Why didn’t I call? Of course he would wonder that. “I didn’t think you would care,” I admitted.
He had Candace. He was happy. He wasn’t mine, and I didn’t want to burden him with my issues.
“Of course I care, Char. I can’t believe you would think that.” There was real pain laced in his words. I’d hurt him with what I’d said. “I will always care about you. You’re my friend.”
I closed my eyes, letting his words wash over me. Friend. I was Will’s friend. Not his girlfriend, but his friend. Suddenly, I could handle that. I wanted that. “Thank you.”
Someone saying something in the background caught my attention. It had to be Candace.
“Candace wants to know what your address is there. We’d like to send you something before we head to Africa for three months.”
Africa. I wondered if they were going on another mission trip together. I wanted that, to be able to leave the country and be free. To help people while I found myself again.
Why didn’t I? What was holding me back?
Nothing.
I had nothing holding me back anymore.
A wave of emotion pounded me from all sides. How could I think like that? The moment Emma heard me venting to Sadie about feeling overwhelmed and like her and Mom were holding me back plummeted me.
“Char? You there?” Will asked when I didn’t answer right away. “Hello?”
“Yeah, I’m here.” I pulled in a deep breath. “I’m not planning on staying here much longer, so I don’t think sending something would be smart.”
“Oh, okay. Where are you going to be then?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. I took another sip of my wine. “That’s something I haven’t figured out yet.”
“Are you staying in Parish Cove somewhere, or are you planning to come back here to Bradley?” His tone wasn’t pushy. He wasn’t trying to make me commit to something right away, I could tell. He was merely curious.
“I don’t think I’ll stay in Parish Cove, no.” I knew I would come back at least once a month to visit Mom, but I wouldn’t settle here. I couldn’t. There was nothing for me here.
“So, you’ll come back to school, then?”
“Not anytime soon. I don’t know what I’m going to do, honestly.” My words cracked. “I’m lost.” A tear slipped down my cheek, and I brushed it away.
“I’m so sorry for your loss, Charlotte. I really am.” He meant it. Not in the roundabout way others seemed to offer during the Wake—saying the words because they knew they were supposed to. Will actually meant them. He cared. He truly was sorry for how I was feeling, for the deep gash were my heart used to be. “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.”
His last words were so random they confused me. “What?”
“Psalms 34:18,” he said with a hint of embarrassment. “I didn’t mean to preach to you; it just felt right to say. It’s from something I picked up during the last trip I went on. There was this woman whose husband had passed while we were there. Our leader said those words to her once or twice, and it stuck with me. I don’t know if it was because of what the words mean, or the look of comfort she seemed to get from them.”
I replayed them in my head, waiting for a sense of peace to fill me. A tiny flicker of it ignited in my chest.
“There was one more too, he said to her. ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.’”
The sensation I felt after reading Emma’s letter melted over me again. I closed my eyes and basked in the warmth of it. “I like that one.”
“Me too. There’s hope in it,” he whispered. Candace said something in the background, but I couldn’t make out what. “Candace said you should come with us to Africa.”
The moment I was having paused. “I don’t know about that.”
While the idea of traveling and helping people as I found myself seemed amazing, I wasn’t so sure about the religious aspect. I went to church growing up, but once I left for college, I stopped attending. Emma had still gone. She and Mom could be found at Parish Cove Baptist every Sunday dressed in their best clothes. I had left that behind, like everything else.
“It’s not a religious organization we’re going with this time, if that’s what’s holding you back,” Will insisted, as though he knew exactly where my mind had dipped.
“I thought that’s what a mission trip was, a religious thing.”
“Most are, but this is with a new organization that provides trips for anyone without a religious affiliation. It’s a nice break, and you still get to do amazing things for people.”
“What are you planning to do in Africa?” He’d piqued my interest with the non-religious affiliation part. I didn’t want to be surrounded by people spreading God’s word, but I did want to get away. Far away. As far away as possible.
“We’re actually going as chaperones this time.” He chuckled. The sound of it was soothing and warm, contagious even. “There’s a tiny town that needs help building a new school for the kids. We’re going with a large group. Each of us has our own number of teens to lookout for. I think they’re still looking for three more chaperones though.”
Help build a school in Africa with some teenagers for three months. I could do that. I should do that. My mind bogged down with everything here though. The house. Mom. School. Dawson. Could I really leave everything behind for three months? What would people say about me, then? That I’d finally lost it? That they’d thought I would do something crazy like runaway somewhere, but never to Africa? God, I would be the talk of the town for years to come.
I listened as Will continued to talk about the finer details of the trip. There wasn’t any persuasion in his tone, only pure excitement. He was passionate about these trips. I’d known that from the beginning. It was something I had always envied about him. His ability to have something that made him feel so wonderful must be incredible.
As I reached for the wine bottle from where Sadie had set it on the stones that made up the fire pit, the letter from Emma crammed in my pocket dug into my hip. I pulled it out, and reread my sister’s final words to me. The paragraph about continuing to live was what I focused on.
Don’t let this stop you from living. Grieve me, because I knew you will, but don’t let my loss suck the life out of you. Live, Char. You’re so flighty and free. Mom’s wild child. Never change. Don’t let what I did change that about you. Please.
“So, do you think it’s something you would be interested in? I can overnight the paperwork to you,” Will asked, pulling me from my thoughts. “There’s still about a week until the group leaves.”
Emma wanted me to live, but I felt as though I couldn’t, because I was lost without her. Maybe this trip would be what saved me. Maybe this was my sign from Emma. I liked to think that it was.
“Okay,” I surprised myself by saying.
“You still have your passport, right?”
“Yeah.” I would have to find it, but it was somewhere. I’d gotten it last year, because I was dead set on traveling somewhere outside of the U.S. I never did though, for one reason or another. It looked as though I would finally be putting it to use.
Peace settled over me. I was doing what Emma wanted while also what I needed. Africa seemed like the farthest I could possibly get from Parish Cove. It also seemed like a good place to find myself again.
“HERE’S THE LAST BOX.” Dawson hoisted the final cardboard box from my house into the back of the U-Haul. “Everything fit. Imagine that,” he teased.
I hadn’t been sure we would be able to cram the entire house in the back of one U-Haul, but Dawson had been set that we could. Apparently, he was a better judge of spaces than I was. “You were right.”
He grinned as he pulled the door down, and latched it. “I’m enjoying those words coming out of your mouth.”