Page 81 of On the Way to You

Or walk out of her life like a ghost.

Which is better — to tell her the truth, or forever let her wonder?

That is what plagues me tonight.

My stomach dropped as I finished the entry, fingers already flying back through the pages to find something more. I’d gone in with the intention of feeling connected to him, of finding reassurance until Emery came back to me. But all I’d found was a new source of anxiety, a new reason to question everything.

What was he hiding?

Could he really just leave me, just…ghostme, as he’d put it? What was his plan, to tell me he would be back, only to leave me without the intention of ever seeing me again?

Thoughts tumbled over themselves in my mind as I flipped, back and back, looking for something, though I didn’t know what. When I flipped past a worn page, one that was dogeared in the right-hand corner just enough to look out of place, I paused. I think I knew right then, in that moment, on that bed as the snow fell quietly outside that I was about to find answers to questions I never meant to ask, answers never meant to be found.

I flipped back to the marked page, eyes glancing at the date before focusing in on the first sentence.

Grams died today.

A shiver sped down my spine, from neck to lower back, the snow suddenly seeming like it was falling inside of me instead of outside the window. There were dried tear stains on the pages, blurring some of the ink. He’d cried when he’d written it, or perhaps when he’d read it, or maybe even both.

I couldn’t imagine Emery crying at all.

I steeled a breath, blinking my eyes a few times before I continued reading.

Grams died today.

I wrote that sentence three hours ago and then I walked away, because writing it makes it real, and of all the things I wish weren’t true, that sentence is at the top of the list.

It’s like a knife has been jabbed into my throat, the blade rusty and dull, and now I have to somehow learn to breathe with it there. I can’t remove it, can’t shove it in farther to finish the job — I just have to exist with an infected wound, with a clogged airway and a constant reminder of the loss of what was.

She’s gone. She’s never coming back. And I’m still here.

Mom and Dad know I’m not okay. They didn’t even want me to go in to see her at the end of it all, when she was literally on the welcome mat of Death’s door, but I pushed past them and forced my way in. I had to see her one more time, had to hold her hand while she crossed over.

She didn’t even look like Grams on that hospital bed, her body frail and weak, all the machines hooked into her. Her organs were failing her, one by one, for no other reason than that she was tired. Life had been long and she was tired.

Grams asked me for something.

She told me she understood how I felt, which I already knew. She was the only one who ever understood my depression, who ever empathized because she, too, battled with it. She’d been my war buddy, the one I could swap stories with to feel a little less alone. But on that bed, with her hand in mine, she asked me to take a trip.

She wants me to get in my car and take a road trip across the country. She mentioned a few spots she wants me to hit, one of them being an old diner in Mobile, Alabama, where she and Gramps stopped once. She said he ordered the steak and eggs, and being there with him was one of those moments when she loved being alive, when she looked at him and felt it in soul, in her heart, that she was meant to be there with him. Another stop she wants me to make is at a healing institute in California, and there are a few other miscellaneous spots along the way.

She begged me to make that drive, to see the country.

She said if I travel across the United States and don’t find a single thing that reaffirms my love for life, if I spend that time alone and find I’m still a victim to the dark thoughts in my head, that she will understand if I choose to no longer bear them.

There’s a place she loved in Washington, a place of wonder. She said if I make it there and I still feel the same, that I can end it all. I can find my peace and join her on the other side.

But only she believes that last part.

I know there’s no heaven waiting for me, no hell, either. There’s just life and the nothingness that exists after we’re done here. She wants me to give life one last chance, one last shot to dig its nails into me and latch on, giving me a reason to stay. And I know her, I know she thinks I’ll find something. She doesn’t think there’s even a slight chance I’ll actually make it all the way there without changing my mind, otherwise she wouldn’t have suggested it at all.

So, tonight, I’ll load up the car. And in the morning, I’ll go.

But I know the truth.

I know I won’t find anything on this trip.

But it was her dying wish, so I’ll go. I’ll drive and I’ll stop at all the places she wants me to. I’ll keep my eyes and mind open, and at the end of it all, I’ll finally find peace. I’ll finally let go.