Page 55 of Into the Mountains (Blue Grove Mountain #3)

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

CHARLOTTE

I have no idea what we are going to find when we get to the house. I don’t even know what I had planned to do with it, only that it was a future problem. And now I want to strangle my past self for her stupid decisions.

If I would have just dealt with it all then, I wouldn’t have to do this.

“I don’t want to do this,” I say out loud, voicing the one thought I know Eli doesn’t want to hear.

“I know you don’t.”

My head whips toward him, putting an ugly crick in my neck. “You do?”

“You’ve been overthinking since we got into the car. You’ve been wringing your hands together so much, I’m almost certain the skin on them is raw.”

Sure enough, when I look down at my hands, my skin is red and angry. “I’m just…” I search for the right word and come up short.

“Nervous?” he offers.

“Nervous? Not only that. I’m horrified at what state the house might be in? Guilty I let it sit for so long? Wondering what my parents would think if they knew I left.”

Before I can wreak more havoc on my hands, he reaches over the center and separates them, lacing his fingers in-between mine.

“It’s okay to be nervous. It’s also okay to be scared.

But what you’re not going to do is create fake scenarios in that head of yours to make you think your parents would be anything but proud of you. ”

That surprises me. He doesn’t wait for me to question him, he just continues.

“Do you think for a second they’d have been happy that you took care of everything in that house when you weren’t ready to do so?

To put yourself through even more pain when you just buried both of them?

I think they’d be insanely proud of their daughter for putting herself first and leaving it all behind for a little while.

For future you to deal with when you felt like you had time. ”

I sit in his words for a minute. Let the heat from them seep into my skin until it’s been so long, they’re lukewarm. “You don’t think it’s horrible I let the house sit there for fifteen years?”

“Were you ready to face it five years ago?”

“No,” I answer.

“Ten years ago?”

Again I answer no.

“What about last year? Were you ready to face it then?” I shake my head.

“Then, no,” he says. “I don’t think it’s horrible. I think it’s honorable. Honorable because you honored yourself in the way you felt. Took it seriously and decided you were going to come back one day even if it was fifteen years later and that’s okay.”

It’s then I start to cry. It starts as a single tear sliding down my cheek, cold and alone on its journey.

But soon it’s followed by others as sobs shudder through my body recreating its trail, joining it in the fabric of my jeans.

And all the pain from losing my parents so close together, one expected and one not, comes out in one fell swoop.

One painful swoop that feels like I’m being torn in two. Almost worse than the day I found Dad.

Almost.

“It’s going to be okay, honey,” he says softly, drawing circles on the back of my hand with his thumb. I focus on his gentle caresses and quiet voice as I allow myself to uncork the bottle I shoved down deep so long ago. It’s shattered into a million pieces now, and I feel everything.

The day we lost Mom flickers through my head, to her funeral, to a couple weeks later when I found Dad, cold and unmoving on the floor of the living room. Dead. Ironic he died there when it was a place we are supposed to live. We were supposed to live there longer.

Coroner said heart attack.

I said broken heart.

She didn’t look at me like I was making a ridiculous claim though. She just put her hand on my shoulder after taking off the glove that was just touching my dead father and said what everyone says when someone loses a loved one: “I’m sorry for your loss.”

No one knows what else to say when a person dies. They die, they bring food, they say sorry, because they feel helpless. They can’t change what happened. They can’t wish our grief away even though they try, even if people want nothing more than to be left alone.

Alone is something I wished I was for hours after the funeral. But everyone stayed near thinking I’d shatter if I was left alone when really, I was on the brink of it with all those people around.

“We’ll get there in about ten minutes, okay?”

Eli’s voice breaks me away from the past and I am grateful for it. I’ll be thinking about that enough this weekend. “Can we make one stop before the house?”

“Anything you need.”

I tell him where I want to go and he just smiles and makes the turn.

I almost tell him I changed my mind. To turn back and just go to the house, but I don’t.

I have no idea how we are going to be received when we walk through the doors, but I feel a tug in my chest that I have to stop there first and if I have learned anything over the years it’s to follow the tug when I feel it.

