After the funeral ended and people started to disperse, Josie caught sight of Erin. Erin who had not, apparently, been Max’s girlfriend—or at least not this past year. Erin whose blue eyes were now bloodshot, as she looked over to Josie. Her face was pale, lips pressed tightly together as if to keep the emotion in. But she smiled, a trembling, uncertain smile, and moved toward Josie, who, for a moment, considered backing away, turning, and bolting. Because she wasn’t sure if she could face it, wasn’t sure if she was ready to talk to someone who knew him, to make it a real and undeniable fact.
Next to her, Bia gripped more tightly, but Josie shook her head and whispered, “It’s all right. I’ll find you in a bit, OK?”
Bia hesitated and Helen murmured, “Are you sure, darling?” just as Erin came to a stop in front of them, her sleek, blond hair pulled back into a neat bun.
Josie nodded, and the two of them left without further argument. She was glad of it—this moment, it belonged to people who knew Max, who really knew him. “How are you doing?” Josie asked softly.
Erin shrugged. “Oh, you know.”
They looked at each other, then Josie shook her head. “I’m trying to think of the right thing to say and I just can’t.”
“I don’t think there is a right thing to say.” Tears sparked in Erin’s eyes and Josie felt her own tears match them. They both looked away, and Josie imagined that Erin, too, was trying to get herself together. “I loved him so much,” Erin breathed, looking down at the grass, where her heels were sinking slightly into the soft ground.
Josie’s throat tightened so it was almost painful. “Me, too.”
Erin nodded, met Josie’s gaze once more. “I know. I saw it, in Edinburgh.”
Josie hesitated. “I didn’t mean to…I thought you were together, then.”
“I know,” Erin said again. “We weren’t,” she added. “But I guess you’ve figured that out by now. So when I say I loved him, I just mean…”
“You don’t have to explain,” Josie whispered. She knew how Erin felt. If Erin had seen how Josie felt about Max then the reverse was true too—they’d loved each other, and the fact that had changed from romantic love didn’t change anything.
“He let you think it though,” Erin said quietly. “I knew what he was doing, trying to hide behind me. And I tried to get him to tell you the truth, but he…I don’t think he could face it, then. Could face how it would change the way you might look at him.”
Erin and Max, standing outside the coffee shop in Edinburgh, Josie remembered with a jolt to her heart.
Did you tell her?
Give me a break, Erin, it’s not that easy.
Josie closed her eyes against the burning there, and when she opened them, she allowed a few tears to fall. Erin stepped forward, took Josie’s hand in one of her own, and squeezed. “I’m sorry that he didn’t tell you sooner.”
Something bitter wanted to swell in her at that, at the fact he’d kept it from her, had allowed her to fall in love with him. But there was a part fighting that, something that she knew would be there after the grief settled, after she fought her way through the impossibility of these few weeks—and that part was glad of it. Glad that she’d met him, glad that she’d known him, had fallen for him. If he’d told her when he’d first met her, when he was still reeling from the news, that day she’d run into him on her bike, would she have allowed herself to fall for him? She doubted it. She wouldn’t have had the courage. And then she would have missed out on something that had the power to change her life.
So she shook her head now at Erin. “I know why he didn’t.” It wasn’t quite forgiveness—that would have to come later. But understanding, that was a start.
Erin looked over Josie’s shoulder and Josie turned to see Max’s sister, the one she’d met in New York—Chloe. She started toward Josie and Erin, looking nothing like Max, with short dark hair that framed an attractive face. But when she smiled through her tears as she reached them, Josie saw it there, the same softening expression that Max had. It made something hard rise up in her throat and for a moment she struggled to breathe. In the distance, birds were chirping, unaware of what had happened here, and the sound of a far-off car horn seemed to punch through Josie, a harsh reminder that the world was still out there, still carrying on.
Erin and Chloe smiled at each other, some sort of understanding passing there. “I’ll see you around, Josie,” Erin said. She let her hand trail over Josie’s shoulder in a farewell gesture.