Present
The next morning, I woke to Noah standing over my bed with a plate of bacon. “Time to get up!”
“I don’t wanna,” I groaned, rolling over. I picked up my phone from the bedside table and saw that it was nearly nine—the latest I’d slept in all week.
Noah sat on the edge of my bed. “Come on. Your mom made those delicious pancakes that she swears are gluten-free but really aren’t.”
I stretched my arms above my head. I looked around the room and noticed it was empty. “Where’s Allie?”
He glanced away from me. “She’s down on the beach already.”
I slowly sat up. “Do you have a thing for Allie?”
Noah furrowed his eyebrows and forced out a nervous laugh. “A thing for Allie? What? No.” He laughed again, and I smirked. “Don’t give me that face.” He grabbed a pillow and threw it at my head. “Get up.”
As he walked out, I rubbed my forehead and took a deep breath. I got out of bed and put on my favorite purple bathing suit and a white sundress over it. I didn’t bother running a brush through my hair; I just pulled at some messy strands with my fingers and walked out onto the back deck, where Ethan, Ryder, and Noah were sitting. The sun was already high and beating down on bare shoulders and permanently red noses as I sat down in the chair next to Ryder’s.
“What’s the argument about today?” I motioned toward Ethan and Noah, who was shaking his head while Ethan rambled on.
Ryder grinned. “Ethan says Noah’s snoring has kept him up all night. Noah says it’s actually Ethan who’s snoring and waking himself up. They’ve fought about this our whole friendship, and the best part is, it’s always me who’s snoring.”
“They’ll never learn, huh?” I smiled as Ethan finally gave up and walked away.
At that same moment, Allie came up the walkway with a bag full of seashells. She took her sunglasses off and stared at us. “Is anyone going to do anything, or am I going to have to get everything ready?”
We looked at each other.
“No, we’ll help…but…”
“But what, Ryder?” Allie asked.
“Someone’s in trouble.” Ethan laughed and tossed a half-eaten croissant at Allie’s head.
“Really mature, Ethan. Now get up. We’ve got food to cook and decorations to hang.”
“Al,” Ryder cut in, “we are all obviously very excited about this, and it’s going to be so good to remember Bailey, but don’t you think…I don’t know. I’m going to sound like an asshole, but don’t you think that going this extravagant is a little much?”
He clenched his jaw as he waited for her response.
Allie smiled. “You guys think I’d go through all this just for you? God, no.” She pulled her phone out of the back pocket of her jean shorts. “You haven’t checked Facebook, have you?”
She held her phone out toward us. We all stood and crowded around it. The screen displayed a Facebook event page. The event listed today’s date, the address of The Highview, and RSVPs from nearly thirty people. The list comprised Englewood locals whom we had grown to know and love over our years here, plus friends from back home and Bailey’s family.
I looked up at Allie.
“Bailey deserves it,” Allie said. “If we’re going to say goodbye to the house, then we need to say goodbye to what it meant to be here with Bailey. And we need to do that big. Plus, I’m sick of you guys. I need new people to talk to.” She pocketed her phone and walked inside, leaving us all on the porch quietly staring at each other.
~*~
It shouldn’t have surprised me that so many people would be willing and ready to make the three-hour drive from our hometown to The Highview. Yet, hours later, I still found myself shocked by the guests who walked through the door. Girls who Bailey had sat next to in history, guys who had all come out of the woodwork after graduation to say they should’ve asked her out on a date in math class, her cousins, even her old drama teacher she had remained in contact with throughout her first semester at Florida State. The Highview, the beach, and the deck were all filled with people.
But when I saw the familiar Volkswagen park on the side of the road, which was already lined with cars overflowing from the packed driveway, I felt true sadness settle in. Mostly because I knew—and even accepted—that it would not be Bailey getting out of that car.
For Bailey’s seventeenth birthday (and a combination of a few Christmases and even graduation), her parents had gifted her a used Volkswagen. Within the first week of owning the car—her first car—Bailey had decorated the back window with bumper stickers, hung a pineapple-scented air freshener from the rearview mirror, and bought hot-pink floor mats. She had loved that car, despite the fact that it overheated at stop lights and the back driver’s side tire would go flat every other week.
I watched as the Volkswagen’s doors opened, and her mother and father got out. Bailey had always had a striking resemblance to her mother; they both had the same light-brown hair and eyes. However, Bailey had gotten her height from her father, who stood taller than six feet. He towered over her mother, and I watched as he gently reached for her hand, and they walked up to the house. I ran down the spiral staircase from where I had been on the top deck with Ethan and Allie and met them at the front gate.
“Hi,” I said. The nerves in my stomach were overwhelming.
