Present
Me, 8:37 p.m.: Are you just going to pretend I don’t exist anymore, or what?
Allie sat next to me on the couch as we stared out at the rain pelting down against the porch railings. It had started raining shortly after the fireworks started, and the usual late afternoon storm had turned into something much more. Luckily, we were able to use the rain as an excuse to pack up. No one noticed when I stumbled back to my seat. Allie said nothing as I threw away a barely touched ice cream cone as we walked back up to the house. On-lookers for the fireworks show cleared out quickly as the storm picked up. I counted to five in my head, and with perfect timing, lightning cracked down the middle of the sky.
“It’ll probably stop by next summer,” Uncle Daniel said as he walked in from the back porch. He placed the plate of grilled hamburgers he was carrying on the counter and then grabbed a towel and wiped off the rain that had sprayed his face.
“I can’t believe you were grilling in the rain,” Allie said.
Uncle Daniel raised his eyebrows at Allie. “These burgers weren’t going to grill themselves.”
I stood and walked to the kitchen to help set up plates for everyone.
“Where are those knuckleheads?” Uncle Daniel asked. Reaching behind me, he grabbed the hamburger buns and tore open the package.
As if the wafting scent of the burgers had worked magic, voices filled the hallway, and Noah, Ethan, and Ryder walked straight into the kitchen and grabbed plates. Just as we were sitting down in the living room, lightning cracked again, sending a blast of light across the sky, followed instantly by thunder that shook the windows. The lights flickered, and within twenty seconds, the house was dark. Another crack of lightning illuminated the house momentarily, just long enough for all of us to find a place to set our plates. I tried to remember where the flashlights were and hoped they had batteries.
“It should come back on,” Uncle Daniel said. “It’s probably just a surge.” When he opened the sliding door, though, all the other houses on the street were dark as well.
We sat in darkness for three hours. In that time, we managed half a game of candlelight Monopoly before we all decided to throw in the towel, mostly because Allie was getting too competitive over the requirements for building a hotel. With the electricity showing no sign of coming back on and the storm showing no sign of mercy, we continued to sit in the darkness. The rain continued to pound against the back deck, and there was a distant sound of the wind whipping the ocean water around. Who knew what kind of wreckage we’d wake up to in the morning? The forecasts on our phones streamed that this storm could very well be the official start of an otherwise dormant hurricane season.
Eventually, Uncle Daniel headed for the bedroom hallway. “I think I’m ready to call it a night.” He paused and turned to face us. “Just because I sleep like the dead, that doesn’t give you guys an excuse to act stupid. Don’t you dare go out in that storm. Do you understand me?” We all nodded.
Outside, the sun had completely set, and the clouds covered the moon. Other than the weak flames of the candle and the spotlight cast by the flashlight Ethan had hung from the ceiling fan, we were surrounded by darkness.
“It’s getting hot in here.” Ethan stood up and made a feeble attempt to manually spin the ceiling fan. His efforts did absolutely nothing for any of us, and we all just laughed.
“Wow, what a breeze.” Ryder reclined back in the loveseat next to me. Ethan stopped and checked his watch. It was barely ten, but between the heat and just plain boredom, I could tell that everyone was ready to join Uncle Daniel in calling it a night.
Allie stood and untied the flashlight from the ceiling fan. “I’ll put this in the bathroom. I’m going to bed.”
“I’ll probably stay out here,” I said. “I’m not really tired.”
Mostly, I wasn’t ready to be alone with my thoughts as I stared up at the ceiling, hoping to fall asleep.
“Me either,” Ryder chimed in. Everyone stared at us.
“That’s going to be interesting.” Noah stood and followed Allie down the hall. He paused before he reached the boy’s bedroom and turned around. “Come on, Ethan.” Ethan stared at us and smirked before following behind Noah.
The candle flame flickered as the wick dwindled to the bottom of the wax. Soon, we’d be in complete darkness.
Ryder shifted in his seat, doing his best to look at me. “So…”
“So,” I echoed.
I stretched my back against the couch. Ryder kept his eyes on me, his expression too similar to looks he’d given me in the past. I shifted in my seat and looked away.
“I was really scared at the fireworks show,” I admitted.
Ryder shifted in his seat. “Why?”
I shook my head, “I don’t know yet. It was just loud. And I felt really alone.”
“You weren’t alone. We all were there. We would’ve kept you safe,” he said.
It didn’t feel like that, though. It felt as if I was standing in the middle of a storm, screaming for someone to help me. I hated that I felt that way. I wasn’t used to it.
“I’m sorry we had to break up.” The words tumbled suddenly out of my mouth as if I had spent the last six months trying to choke them back. Maybe I had.
