We’ve chosen a caterer and menu by the time Blossom returns. My jaw drops when she rambles off a list of names to Mr. Branch, who writes them in his notes. It’s not that I doubted she’d get enough able bodies, but I don’t understand why they’d agree. When it comes to the Mayson family… I’m an acquaintance, at best. Gareth agreeing to help makes sense since we work together, but the rest…
“They’re good people,” Blossom tells me, reading my expression.
With everything decided, we make plans to drop off the clothes we chose for Hope and say our goodbyes as Mr. Branch walks us to the door.
Outside, I take a deep breath, letting the warmth of the air seep into me. Until this moment, I didn’t realize how suffocating it was inside the funeral home.
“Thank fuck that’s done,” Riley says, taking the words right out of my mouth.
Blossom chuckles. “It’s never pleasant, but you two handled it well.”
Without hesitation, I throw my arms around her, giving her the biggest hug. “Thank you for everything,” I tell her. “I had no idea you were going to show up, but I’m grateful you did. I’m not sure I would have made it through that without you.”
“You would have been fine,” she says, rubbing circles on my back. She pulls away, holding me at arm’s length. “You’re resilient, Lexi. You can handle so much more than you give yourself credit for, but I’m happy to help any time.”
I manage a wobbly smile, and she pulls me into another hug. “You’ve got people who care about you, honey. You just gotta learn to let us.”
“I know,” I whisper.
“All right,” she says, releasing me again. “I’m gonna get going so I can open the shop, but I expect a phone call if you need anything.”
“I will,” I promise.
Blossom gives Riley a tight hug and heads to her car.
Riley and I stand there in an uncomfortable silence, watching as Blossom pulls out of the lot. She looks at me and jerks her head toward her car. “Let’s get the hell outta here.”
“Don’t have to tell me twice.”
We get in and get on the road, but Riley doesn’t drive in the direction I expect.
“Where are you going?”
“To the nearest bar,” she says, glancing over at me. “I don’t know about you, but I need a fucking drink after that. We can call Jake to pick us up in a bit.”
“Penny’s gonna kill us,” I tell her, but it’s a weak protest.
A drink sounds like an amazing idea, even if it’s in the middle of the day. Fuck what anyone else thinks is acceptable. We just survived planning our sister’s funeral.
Ten minutes later, we’re perched at a bar, toasting glasses of whiskey to the life of the sister we’ve lost. We’re quiet after that, both lost in our own thoughts. When our second round comes, Riley takes a drink and places her glass back on the bar.
“It still doesn’t feel quite real,” she murmurs, running her finger around the rim of the glass.
“I know.” I take a drink of my own, relishing the burn as the liquid cascades down my throat. “My conflicted emotions don’t help.”
“You can say that again.”
“I wish I could erase the guilt I feel,” I admit. “Especially when sometimes I wish I could bring her back, so I can kill her myself.”
“Fuck,” Riley says, blowing out a heavy breath. “I’m glad I’m not the only one.”
“I don’t know what the fuck that says about me, but I’ve thought it more than once.”
“It says you’re human, Lex. We both are.”
“I think… it would be easier if we could rationalize it, but we can’t. It doesn’t make any fucking sense and it never will. We have to live the rest of our lives wondering why Hope risked everything.”
“She was messed up for a long time. You know that as well as I do.”
“But were we blind to it?” I ask, downing the rest of the whiskey in my glass. “I mean, we knew she was struggling after the truth about Mercy came out, but I never thought she was using again.”
“That could have been the first time,” Riley muses, but she doesn’t believe it any more than I do. I can’t say for sure when Hope decided to turn to drugs again, but the day of the accident wasn’t the first time. Somehow, we didn’t see what was happening right in front of us.
I sigh, waving the bartender off when she asks if we want another round.
“I wish I could let go of the anger,” I admit. “I hate that it’s overshadowing the grief.”
“I know what you mean. The guilt and the anger are the heaviest to carry, but I feel them too.”
We’re all struggling with our emotions, even Penny.
As much as Hope might have pissed us off—especially in recent weeks—she was our sister and now she’s gone. Mercy lost her biological mother and any chance she might have had to have a real relationship with her. Our little family, as dysfunctional as it may be, is forever changed. Nothing will ever be the same now that Hope is no longer with us.
A dark thought flits around inside my mind.
Maybe we’re all better off.
It seems heartless, and I hate the part of me that could think something like that, but I can’t deny the validity of the thought.
Hope was distancing herself from us, even before Jake showed up in town. Her refusal to get help for her problems was slowly dragging all of us down. It’s easy to look back now and see how toxic the environment at home has become. It wasn’t good for any of us, especially not Mercy.
We tried to do right by her and keep her mother in her life.
Now that we know the truth, I’m not sure it was the best choice. We did the best we could with the information that we had at the time, but if I’m honest with myself, it was never healthy to have Hope around her. We wanted to give Hope a chance to come around, not realizing that it may have done more harm than good.
Hindsight is such a bitch.
Changing the past isn’t possible, no matter how much we regret certain choices that were made. All we can do now is move forward. We all have to learn to live with the loss of someone who meant the world to us for a huge chunk of our lives. For our own sake, we have to look beyond Hope’s final weeks and remember the girl we used to know.
“Jake’s on his way,” Riley tells me, pulling me from my thoughts.
She leans forward, tucking a generous tip on the other side of the bar. Noticing, the bartender nods her head, winking at Riley.
If it were any other time, Riley wouldn’t walk out of here without the bartender’s number in her phone, but she doesn’t have it in her today. She doesn’t even give the pretty girl a second glance. Riley throws her arm over my shoulder and walks with me out of the bar.
When Jake pulls up out front, I finally find a little slice of happiness.
The future looks a little brighter when he’s around.
But before we look to the future, we have to lay the past to rest.