I reached out and brushed my thumb over the image, then sat down on the cold grass of her grave and criss-crossed my legs. I placed the bouquet of lilies I brought her in front of the cute little ornaments on her grave and sat, simply staring at her picture.
“I’m sorry this is only my second time to come and visit you,” I began, then frowned, guilt gripping me. “After your funeral things kind of went to hell.”
I could practically hear her voice in my head say, “No shit, Sherlock,” and it made me smile.
“Things with Kale went really bad, Lav, and then they went even worse with my family when I packed up and high-tailed it out of here.” I swallowed and looked down at my hands. “I ran away and stayed away for six long years.”
I sighed and shook my head.
“I was so heartbroken when I found out you died, and then I found out that very day that Drew was pregnant with Kale’s baby. It was all too much, and I figured if I was thousands of miles away, it would somehow help, but it didn’t. My mind is my own worst enemy. Even though I couldn’t see Kale, I would envision him and Drew together with their baby all the time, and it killed me.” I frowned deeply. “When I wasn’t thinking about them, I was thinking about you and what would have happened if you hadn’t died. I don’t think you would have let me leave . . . I don’t think leaving would have even been an option if you had still been here. Losing you pushed me over the edge, Lav.”
I licked my dry lips and looked back up to Lavender’s headstone.
“Everything ended up being a nightmare, though. Things panned out worse than I ever could have imagined. Kale’s poor baby boy died, and now he is alone. I can sense the change in him. I see it in his eyes. He’s like me, just existing, and I hate that. I don’t want him to feel like that because I know how empty and cold it is.”
I picked a few blades of grass from the ground and broke them up with my fingers.
“I think about you all the time too, Lav,” I said, just in case she thought I didn’t. “You’d know what to do if you were here; you always had the best advice.”
I glanced around me then, checking whether anyone was close to me. I was glad when I saw there was no one around; it made me feel better knowing my conversation with Lavender was private. Talking to her made me feel better. Even if she didn’t reply back to me, I knew she was listening.
I could feel her.
“Are you with my uncle?” I asked in a whisper. “If you are, can you tell him that I really miss him?” I smiled as a cool breeze swirled around me. “I think I’m still in a state of shock, because I have moments where I completely forget that he is gone, then I realise he is, and my heart breaks all over again.”
I rubbed my nose with the back of my hand. “I thought burying you was the hardest thing I ever had to do, but my Uncle Harry’s death hurts on a whole other level. He was all I had from home after I left, and now he is gone.”
I rubbed my eyes.
“I made things right with my family again. Being away from them, from here, was solving nothing. It was only causing more unnecessary heartache. And after all that shit that went down with Jensen when I was a kid, I really shouldn’t have upped and left the country in the first place. Layton told me how much they would worry for me, but I didn’t listen. I’m home now, though, and I’ve made things better.”
I sighed and pushed loose strands of hair out of my face.
“I’ve yet to have my proper talk with Kale, and I’m honestly quite scared about it. I have absolutely no idea what will happen after we do talk, and the not knowing is terrifying, but no matter what happens, we need to clear the air. He needs to know how I still feel about him, and he needs to know why I couldn’t be here anymore.”
I was silent for a long time after I finished speaking. I just sat there as still as a statue while the magnitude of loss swept over me. It was a part of life, but it sucked. I was grateful to finally be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I needed my family now – I saw that clearly. Their love and concern wasn’t overbearing anymore. It was comforting.
I wasn’t staying to please anyone else, I was doing it for myself, and I couldn’t help but smile because of my uncle’s sneaky hand in it. I’d do right by him. I’d talk to Kale because I needed to speak to him for me, not for an inheritance. At the thought of Kale, I looked in the direction of Kaden’s grave, and I froze when I saw who was standing before it.
Drew.
I watched her for a moment, and before I knew it, I was on my feet and walking towards her. I had no idea what I was going to say to her, but I needed to say something. Anything.
I approached her with the gravel crunching under my feet. I stood a few feet from her and exhaled a deep breath. “Hey, Drew,” I said softly.
I startled her, because she jumped and looked at me with surprised eyes. “Lane?” she breathed, and placed a hand on her chest. “You scared me.”
