The Way Back Read online

  The house he stayed in.

  The house we…

  Phew. That little guest house.

  3

  “Okay, tree first, or games first?” Dad asks, pulling a few boxes from the big built-in bookshelves next to the fireplace.

  “Games, games!” Bella says, running toward him and jumping on his lap. In the corner of my eye, I see Liam standing at the back of the room. He looks uncomfortable, and I see him clutching his scarf in his hand.

  “Liam, where do you think you’re going?” Mom asks, and a small smile tugs at his lips.

  “I was just gonna go check into the motel and let you get back to your night,” he says with a shrug.

  Mom shoots him the are-you-kidding-me look, and he smiles again. That weird zap hits me right in the gut.

  “I was going to go back to Piedmont early tomorrow morning. They are doing a tree decorating, and I wanted to be there with Mom.”

  Mom nods slowly.

  “Okay, honey. Do you have plans tomorrow evening?”

  “No, Mom’s usually pretty medicated at night, so…”

  “So you’ll come back for Christmas Eve dinner then?” Mom asks.

  I shoot her a look, but she totally ignores me.

  Liam looks from her, to Dad, to me.

  “You sure? I don’t want to interrupt all the Wellsworth traditions.”

  “Psh,” Mom scoffs. “How many Wellsworth Christmases were you a part of back in the day?”

  Liam’s eyes meet mine again.

  “Quite a few.”

  “Well, then, it’s time for another!”

  He smiles and nods.

  “Thank you,” he says. Just then, I feel his big ol’ blues on me again.

  “Hey, uh, Fi?”

  My heart thuds hard against my chest at the sound of my name leaving his lips again. I look up to him, and I can feel everyone around us freeze.

  “Yes?”

  “Can I...can I talk to you for a minute?” he asks nervously. I swallow and try to ignore the Wellsworth eyes that are boring holes into my body. I clear my throat.

  “Uh, yeah, sure,” I say, standing up from my spot on the floor and following him to the door. I snag my scarf off the coat rack and follow him out to the porch.

  I look in the driveway and notice there’s no car.

  “How did you get here?” I ask.

  “I rode with Barrett from the Save ‘n’ Shop,” he says.

  I nod.

  “Do you want a ride?” I ask. He shakes his head.

  “Nah, thanks. A little Blue River air never hurt anybody,” he says with a smile.

  “So, what’s up?” I ask, trying to keep it as casual as possible, even though I know that, between the two of us, nothing will ever be casual.

  “Are you okay with me coming back tomorrow?” he asks. I swallow and wrap my arms around myself.

  “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?” I ask. I can’t let him know how much he destroyed me. Not because of my pride, but because I know it would hurt him just as much. And after all this time, and after everything we’ve both been through, I don’t want to hurt him any more.

  “I just didn’t want it to be weird. I know it’s the first Christmas since Graham—”

  “It’s fine, Liam. Really. It’s good to see you,” I say. Keepin’ it casual. He lifts his big blue eyes to mine and takes a step toward me. He reaches his hand out then takes mine in his. He squeezes it, staring at our hands together.

  “You have no idea how good it is to see you,” he says, and I almost don’t believe the words coming out of his mouth. I try to swallow, but my mouth is dry.

  He looks back up at me one more time then walks down the porch steps. I smile back then wave as he walks away. I go back inside, trying to keep it casual.

  For the record, I suck at keeping it casual.

  I feel their eyes on my back as I hang my scarf back up.

  I sit down in silence, looking around like it’s the most normal night of my life.

  I wait a beat.

  Finally, Mom speaks.

  “Well? What was that about?” she asks. I roll my eyes.

  “He just wanted to make sure it wasn’t going to be weird for me tomorrow,” I say. We don’t really lie to each other in this house—except for when people ask if we’re okay, and we say yes.

  “And?” Emmaline asks.

  “I told him no. Why would it be weird?”

  I sink back on my butt and grab a cookie off a tray on the coffee table in front of me.

