrong. The man I loved was still in there. I could’ve coaxed him back to me, if only I’d had more time. I would have broken through Michael’s shell, jammed my fingers into the socket of the out-of-control power surge that first drew us together, and refused to let go. We would have lived our lives electrified, fighting for breath and grateful for every second.
But now we can’t. That chance is gone, leaving me with nothing except a grayscale existence in which I haunt this perfect house day after day, chained by a grief that refuses to die.
I guess I’m that land mine after all, because I cry. Just normal tears at first, then great, wrenching sobs that scald my lungs.
Kate folds me in a hug. She smells like sour milk and expensive perfume, and I hold on for dear life.
When my shudders finally subside, she pulls back, her fingers combing through my unbrushed hair. “The thing is, Mina, you can do this. You’ve done it before, remember? Back when Margo died... Well, shit. You handled that so much better than I did.”
I sniffle. I’ve never told her about how I found solace in the woods that summer. Kate, practical to a fault, would only side-eye my attempts to explain. Even Michael, who once revered the forest, outgrew his love of nature years ago.
I don’t know a single person who would understand.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Kate continues, “but maybe you need a vacation. Throw a dart at a map, even. Who cares. Just...get out of this awful house.”
I peer around at my glass-and-steel castle. “You love this house.”
She waggles her hand in a kinda-sorta gesture. “Loved.Past tense. And only because Michael was in it. It made sense on him, you know? But seeing you here alone, it just seems...sad, somehow. Sterile.”
I look again, struck by the realization that nothing in here belongs to me. Michael was the one who chose the white lacquered cabinets, the modular sofa, the sleek steel-wire chandelier. Not a single item reflects my tastes. It’s almost like I’m an absentee in my own home.
“You could start over,” Kate says.
A prickly ball lodges in my throat. “What? Like, just forget Michael existed?”
“I’m not sayingforget. I’m saying move forward. Live your life while you still have one.”
I recoil at hearing my husband’s long-ago ideas coming out of Kate’s mouth. Kate, who’s never done anything other than exactly what she was supposed to and now has everything I don’t.
“Maybe you should start dating again,” she says gently.
I cringe. “That’s over with.”
“It might be good for you.”
“Are you nuts? No. I mean, look at my mom. She never got over what happened to my brother. And it’s been almost forty years. This is the same thing, Kate. If I eventriedto fall in love again...” I shudder. “Just no. It would be like a joke, compared to the first time.”
“Then don’t compare it to the first time.”
I level her with a look. “That part of my life is over. And please don’t bring it up again.”
“Okay, fine.” She deflates. “There probably aren’t any guys out there who’re into bags of bones with nineties troll-doll hair, anyway.”
I flip her the bird.
She nudges the cheesecake. “Just promise me you’ll eat something, at least, okay?”
I eye it for a long time. “Later,” I finally say.
She sighs. “Liar.”
“Really. I will.”
“Okay. I’ll hold my breath. Walk me out?”
In the driveway, I wrap her in a desperate hug. Just minutes ago, I wished for her to leave, but now I want to clutch at her leg and beg her to stay.