“I am, too.”
“I wish you would get mad at me,” I said quietly.
He laughed. “Mad at you for how you feel? What good would that do, Morgan?”
A few days ago, I had wanted him to walk in through the front door and not even make eye contact with me. I’d wanted to overhear him tell stories to Ethan and Noah about different girls he’d gone on dates with or a cute blonde who’d sat next to him in Psychology. Maybe he would tell them the girls were usually boring and unfulfilling, but he was finally living a life free of me, so he didn’t care.
Instead, he sat perfectly still and told me it was fine and he wasn’t lying. He didn’t think I deserved his anger, much like I felt I didn’t deserve his love.
“It does suck, but I understand why it had to happen.” He shrugged. “You know, I used to think I could hold out for you. That the only thing that mattered was that we loved each other.”
I shifted in my seat. He gave me a sad smile, his lips pursed, and his eyes darted away from me.
“Being here, though, I know it’s over. I need to just move on.”
Just move on, like it was that easy. As though we could make it happen by just holding a flashlight to our relationship and revealing all the reasons why we should just move on. We couldn’t just do anything; it wasn’t that simple. In that moment, I knew the next girl Ryder loved would be the luckiest girl in the world, and I hated that it couldn’t be me.
But man, did I love him.
Ryder started again. “We were always easy, you know? Like rock paper scissors.”
“What happens if you win?” I asked.
“I don’t think it works like that anymore.”
My heart dropped into my stomach.
He smiled, a mix of yearning and regret plastered across his face. I looked away from him, unable to see the hazel in his eyes or the small dimple on his left cheek. I had Ryder memorized. It didn’t matter that it was dark or that we hadn’t been this close to each other in months. I could see Ryder’s face when I closed my eyes. Feel a phantom touch when he’d walk by me, purposely avoiding me. I missed him. I looked back over at him, and his eyes glazed over as he looked back at me. With a deep inhale, he leaned forward and he brushed his thumb against my cheek. And he pressed his lips against mine.
It was nothing like the kisses I used to get from Ryder. Usually, he kissed me with a gentle urgency. In the past, he would wrap his arms around my waist or hold the nape of my neck in his hands. Now, he was distant. It felt empty. He pulled away, still leaving a mere inch between our lips. The kiss had been everything we hadn’t been able to say over the last 173 days. It was our goodbye.
I remained on the couch as he stood up. He walked to the sliding glass door. There, he smoothed his curly hair back and turned to look at me.
“It’s really over, then, huh?”
“I just don’t know if anything is enough anymore,” I said. Our breakup had not come completely out of left field, but it had left unanswered questions, questions I was still struggling with myself.
Ryder didn’t say anything else, so I stood up and walked to him. “I still need to figure out what happened with Bailey.”
“What happened with Bailey? Morgan, what about what happened with us?”
Lightning struck outside and illuminated the inside of the house for a brief second—long enough for me to see the pain on Ryder’s face. Long enough for him to see the regret on mine.
“I loved you, Morgan.”
Thunder exploded in the distance, turning the silence and space between us deafening. Ryder recoiled from the strike of thunder, but I didn’t budge.
“What do you mean, what happened with us?” I asked, my voice soft. My brain was spinning as the words landed.
“My life got turned upside down, too. I think you forget that.” Ryder shook his head. “I miss Bailey too. But she’s gone, Morgan.”
What did he mean, Bailey was gone? If I could just get her on the phone, we could clear the air. What I needed were answers about what had happened with Bailey. I needed to be alone.
Outside, the rain was slowing, and though thunder and lightning seemed to be striking right overhead, my only option for being alone seemed to be going outside. I pulled away from Ryder and slid open the door.
“Morgan, where are you going? It’s raining.” Ryder’s voice was soft.
Ignoring his question, I stepped out on the deck. The sand that had collected there pooled at my feet, floating in the few inches of water that had accumulated. My toes pressed into the damp sand as I walked to the end of the deck. I couldn’t see beyond a foot in front of me, the darkness surrounding me thoroughly even though the storm seemed to be ending. I stared at the house. The inside of it illuminated as the power kicked back on. With the lights on, the house looked out of place in the darkness. I turned away from the house and faced the ocean, expecting to be startled by the darkness.
I stood in the middle of the sand, with the sound of waves fading in the distance as the tide slowed. There was a gentle lapping—in and out, in and out. Everyone always talked about the calm before the storm, but no one ever talked about the calm after. But maybe it was not a calmness; maybe it existed just because it had to. It had no choice but to be messy and weathered.