  “Maybe because you loved him for years?” Donovan asks. I shoot him a look and shrug.

  “That was then. We’re all grown-ups now,” I say.

  That answer seems to suffice, aside from the “mhmm” face that Emmaline is giving me from across the room. I squint my eyes and stick my tongue out at her playfully, and she returns the gesture. She and I are two years apart, but we competed a lot growing up. For a while, there was bad blood between us. But since then, we’ve muddled through, and no matter what, I think we both know that we’d take a bullet for the other in a heartbeat. Her husband, Todd, sits behind her in a chair, scrolling through his phone. Mom said they’ve started to try for kids.

  Bella helps us split into teams for charades.

  Audrey guesses Chloe’s Gone With the Wind card almost immediately, while Dad takes virtually forever to guess Bella’s Taylor Swift impression. There’s laughter and name-calling when the scores grow uneven. There’s pointing fingers and telling stories.

  But there’s no Graham.

  “Okay, I think that’s good on the game front,” Mom says, laughing through her tears at my father’s Keith Richards imitation. “Shall we do the tree?”

  With that question, the room grows silent. Everything feels heavy, like a load of snow weighing down a branch.

  Everyone nods and murmurs their “okays,” and Donovan pushes the huge box of ornaments from the back of the room toward the tree. Barrett starts unwinding strings of lights while Dad pulls out the ladder.

  Mom and Audrey are straightening out the ribbon, while Chloe pulls out the tinsel. Emma turns on the speaker at the back of the room, and Nat King Cole is warming up the house with his voice. Bella pulls the star from the box, and I can’t do it. I stand slowly, and walk to the back of the room. When I feel like no one will notice, I slip out of the back doorway and into the kitchen. I open the back kitchen door, letting the air nip at my face. I wrap my arms around my body and walk down off the porch.

  I walk down the long driveway and turn onto Beaker Street. Streetlights light up every few yards of the quiet street, their glow trapped in small bubbles by the falling snow.

  My fingers are already numb, but there’s nothing that compares to the burning hole in my chest right now.

  Every year, for our whole lives, Graham and I were the last ones to add the final touches to the tree and set up the Christmas village all around the house.

  Everyone else went to bed, and Graham and I stayed up. We fixed the tinsel so it was spread evenly throughout the tree. We hid the gawdy, homemade ornaments at the back of the tree and moved all the crystal and porcelain ones to the front. He held the ladder while I put the star at the top. Then, we’d set up the Christmas village, made of tiny houses and churches and shops and people, all around the inside of the house. Every year, he got me a new addition to the village.

  And then, when it was all finished, we’d lie down on the floor just beneath the tree, staring up at the work we’d done. When we were kids, we’d talk about the gift we hoped would be under the tree the next day. When we were older, we’d talk about the nights we’d spent as kids here.

  This year, I’ll be lying alone under the tree, wishing he was there.

  I feel my chest tightening, and I don’t know if it’s because of Graham or because of the cold. I can’t go back to the house like this. I need to get myself together. I’m not the only one who lost him.

  I duck my head into my coat a bit, hiding my face from the wind as my tears freeze on my face. I walk down the sidewalk, past a few of the shops, and turn into Elbert Park. In the winter, there’s ice skating here, but there’s no one here right now—being Christmas and all. I make a beeline to my favorite reading bench when I hear him say my name.

  “Fi?” he asks. I gasp, wiping the tears from my cheeks.

  “Oh, Liam. What are you doing here?” I ask. He’s sitting on the bench, all alone in the snow. He pulls out a bouquet of flowers from a plastic bag on his arm.

  “I stopped back at the store to get Mom these,” he says, “and then went for a little walk. It’s quiet out tonight. A good night for a walk.” I nod. “What are you doing out here?”

  I sniff and wipe my nose on my sleeve, drawing in a deep breath without making it look labored.

  “I just, ah, I just need a minute,” I say. He nods.

  “Me, too. Do you want to take a minute with me? Do you want to sit down?”