By the time we pull up to the coffee shop, the night air is crisp and the sounds of a full restaurant carry out onto the patio.

“Do you think she’s in there?” Eli asks.

“Probably.” And she’s more than likely going to yell at me.

I haven’t exactly kept up with her over the years.

We talked briefly after I left and our friendship went from daily FaceTime calls to weekly phone conversations until eventually we had a texting relationship only.

As time passed, texts became less frequent and when I stopped reaching out, she tried to reach out more than once and I think when she realized I wasn’t going to answer, she stopped trying.

The last time I saw Andy and her family in person was at my dad’s funeral.

I have no idea how they might feel about me now.

I practically threw our friendship in the trash after I moved away and left them behind with my past and everything else. It wasn’t fair to them.

When we get to the propped open front door, I can see Andy standing at the coffee bar speaking with what I assume is one of the employees.

She’s dressed in a flowy black skirt with nicer matching flats.

Her black tank hugs her curves and the pink ends of her blonde hair fall right below her shoulders.

She laughs and I panic and hide behind the other side of the door.

“What are you doing?” Eli asks.

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m hiding.”

“I can see that.”

He doesn’t say anything else, just looks down at me and allows me to hide for a moment in my space. I start wringing my hands together again, ignoring the already sensitive skin.

“I just…what if she hates me?”

He thinks on it for a moment. “She might. She might yell at you and let out years of anger or resentment she’s held toward you.”

Exactly my fear.

“But she also might not. She might hug you and tell you how much she loves you and how much she’s missed you, no hate involved.”

“You think?”

He pushes my hair back from my face and threads his fingers in between the strands.

“You are extremely missable, Charlie Monroe.” He moves closer and places a kiss on my forehead.

I close my eyes and lean into him, focusing on the warmth of his skin against mine and stay there until I feel ready enough to face part of my past.

Before I have a chance to go inside, though, a familiar voice fills our space and my eyes fly open.

“Charlotte?” Andy’s voice yells. Her head pops around the door, looking for me. When her eyes settle on mine, they go wide.

“I thought you were a mirage or something. I usually forget to drink water, so I figured I was just dehydrated and seeing things, but I wasn’t. Holy shit.” Andy’s eyes go to Eli. “You’re here too? Together? What the fuck.”

I try to listen for the anger I expect to hear in her voice, pick apart the years of resentment I’ve always assumed she would have toward me, but I just hear pure shock.

“It’s a really long story, Andy.”

“Well, we just gave the new hires the run-down of trivia night, which they begged us to let them run, so we have plenty of time.” Meredith comes through the door, practically glaring at us.

She wraps her arm around Andy’s waist. I try and fail to hide my shock when I see Meredith’s round belly almost peeking out from the bottom of her snug T-shirt.

Andy’s hand automatically gravitates to it as she leans into her wife and kisses her cheek.

“How are you feeling?”

“About the same two minutes ago when you last asked me that question.” Meredith’s voice sounds exasperated, but she says it with a smile on her face like she would be happy if Andy asked the question a million times over.

“I can’t help it. He could literally come any day now and I want to make sure you are taken care of too.”

“And you have, Andy. I promise.” She places a light kiss on her lips and turns fully to us. “Let’s go sit in the back room. We’ve made tons of improvements in the last decade and if I stand any longer, my feet are going to swell like the bread you made with too much yeast last week.”

Hand in hand, we follow Meredith and Andy, who stays no further than a few steps behind her wife, to the back room.

Where there used to be a small, cramped space with room only for a desk and a chair, there is now at least triple the size of what used to be.

A dusty pink couch is against one of the walls with a desk across from it and two armchairs nearby for more seating.

Meredith takes a spot on the couch propping her feet up.

Andy sits down and grabs Meredith’s feet to place them on her lap.

I take an armchair while Eli takes another and we all sit there in silence for a moment, each waiting for the other to start.

When no one does, I take a deep breath and try to calm my racing pulse.

“I should have said it out there, but congratulations to you both. You’re going to be amazing parents, really. When are you due?”