“Hi, Morgan.” Sarah pulled me into a hug and held me there for a few moments as Joe gave my shoulder a pat.
“It’s so good to see you,” she said when she finally pulled back from the embrace. “And to see you healthy.” There were tears in her eyes as she stared at me and smiled, and I felt like my heart was being crushed. I had thought I’d never see Bailey’s smile again, but there it was, reflected in Sarah’s face as she smiled at me. My chest hurt.
“You too,” I said.
My mom must have also seen them pull in because, soon enough, she was standing next to us, talking with Sarah. I stayed standing there while they exchanged pleasantries until Sarah gave my mom a warm hug, and my mom hurried away to “attend to guests,” with a wink to me.
“Morgan, we wanted to give you something,” Sarah said.
She walked over to some chairs we had put out on the front porch. She sat down, and I sat next to her. She reached into her purse and pulled out a small box. Opening it, I found inside the charm bracelet I had given Bailey on her tenth birthday. For each subsequent birthday, I’d buy her a new charm. It was decorated with silver flip-flops, a dark blue B, and a seashell. There was also a music note from the year she had dedicated to teaching herself the violin, an etched book, and the one I had gotten her for graduation: an infinity sign.
I ran my fingers over the charms and looked at her parents. “For me?”
“It’s too small for my wrist,” Sarah joked and gave me a small smile. We sat side by side in silence for a few seconds. I slipped the bracelet on my wrist and ran my thumb over the charms.
“We miss her so much, Morgan,” Joe said.
“I do, too. I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault.” I avoided Sarah’s gaze as she tried to meet my eyes.
“Morgan, no one thinks that,” Sarah said. “Nothing about her death was your fault.”
“If I hadn’t been on that bridge, she never would have come after me. I overreacted and was so dramatic, and now everything is different, and Bailey’s dead. It wasn’t worth it. I got so mad for no reason.”
Sarah gave me a small, sad smile.
Joe looked down at me from where he stood. “We miss her too, Morgan, but at the end of it all, we got a wonderful eighteen years with her. The most wonderful girl in the world. Think of it that way, okay? Think of what you gained with Bailey, not about everything you feel like you’ve lost.”
Sarah smiled up at her husband. I suddenly thought of all the stories we’d heard about the early years of their relationship. Bailey would tell us fairy tales about how her parents had met in college while her father was studying English and her mother was studying education. After graduation, they had both accepted jobs on Florida’s Space Coast, where they settled down and lived a fairy-tale life. A fairy-tale life that led them to a beautiful little girl, but their fairy tale wasn’t over. Tragedy didn’t look like it would ruin their love.
“It’s just not fair,” I said.
“We’ve thought the same thing every day,” Joe started, “but you can’t stop living because of it.”
“We were mad, Morgan. But not at you. Never at you. And I promise, we aren’t just saying that,” Sarah said. “We believe it.”
I nodded. I needed to learn to believe that I wasn’t to blame. I knew it would take some time.
“Now, did your mom make her delicious deviled eggs?” Joe asked.
I laughed, feeling tears I hadn’t realized had formed roll down my cheeks as Sarah wrapped me in a hug.
~*~
As the afternoon progressed, I started to feel the exhaustion from the week sneaking up on me. I knew that this was worth it, though. I’d talked with Bailey’s parents and mingled with some of Bailey’s friends from drama club, but it was the vaguely familiar brunette who was walking towards me now that really caught my eye.
“You’re Morgan,” she said to me. She held her hands out to me as if wanting to hug me and seemed as shocked as if she was running into her favorite celebrity on the street.
“I am,” I said. I hoped my uncertainty wasn’t too obvious, but I truly had no clue who she was. But then I stared at her a second longer.
“You’re Marissa,” I added. Of course, she looked familiar. Bailey’s semester at Florida State University was filled with stories about and pictures of Marissa. Marissa smiled at me now, and we both hugged each other, lingering just a second too long. She was a part of Bailey I never really got a chance to know, and now, I wanted to absorb everything she could tell me.
“Allie found me on Instagram and messaged me,” Marissa started, “I live kind of nearby in Tampa, and I’m home for the summer, so, of course, I couldn’t miss this.”
She smiled again and looked around the back deck some more. We’d spread out blankets in the sand and lined the actual deck with chairs, coolers, and tables. The family that was staying in the house next door brought over some of their lawn furniture as well, so that overflowed into the sand.
“Bailey talked about this house all the time. And you, God, I think she thought you hung the moon,” Marissa said. She pushed a piece of her hair back and grinned.
“Really?” I asked, hopefully not sounding too desperate.
Marissa nodded, “She had so many pictures of you guys all up on her side of the dorm room. It made me feel like a weirdo because when I graduated high school, none of my friends and I kept in touch.”