  I look at him then look down at the bench.

  Half of my heart is screaming, “No!” knowing that this will only end in my heart splintering off into even finer pieces.

  But the other half is telling me that this might be the only comfort I get tonight. I slowly sit down.

  “You cold?” he asks after a few minutes, and I realize my teeth are chattering. Jeesh. I’ve only been out of New England for a year, and my skin has already thinned. Before I can answer, he’s shimmying his thick jacket off and draping it over my shoulders.

  His scent hits me like a ton of bricks and makes me a little woozy.

  There was that one night, in the guest house…

  We sit in silence for a few minutes, just us, the wind, and the falling flakes. There’s not a car on the road, not a soul on the sidewalks. br />
  “I’m sorry, Fi,” he finally says, gazing straight ahead of him. I sniff again.

  “For what?”

  “Everything.” His eyes drop to his hands folded between his knees. “For how it ended with us.” My heart is pounding in my chest. Then, he chuckles. “Well, actually, I guess I’m sorry that it never got started.”

  I can’t breathe. I feel him turn to me. He slides his hand over top of mine on the cold wood beneath us.

  “And I’m so, so sorry about Graham,” he whispers. I can’t hold back anymore, and before I realize it, I’m sobbing.

  He scoots closer to me on the bench, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me into his chest. I breathe him in as I press my face into him, and though I feel hollow, I haven’t felt this protected, this taken care of, since Graham died.

  And suddenly, that terrifies me.

  Damn you, Liam.

  After another moment, I push myself off of him, wiping the tears from my eyes and drawing in a deep breath.

  “I should get back,” I say. “They will be wondering where I went.”

  He stands as I do. I pull the jacket off of my shoulders and hand it to him, but he shakes his head.

  “Keep it for the walk back. I’ll grab it tomorrow,” he says. “Do you want me to walk with you?”

  I shake my head, but I see him cock his head. We both know he’s not going to let me walk back alone at night in the middle of a snowstorm.

  We walk in silence back down Main Street, but the silence feels good. Just listening to the flakes and the wind cascading down.

  “They were decorating when I left,” I finally say, pushing my frozen hands further into my coat pockets.

  “That was sorta Graham’s thing, right?” he asks. I nod. I can’t believe he remembers.

  “Graham’s and mine.” I hear him chuckle.

  “I remember that one year I was living in the guest house. It was Christmas Eve, and there’s this banging on my door just before dinner time. It was Graham, looking all frantic. He told me I needed to grab my keys and go with him. Turns out, he forgot to get you one of those little houses that he’d always gotten you since you two were kids. Made me drive him all the way across town to Corner Gifts to grab you one.”

  My heart is beating a mile a minute in my chest.

  “I never knew that,” I say with a quick smile.

  “Oh, yeah. He knew how much you loved them. Plus, I think he knew you could kick his ass if he forgot,” he says, nudging my arm with his elbow. We both laugh, and it feels so, so good.

  When we make it to the driveway, I tell him he doesn’t have to walk me up.

  I can see the concern in his eyes.

  “I’ll flick the porch light when I get in,” I tell him, and I see a spark in his eyes as he smiles.

  “The porch light,” he says with a chuckle as he hangs his head.

  One night, the night he moved into the guest house, I had flicked the porch light off and on, letting him know everyone was asleep. We’d met outside, but then, ended up on the couch. Then in the bed.

  “I’ll be watching for it.”

  I nod as I walk off, tugging his coat around me tight.

  When I get to the porch, I open the back door and flip the switch, up and down, up and down.

  4

  “And where were you?” Mom asks, making me jump as I try—and fail—to close the back door quietly.

  When I turn to her, I know she can see that my eyes are puffy. I know she can see the tears that have frozen in streaks on my cheeks, and probably the snot, too. Grief is glamorous.

  “Oh, honey,” she says, standing up from the kitchen table and pulling me in for a long, much-needed hug. “I know,” she whispers. “I know. This isn’t gonna feel the same this year.”

