Page 42 of Into the Mountains (Blue Grove Mountain #3)
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHARLOTTE
E lias finishes the story of the tragic last date that destroyed us and the camp is silent.
“So, what happened?” Sky says hesitantly like she’s afraid to even ask the question. I take a deep inhale, because it’s my turn to finally talk about everything that happened after that.
“She had a heart attack. They had found out she had some kind of heart condition, Atherosclerosis. It can cause heart attacks, strokes, a lot of different things.” I pause for a moment, thinking of the day my parents finally told me everything.
Hurt and confused, I lashed out at them and left.
I just remember feeling the dire need to get away.
To be anywhere but there. The feeling of betrayal ran so deep, it was difficult to be in the same room as them.
“It’s what caused her dementia and it’s why it rapidly progressed.
The doctors said it was rare for dementia to take hold as quickly as it did with her.
But it happened. And a few weeks later, she was gone.
” A tear slips down my cheek. I’ve never fully talked about this before.
To anyone. I dug a hole, tossed all the pain and heartbreak down into it and buried it as deep into my soul as I could.
“I’m so sorry, Charlotte. I had no idea,” Avery says.
“How could you? It’s not like I’m an open book about that stuff.
” I shrug. “Anyway, after she passed, Dad was heartbroken. We both were, but she was the love of his life and a few weeks after she died, he had a massive heart attack. I came home one night and found him on the living room floor. Dead. Poetic, they both had heart attacks in the end,” I try to say it with a lighter air, but it comes out flat.
“Shit, I can’t imagine that,” Jacob says softly.
I never understood that phrase. Can’t imagine.
Because I can imagine just about anything.
I could imagine all of us running through the woods, jumping off a cliff and flying with pixie dust if I wanted to.
Truth is, people can imagine, they just don’t want to.
A warm hand grabs mine and I look over to see Elias, his head turned toward me with tears in his eyes. “I’m really sorry I wasn’t there for you.”
“I didn’t let you.”
He smiles sadly and squeezes my hand. We all sit in silence for a few moments before Hudson speaks up for the first time. “So, if you left after they died and eventually worked for the paper with Avery, does that mean the house—”
“Still there. Still mine. I actually still have their ashes too. Two urns still sitting on a shelf at the house. I just…left them there.”
“You never spread them anywhere?”
“No.” I bottled them up just as I did with the pain that spread through me like spilled ink seeping through a page.
“You should,” Hudson says. “Spread them, I mean.” He straightens like part of him is uncomfortable sharing, but the look on his face says he’s more determined than anything to help.
“It took me a long time to come to terms with Sarah’s death.
And it wasn’t until I visited her and really acknowledged that she was gone that I was able to heal.
I’ll never be fully healed, but it’s a start. ”
Would anyone ever be fully healed? “I don’t even know where I’d spread them.”
“Is there a place back home?” Elias asks.
“Even if there was, I haven’t been back since I left.
I’ve never visited or anything. The house could have been burned down for all I know.
Or it could be infested with rats or mold or something.
” The truth of the matter is I’ve thought about going back to close down the house and sell it.
But the mere thought of going back there was too much.
“You should go back,” Hudson’s quiet voice carries over the crackling of the fire. “You won’t get the closure you need by avoiding it.”
“Spoken from experience,” Sky adds. “He’s right.”
“Hold on,” Hudson reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his phone. After tapping the screen a few times, he says, “Say that again and move closer to the phone so I can get it clearly.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“An idiot who you just said was right.”
“I regret that.”
We all laugh at the two of them, the air feeling a bit lighter than it did a few moments before.
Elias’s hand is still in mine and for once, I don’t feel the urge to let it go in our present company.
So much has happened between the two of us.
Now and then. Maybe it’s time to grab a shovel and dig up everything I shoved down and face it.
At least maybe this time I won’t be facing it alone. Could I face it at all?
The guilt of not visiting my town after so many years has kept me away. Not visiting Andy or Meredith. I disappeared and I was a shitty friend. Elias isn’t the only one who is looking for some kind of redemption from that summer.
“What about your house, Eli?”
“Yeah, Eli,” Sky starts with emphasis on the nickname. “Wait, what house do you have besides the one you just bought from Jacob?”
“None,” he says looking down at his free hand, picking at the nonexistent lint there. A distraction I know all too well.
“What happened to the one you grew up in?” I ask.
He lets out a soft grunt. “You mean the pit of hell I basically raised myself in?”
No one answers. We allow him his space to gain his composer to answer our questions.
“I sold it a long time ago. Dad died a few years after I left. Cancer.” He takes a deep breath and lets it out in a shaky exhale.
It must be weird. Losing a person you loathe and another person you love so much to the same disease.
The feeling of relief and sorrow tangled together in a complicated web.
His web and mine are looking very similar at the moment and I wonder if us being together would finally untangle them or if it would turn into one huge knot impossible to be undone.
“Turns out, he left me the house. Since Mom is in jail, she didn’t have much of a say in the matter.
When I went back there with Sarah my junior year in college, she helped me clean it up and get it ready to sell.
Of course, my dad couldn’t have left it in a shittier state.
It took days to clean it. His last piece of revenge against me.
One more mess for me to clean up after him. And I haven’t been back since.”
He uncrosses and crosses his legs, struggling to sit still.
“Are you okay?” Hudson asks. Where there would normally be pity in a look after a sad story like that, behind his eyes is nothing but pure love and worry for his brother.
That’s what Elias is to them. Not an in-law.
Not even their sister’s husband anymore.
He’s their family and knowing where he comes from, it makes sense that he changed his name to Waters after they got married.
I’d jump at the chance if I were him too.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I just don’t talk about them a lot.” I put slight pressure on his hand to let him know that I understand; that revisiting the past isn’t something that is easy to do, especially if there’s a few monsters hiding in the closet waiting to scare you.
Without another word, he stands up and points to his tent. “I think I’m going to call it a night. I’m ready to go to sleep so I can see Ethan tomorrow.”
Tomorrow.
We all go back to Blue Grove. Back to a reality that rips us from our little bubble here. It wasn’t going to last long, we both knew that, but part of me enjoyed it all a little too much.
I think this team bonding trip worked out better than we all thought it would. Just in a different direction than I ever saw it going. The other couples excuse themselves and shuffle into their own tents, leaving me alone by the fire.
The fabric from the chair shifts along the back of my head as I lay back and close my eyes for a brief second. I try to focus on the night sounds around me, the water from the river, crickets and frogs singing their nightly lullaby, footsteps coming closer.
My eyes bolt open and I turn my head toward the direction of the sound. Elias is standing a few feet away with his hands held up in front of him. “Don’t shove me in the river again.”
“It’s not close enough, but you’re lucky you stayed over there.”
“And why’s that?”
“Because I could have easily shoved you into the fire.”
He places his hand on his heart like I’ve physically wounded him. “You’d actually push me onto the fire? And leave Ethan an orphan?” I smile at his dark humor and sarcasm. It’s welcome after the heavy conversation from a bit ago.
“I didn’t say I’d let you burn to death.”
“Oh just second degree burns then, got it.” He chuckles and then his gaze softens. Our eyes meet and I don’t want to see the emotion behind his eyes. I saw the same look when he told me he loved me. Before I left him and our relationship to rot in the past.