“I’m sorry.” I frowned. “I thought you heard me walking up.”
She shook her head. “I was in a world of my own.”
I shoved my hands into my coat pockets. “I was visiting Lavender and saw you down here. I wanted to come and say hello.”
She flicked her eyes over my shoulder before sliding her eyes back to mine. “I never got a chance to say it, but I’m sorry about your friend. Kale told me how devastated you were when she died. He said he lost you that day in the hospital.”
I stared at her, surprised she’d revealed that to me.
“He said that?” I questioned.
Drew nodded. “He used to have nightmares about it. He’d sit up in the middle of the night apologising to you and trying to console you, but then he’d wake up and realise you weren’t there.”
My stomach churned because I knew that he had been trying to make amends and comfort me because that was when he had told me he and Drew were going to have a baby together.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Drew blinked. “What for?”
“For being on his mind when he was with you.”
Drew smiled then, and I couldn’t help but notice how pretty she was. She was older now, but she was also still the nine-year-old girl I’d first met in the school playground all those years ago.
“Lane, you were always on Kale’s mind. He’d talk about you without realising what he was doing. We’d be watching a film or having a random conversation, and you’d pop into his head, and everything would become about you.”
Shame filled me.
“I’m so sorry.”
She laughed. “Why are you sorry? You couldn’t help that he thought about you.”
I knew that, but I felt guilty all the same. “I owe you a massive apology, Drew,” I said, keeping my gaze on hers.
She blinked her emerald-green eyes. “What for?”
I swallowed. “For how I treated you growing up when you were nothing but sweet to me. I was petty, childish and plain horrible to you for no other reason than you had Kale. I was out of order to ever be rude to you, and I should have known better. I’m so sorry; I hope you can forgive me.”
Drew stared at me for a moment, and then the corners of her eyes creased as she smiled. “You don’t have to be sorry.”
My mouth fell open, and it caused her to laugh.
“What do you mean?” I asked. “Of course I do. I was awful to you.”
“I forgave you years ago.” She shrugged. “You were heartbroken, and I now know that people do things beyond their control when they are heartbroken.”
I looked at Kaden’s picture.
“He was a little stunner, Drew. You and Kale created someone incredible, and I’m so sorry that he died.”
“He’s still with us.” Drew looked from me to Kaden’s picture on his headstone, and she smiled. “He was a hoot – you’d have loved him.”
“I would have,” I said quickly.
She sighed. “I miss him every day. He’d have been nearly six if he were alive now.”
“Six,” I whispered.
“He was a mini Kale,” she mused.
I smiled. “Kale showed me videos and pictures, and I said Kaden was the double of him, but he was adamant that he looked like you.”
That made Drew chuckle, and then a long stretch of silence unfolded before Drew looked at me and said, “You need to help him.”
I blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“Kale,” she said. “You have to help him. I’ve tried for years to help him find peace about losing Kaden, but he is trapped in time. Every day it’s like he relives the day our son died. It took time, but I now relive the other memories we shared with our boy. I remember the good times. When I think of him, happiness fills me, but I know when Kale thinks of him, he’s filled with sadness.”
“I don’t know how to help him,” I admitted. “He isn’t the same Kale I knew. Too much has changed between us.”
To my surprise, Drew touched my shoulder and said, “The pair of you are two sides to the same mirror. You’re the same but reflect different things. You know him, Lane, better than anyone. If anyone can help him, it’s you.”
I didn’t know if her faith in me was well placed.
“I’ll always love Kale, Lane,” she continued, “but he was never mine.”
My hands began to shake. “Of course he was.”
She shook her head. “He was yours. He just didn’t know it. I knew it, though, and I fought tooth and nail to have him when I knew I should have let him go to be with you. He chose you over me, and I know that if I’d never gotten pregnant with Kaden, he wouldn’t have stayed with me as long as he did. Kaden bonded us together, but our son was never going to keep us together. We loved each other, but he loved you more.”
“Drew—”
“The night of your uncle’s birthday party, when I threatened you to leave him alone, I followed him back to your house, and I heard him tell you he loved you and that he wanted to be with you.”