  I don’t say anything; I just press my face into her shoulder and let the tears fall.

  When I’ve finally collected myself, I pull off of her slowly and wipe my tears with my thumbs.

  “You okay, sweetie?” she asks. I nod. “Okay. We should head up to bed. We have a busy day tomorrow.”

  I nod again. I don’t feel much like speaking.

  “Oh, and honey… We left you the star. Whenever you’re ready,” Mom whispers as she turns and climbs the steps.

  I draw in a long, slow breath and walk into the living room. The only thing lit in the dark room is the bright, colorful tree in the corner by the big window. I walk toward it, looking up at all the lights. My mom and sisters have set out some of the little village houses, and I remember opening each one. I cringe a little bit at the placement of the ornaments and how close together some of the houses are across the mantle, but it’s the thought that counts. They want to feel like Graham’s still here, but I think we all know that’s nearly impossible.

  I lean down and pick up the golden star that’s laying on the coffee table, spinning it around in my fingers. I take a step toward the tree and drag the little step ladder closer to it. I climb up a few steps, lean over the tree, and hold my hand out to put the star up. But something hits me, and I pull the star away and climb back down.

  Putting that star up means that it’s Christmas. Christmas without Graham.

  I lay the star back down on the table and make my way to the front steps. When I get to my old room, Chloe is already asleep in the twin bed next to mine. Chloe is the only other sibling who is single right now, which means we’re roommates for the week.

  It feels good to be back with her, though. We spent all of our teen years in this room together, laughing about boys, fighting over clothes, but ultimately, falling asleep more soundly, knowing that we weren’t alone.

  But right now, knowing that there’s a room across the hall that’s empty this year, makes me feel more lonely than I’ve ever felt in my whole life.

  When I wake up the next morning, Chloe’s bed is empty. I hear the clanking of mugs from downstairs, the beeping of the oven, and the sizzle of something on the stove. I lie awake in my bed for a few moments, staring up at the poster of Justin Timberlake I put there so many years before.

  If only I had known back then, when I couldn’t decide between Justin or Leo, how much more complicated life would get. How much harder decisions would be to make. How heartbroken one person could actually be.

  How much Liam actually meant to me and that he’d still mean something after all these years.

  I pull my sweatshirt over my head and throw my long, auburn hair into an extremely messy bun. The auburn runs in the family. Audrey, Donovan, and I all have it. Graham and I had matching green eyes, but everyone else has brown.

  I head downstairs to find the kitchen almost completely empty, except for Bella who is coloring like her life depends on it.

  “Hey, baby girl,” I say, stopping to kiss the top of her head before I snatch a mug off the counter and fill it with liquid energy. “Where is everyone?”

  “They’re outside, starting to decorate,” she says without looking up.

  “You’re not helping?” I ask. She shakes her head.

  “It’s too cold.” She shrugs, and I smile. I pull my scarf and coat off the rack and pull my boots on. I step out onto the porch, and I’m greeted by so many smiling faces, all waiting for me to join them.

  “Hey, kiddo,” Dad calls from the front lawn as he’s clearing a spot for some of the tacky blow-up decorations he likes to put up every year. Everyone is unraveling cords, climbing ladders, holding things in place while someone ties it down. “Grab a string of lights and head to the side. The bushes over there need some love.”

  I nod and smile, setting my cup down on the wicker table next to me and following orders.

  Every year, I manage to snag the string of lights with the most tangles in it, and this year is proving to be no different. I’m yanking and tugging, grunting and groaning, but right now, I’m thinking a big ball of lights is all this is going to be.

  “Need a hand?” I hear him ask, and my spine goes straight.

  “Hey,” I say, trying to add a little pep to my voice. Man, as if Liam wasn’t beautiful enough at night, the daylight does wonders for him. “What are you doing back so early?”

  “I wanted to drop off some food for tonight,” he says. “My mom always used to say, ‘Never show up empty-handed.’”