I took my cell phone from my back pocket, knowing what I had to do. I opened the phone icon and scrolled to Bailey’s name at the bottom of my recent call log. I tapped it.
I pressed the phone against my ear and listened to the echo of the wind in the earpiece. It rang—two times, three times, four times, five times—and then it stopped.
“The number you are trying to reach has been disconnected. Please hang up and try again.”
Redial. My hands shook as I pressed her name again.
It rang—two times, three times, four times, five times—and stopped.
“The number you are trying to reach has been disconnected. Please hang up and try again.”
“Come on, Bailey,” I said. My voice shook.
I needed to hear her voice. I needed to hear that we could work this out. I needed to hear that even though she had lied and I had overreacted and torn us all apart, we could go back to the calm before the storm. I didn’t want the mess anymore. I wanted the tangled legs squeezing into the bottom bunk because I was too scared to sleep on the top. I wanted the midnight giggles as she painted her toenails a different color for the third time that night. I wanted the feeling of undying love because we couldn’t imagine our lives without each other, even if there were some days that the most exciting thing we did was an early-morning drive-through trip to get iced coffee and donuts.
I wanted Bailey back.
“Please answer,” I said into the phone as it rang a fifth time.
“The number you are trying to reach has been disconnected. Please hang up and try again.”
Ryder ran up to me. “Morgan, who are you calling?”
I looked back at him as horror settled across his face. “I need to talk to Bailey.”
Ryder shook his head. “That’s not going to happen. You have to know that.”
“It has to; she has to answer,” I pleaded as if he could change the outcome. He walked up to me and gently tried to take the phone out of my hand.
I pulled my arm back. “Stop.”
He inhaled. “Morgan, please tell me this is all an act. Please tell me you know what is actually happening.”
My whole body shook now.
“Bailey is not going to answer, Morgan,” he added softly.
I dropped my head. Sobs ripped through my body. Ryder walked closer and placed both hands gently on my shoulders. I sank into him, feeling the familiarity of my cheek against his chest and his chin on top of my head. My body went limp.
“She has to answer,” I cried, my voice breaking and cracking.
“She’s not going to.”
I pulled away and glared at him. “You’re just jealous, Ryder. You’ve always been jealous of her.” I scrolled through my phone again. Ryder reached forward and grabbed it. “Give it back!” I yelled.
“She’s dead, Morgan. Jesus Christ, she’s dead. You were there. We all were. Please tell me you’ve been playing a game.”
We stared at each other through the rain. My heart raced, and my knees buckled underneath me. My chest tightened. Sweat pricked the nape of my neck.
“Where’s Allie?” I screamed. “Go get her.”
Ryder kept his voice calm. “Allie’s inside. She’s sleeping.”
“Well, wake her up,” I argued.
I pulled away again as Ryder reached for me. I walked to the door and barreled through the doorway to where Allie was sleeping. She was curled up on her bed, her breathing steady. Even when she slept, she looked perfect.
“You knew!” I accused, flipping on the light and waiting for her to stir. She did, rubbing her eyes, and stared at me. Then she sat up and glanced at the clock next to her bed.
“You knew Bailey wasn’t ever going to answer me,” I continued, “but you let me keep trying. You knew she was dead.”
Allie stared at me, her face paling as she got out of bed. In the hallway, I heard Uncle Daniel arrive, followed by Noah, Ethan, and Ryder.
“What happened?” Uncle Daniel asked Ryder. I didn’t hear Ryder’s response.
“Morgan, come sit down.” Noah placed his arm gently on my forearm, but I didn’t budge.
I stared at Allie. “Was this fun and games for you? Sitting back and watching me so desperately think…”
I stopped.
“Think what?” Allie challenged me. We stared at each other. “I don’t fucking believe this,” she whispered. She sat up fully. “This is my fault now? Because I didn’t tie you down and slap you back into reality?” She looked at Noah. “I told you this was a stupid idea. A dangerous idea.”
She turned to Uncle Daniel. “And why didn’t you stop this?” When he didn’t respond, she stood up and looked at me.
“I’ve been on your side, Morgan. You need a serious shaking back into reality, and a trip to this stupid house isn’t going to do it. I hate this place. I never wanted to come back here again, yet you all dragged me here with your stupid agenda and this stupid complex that you’d be able to change things—”
She stopped, took a deep breath, and shook her head. “Unless you can take us back to January, nothing is ever going to be the same.”
Suddenly, I was back there. Back to this room, New Year’s Eve, staring at Bailey in her black jumper, jealous of the natural waves in her hair, butterflies in my stomach from seeing Ryder again, champagne coursing through my veins, all while Noah and Ethan laughed obnoxiously outside the window.
You’re a liar.