I smiled. I swallowed.
“Come meet everyone else,” I offered.
Marissa smiled, “I did already, thank you. I was just waiting to talk to you. I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry about what happened.” She paused, “Bailey was really special. She made me feel special. I can only imagine how you must feel.”
“It sucks,” I said.
Marissa laughed, a beautiful, full laugh that seemed to spread through her whole body.
“Take care of yourself, okay? And good luck.”
I nodded, “You too. Thank you for coming by.”
She gave me another hug, and we stood like that for just a second. I wished Bailey could be here to see her worlds collide.
Regret filled me again as Marissa walked away, and I thought back to all the days during our first semester when I was sure Bailey had replaced me. Really, though, it was never about replacing someone. It was about having so much room in your heart that there was space for more than one person. Bailey was my best friend, but I never once gave her the space to explore life without me. When she found out that a life like that existed, she’d still chosen to stay with me. I’d just never seen it that way. I noticed now that the majority of the crowd was gone. The last few people were making their rounds and saying goodbye. I turned around and saw Ryder, Ethan, Allie, and Noah spread out on one of the blankets on the sand. Ryder held his hand up and waved me over. When I walked across the back deck, Ryder met me at the edge of it with a can of Diet Dr. Pepper.
I smiled, “Thanks.”
He placed his hand gently on my shoulder, a touch from him I hadn’t realized I’d been craving. I sat down in the space next to Allie. I put my head on her shoulder as she took a sip from her drink.
“I can’t believe so many people ended up coming,” I said.
“I can,” Ethan said.
“Did you see the pictures my dad hung up?” Noah asked.
He pointed toward a string of twinkle lights that illuminated hanging photographs. We all stood up and walked over to where they hung right along the entryway of the back of the house. It was like stepping into a time machine, back through our years at The Highview. From candid pictures taken on digital cameras to selfie-styled pictures taken on iPhones, it was a journey through the years we’d spent together. It was photographic proof that we had been there. Our footsteps in the sand would wash away, the doorframe where we had carved our initials would get painted over, and the locks would be changed. But we had been here. We had grown up here, fallen in love here, suffered loss here. We had lived here.
I stared at the pictures of tan lines and laugh lines. We had all been so happy together, and though we were painfully different now, we could be so happy together again. I exhaled a breath of relief and felt in my gut that we would be okay. It would take time, and maybe we would never fully heal, but we would be okay.
The last picture that caught my eye was one I’d never seen before. We were fifteen years old, maybe even fourteen. I was standing on a paddleboard in between Allie and Bailey. We were laughing and trying to balance. Bailey had her head thrown back, her hair dripping salt water down her back. Allie was gripping my arm for dear life, and in the middle of the chaos, I was frozen in time with a smile on my face. Looking closer, I could see Noah in the background, his hands on the paddleboard in an attempt to flip us off. Ryder and Ethan were on either side of the board, each offering a thumbs up. Ethan stared up at Bailey, and Ryder was using his other hand to grab at my leg.
I took the picture down and held it in my hand.
Ryder laughed. “Damn, I remember that day.”
Noah leaned over to stare at the picture. He took it from my hands and examined it, then held it up for Ethan to see.
“I can’t believe we’ve made it this whole week without someone flipping me off a paddleboard,” Allie said as she stood on her tiptoes to see over Ethan’s shoulder.
“We’ve still got time,” Noah said. Allie glared at him.
“Remember how pissed Bailey would get on the paddleboards?” Ryder asked.
“Yeah, cause her balance sucked,” I laughed.
Noah joined in, “But she was too determined to let anyone beat her in any sort of game or activity.”
“I secretly think she would get up early and practice while we were still sleeping. She woke up weirdly early all the time,” Ethan said.
I laughed at that, imagining Bailey lugging down the seven-foot-long paddleboard to the ocean just to prove a point. It was very feasible. I hung the picture back up and let my eyes wander over the row of photographs one more time.
“God, I miss her,” Ethan said quietly. Ryder placed his hand on Ethan’s shoulder.
“We’re going to be okay,” I said.
“What do you mean?” Allie asked.
I looked at everyone, “All of us. We’re going to be okay.”
“And if we’re not?” Ethan asked.
“Then we have each other,” Allie said.
“Allie,” Noah said, “you’re walking proof that good therapy can help even the coldest hearts.” Allie threw an empty sparkling water can at his head.
“What I mean is, I’d rather be not okay with you guys than perfectly fine with anyone else,” I said.
“Same,” Noah said.
Suddenly, it was clear: the goal of life wasn’t to always be okay; it was to be with people who understood when you weren’t and would still choose to stay.