Totally and Completely Fine(99)

My heart cracked.

“Lena—”

“I wish you were the one who died,” she said.

The room went deathly quiet. Lena’s chest was heaving, her eyes wild.

I took a breath in. Then out.

“Me too,” I said.

I’d never said it out loud, but it was true.

Lena’s face was white, tears running in rivers down her cheeks.

None of our words could be taken back.

With a sob, Lena turned and ran out of the kitchen. I heard the front door slam behind her.

Everyone was silent and still.

“Lauren—” Gabe stepped toward me, but I shook my head.

“Go make sure she’s okay,” I said.

Ollie went after her, Chani following in his footsteps.

“Are you all right?” Ben asked, his hand between my shoulder blades.

I shrugged off his touch. I didn’t deserve it.

I was a monster. A terrible mother.

“She’s not in the yard,” Ollie said. “I think she went down the alley.”

“I’ll get the car,” Gabe said.

“She can’t get that far,” Chani said.

“It’s a small town,” Gabe said. “She’s probably headed toward the junction.”

“Why would she go that way?” Chani asked. “Isn’t it mostly just back roads?”

I knew exactly where she’d gone. My stomach gave a painful, sickening twist.

“One road in particular,” I said.

I’d been avoiding it for three years. I didn’t want to go. I wasn’t ready.

But it didn’t matter.

“I know where she is,” I said.

“We can go with you,” Gabe said.

“No,” I said. “It’s better if I go alone.”

Chapter 53

Now

I didn’t know if it was a statewide thing or specific to Cooper, but when someone died in a car accident, the spot was marked with a cross. Speeding was a problem in Montana. There were always too many crosses.

I’d never gone to see if they’d placed one for Spencer.

They had.

And that’s where Lena was.

She was sitting off the intersection in one of two banged-up old chairs, looking at the white letters that spelled out Spencer’s name across the horizontal section.

I approached slowly.

There was no indication that she even knew I was there, though she must have. I sat right next to her. The chair was wobbly and half stuck in the muddy grass, but it didn’t fall over.

We sat there in silence.

What was there to say?

It wasn’t until Lena wiped her face with her palms that I realized she was crying.

Even though I couldn’t tell if she wanted it, I reached over and pulled her toward me, holding her tight against my chest. I wanted her to feel my heartbeat.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”

She sobbed into my shirt.

“I miss him so much,” she said.

“Me too.”

She laid her head on my shoulder. She seemed so small. So young.

“I’m sorry I said, you know, about—” she said. “I didn’t mean it.”

“I know,” I said.

She looked up at me.

“Did you mean it?” she asked.

I put my arm around her. “I know how close you and Dad were. I know you miss him.”

“I’d miss you,” she said. “If you were gone.”

I gave her a squeeze. “I love you,” I said. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too,” she said.

“Do you come here a lot?” I asked, realizing that there was more than just the cross and two chairs. There were stacked piles of rocks and some scraggly looking flowers that had clearly been planted there.

Lena nodded. “Eve helped me bring the chairs,” she said. “We found them behind the Finnish Line a while ago.”

“I bet we could figure out a way to clean them up a bit,” I said. “There are all those tools still in the house. Your dad’s tools.”

The tools Ben had used.

“If we fixed the chairs”—Lena’s words were hesitant—“do you think you’d want to come here once in a while?”

I took a deep breath.

“Is that what you’d like?”

“It’s kind of nice sometimes.”

She reached down and drew her fingers across the petals of some of the flowers, limply hanging on.

“I like to talk to him when I’m here,” she said. “Is that dumb?”

I squeezed my eyes shut.

“Not at all,” I said. “I talk to him too. Sometimes.”

“I miss Dad.” Her voice was teary.

“I do too,” I said. “Every day. All the time.”

“You do?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Why don’t you ever talk about him?”

I paused.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I think it made me feel like this big, sad, depressing storm cloud sweeping in to ruin everyone’s day.”

“I feel that way too,” Lena said.