Discovering Delilah (Harborside Nights, Book 2)(74)

Between texts from Cassidy and Tristan, telling me they were here for me, and Janessa’s text wondering where in the hell I was, I didn’t really have time to be too unsettled by the changes in the house. I didn’t respond to Cassidy or Tristan, but I did reply to Janessa, because after the way she lost her sister, I worried that she’d think I committed suicide or something. So I sent a quick reassuring text. In CT dealing with house stuff. Jesse’s text, which came in later than the others, gave me pause. I hate to worry him almost as much as I hate worrying Wyatt and Ash, but I can’t keep leaning on everyone else.

They love me too much.

They want to protect me from everything, but everything’s already upon me, and they are standing in my way.

I need to do this on my own, and I’m not even sure what this is, but I’ll figure it out.

The hardest part of last night was not getting in touch with Ashley. I was worried that if I let her back in, even that one tiny bit, I’d cave and give up on taking care of the things that I fear might strangle me forever. I can’t give up. If I’m ever going to be whole in our relationship, I need to deal with this stuff.

I still don’t know if I believe in ghosts or not, but while I was lying on the couch thinking about being loved too much and wanting to love Ashley without being mired down by guilt and insecurities, I swear I smelled my mom’s perfume. It was as if she’d walked right past me. I’m not crazy, and I didn’t see an apparition or speak to her from beyond the grave or anything like that. I just smelled her perfume. I’m sure it was probably just from thinking about her so much last night, but the most surprising thing was that it didn’t scare me. Instead I was comforted by her familiar scent, and the tears that followed weren’t tears of anger or guilt. They were tears of longing to see her and feeling like she was right there with me at a time when I needed her most.

I don’t know how I was brave enough to sleep here last night, but I figure that’s a sign that I’m doing something right. When Wyatt and I left here at the beginning of the summer, I practically ran out. I sensed my parents in every room, and every memory snowed me under. And now, in the light of day, I see more clearly why the house felt so different last night. There are cardboard boxes stacked against every wall. Our personal effects that were scattered about and made our house a home have been boxed and labeled by Aunt Lara. I noticed the boxes last night, of course, but I wasn’t thinking clearly. I was too upset to put the pieces together.

I walk around the room with my fingers trailing over the boxes and read the labels. Candles, knickknacks, vases, books, photos.

Photos. My heart beats a little faster. I stare at the box and start to believe maybe ghosts do exist and they come in the form of photos. I’m not sure I can handle looking into my parents’ eyes.

I look around the living room, noticing the faded rectangles on the walls where our family photos once hung. Spaces that would be painted over, the nail holes filled in. Spaces where our smiling faces used to make silent statements about the people who lived in this house. Photographs that reflected a happy family living in a warm and loving home: Me and Wyatt with our faces pressed together when we were seven. My father holding me on his shoulders and Wyatt in his arms when we were three. My mother gazing up at my father on their honeymoon with Niagara Falls raging behind them.

I sink down to my knees and run my trembling fingers over the tape that’s sealed those statements in tight and pluck at the edge until it comes loose. I press my hand flat against the sticky ridge, pausing as I debate my vulnerability again. I close my eyes and breathe deeply, knowing I need to see them. If I want to have a future I need to be able to face my past. I have a good past. A loving past. I have a childhood filled with good holiday memories and family vacations. I have a past littered with moments of laughter and positive affirmations from my parents. It was a happy past, one probably many people would long for, but within that happy past sat a scared girl.

I must have been around thirteen or fourteen when I realized I was drawn to girls. And it wasn’t until I was about fifteen that I began to worry and take my desires seriously. If only I’d had the courage to talk to my parents, to look them in the eyes and face their disappointment when there would still have been a tomorrow to deal with it.

My hands are shaky as I pull the tape up and open my eyes. When the tape reaches the end of the box, the flaps spring up, then nearly close again, sobering me to what I’m about to see.

I scoot away from the box on my knees. I’m not ready. Not yet, because there are pictures in that box of me when I was a teenager, when I was scared and hiding who I was. I don’t want to see that girl. That’s the past I wish I could deny. I wish never happened.