AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Do you want me to hold the box in the office for you while?—”
“No.” I shake my head, then soften my tone when he looks startled. “Sorry.” I press the box against my chest over my heart that is still beating wildly. “It’s okay. I’ll run it up to my room really quick.”
“All right.” He eyes the box before meeting my gaze once more. “I’ve gotten a couple of applications, so I’ll start making some phone calls to find your replacement.”
Dread. That’s the emotion that rushes through me as reality kicks in. I like it here; I like this town and the people I’ve met. This has been my home for five months, and I hate that I have to leave, but I know I can’t stick around. I’m just not sure what scares me more—the idea of being on my own again or the thought of being done with what I set out to do because I have no idea what will come after.
I force a smile. “Sounds good.”
“Good, and if you need anything, you know where to find me.”
“I do.” I keep my smile in place until he has wandered off. With a heavy weight on my shoulders, I move the housekeeping cart up against the wall so it doesn’t block the walkway.
After jogging upstairs to the second floor, I slow halfway across the covered breezeway when a pair of bright eyes that look an odd shade of blue under the cloud-covered sky land on me.
If he’s Roman, the brother mentioned in the obituary, his name fits him perfectly. Leaning against the railing with a paper cup in his hand that is steaming in the early morning air, he looks like a man lording over the commoners below. Even obviously hungover, he appears as if he could conquer a kingdom and rule an empire. Dragging my gaze off his, I walk to my door and open it, leaving it ajar after I enter my room.
I carefully place the box on top of the dresser, not ready to open it yet and turn to leave. But I come to a stop when I turn to find him standing in my doorway.
After last night, I don’t know how to interact with him. He was a dick, but knowing what I do—or at least assuming I know what he’s dealing with—I want to tell him I’m sorry. I want to tell him that I know acutely just how painful the loss of someone you love is. I understand it’s easier to deal with the pain when you’re not dealing with it at all but instead coping, using whatever means necessary.
“Do you need something?” I ask when he doesn’t speak, just stares at me, making my skin prickle and itch.
“You were in my room last night.”
“I was.” There is no point in lying. He obviously remembers me being there, even in his drunken state. I shift on my feet when I see his jaw clench. “Are you feeling better this morning?” He jerks up his chin in the affirmative. “Good.”
I let out a breath and straighten my shoulders as I walk toward him, leaving him no choice but to back up when I don’t stop at the door. When we’re both in the breezeway, I lock my door and tuck my key into my pocket.
“Thank you.”
My teeth dig into my bottom lip, and I turn to look at him. That’s the last thing I ever expected to hear him say, and from his expression, it looks like the words taste foreign to him.
“It wasn’t a big deal. Have a good day.” I turn and jog back toward the stairs, then down them. When I get to my cleaning cart, I take out my cell phone, start the podcast back to where it left off, and shove everything else out of my head while I get to work.
Sitting in the middle of my bed with a stack of cash at my hip and a map of the United States laid out in front of me, I look at all the places circled in red marker. Eleven places in total, and I now have enough money to make it to at least four more of them, maybe even five, before I’ll have to stop somewhere and work for a few months.
I glance at my phone on my nightstand when it begins to buzz, a pit instantly forming in my stomach when I see it’s Tyler, my ex-fiancé, calling. My finger hovers over the green button for a long moment before I press the red one and send the call to voicemail. We haven’t spoken in weeks, not since he called me drunk to explain in detail all the ways I ruined his life and broke his heart.
I gave him time to get it off his chest, to accept the brunt of his pain, and when he was done, all I could do was apologize because he was right.
Looking back, I realize I should never have accepted his proposal when he asked me to marry him. I think I knew that when he got down on one knee with my mom and his family all there. But I couldn’t say no, not after looking over at my mom and seeing the happy and relieved smile on her face. A smile that said saying yes to him would mean I wouldn’t be alone when her time finally came, that I would have something to live for and look forward to. Selfishly, I desperately wanted her to have that, to have that peace, that weight off her shoulders.
And for a while, I was able to lie to myself.
Part of me wanted to believe that the life Tyler offered me might be enough to keep me from drowning. We had been together since high school, so he knew me better than almost anyone. Life with him would be easy. We’d have a couple of kids, live on his family’s farm that was right next to the land my mom left me, and one day, we’d be buried next to each other in his family plot.
But that lie I told myself crumbled to pieces after my mom died. Like everyone else in my life, Tyler was absolutely against me taking the journey I’m on now. He declined to join me, made it clear he was unwilling to compromise, and told me that he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—support me.
To him, me leaving Wyoming for any length of time was me giving up on us. He failed to see my leaving had nothing to do with him.
Dropping my gaze to the map, I circle the red line around Glacier National Park with my finger. It was the first place my mom circled when I gave the map to her and the only place we were able to visit together before she passed. Her heart gave up on her way before I was ready to let her go.
Logically, I know it was better that way, better that she didn’t suffer or have to deal with the pain becoming so unbearable she’d have to medicate herself to the point of not being able to get out of bed. But selfishly, I wanted the time she promised me.
Looking across the room at the box I placed on the dresser this afternoon, I swallow. It took me forever to pay the funeral home for my mom’s cremation, the division of her ashes, and the gravestone I picked out to be placed in her family’s plot next to her parents, with the majority of her ashes in an urn there.
I still remember the sick feeling that hit me in my gut when I called them to schedule a time to pick up the small portion of her ashes they hadn’t placed at her gravesite. They told me over the phone that they wouldn't be handing them over until I settled my bill.
