How to Say Goodbye

Chapter 23

Rylee flew back to the UK after the funeral, giving me a brief goodbye and not saying a word to Kensington. Rylee and I had kind of strayed from each other over the past few months. I was busy with Kensington and school, and she was busy with Zayn and trying to find a job over there. She died her hair a reddish-brown, and that got her a few modeling gigs. Her calls to me got fewer and fewer, but I still called her one of my best friends. She was changing, and so was I, but our past times together were too full of memories to forget about each other. Rylee also blamed our separation on Kensington. She never liked her from the start. And she didn't like that Kensey took her role as best friend in my life. But there wasn't much she could do about it. Rylee and I had a lot of great stories, but it was time for a new chapter.

I moved out of my parents' house after Owen's funeral and moved in with Kensington in the city. She had a lot in her savings account as did I. But I still noticed it seemed as if I never spent anything because my balance always remained the same. My parents must have still been depositing into my account. I didn't stop them; I refused to talk to them, and they wouldn’t listen anyways.

Within the past three months, I felt myself growing closer to Owen though he was no longer here. I felt him everywhere I went, whether it was to the store or halfway across the globe; he was always with me. That made it easier when the tears stopped falling and seeing his name didn't make my stomach drop. I knew I'd see him again someday.

There was news all over town about the upcoming concert and how tickets sold out in less than an hour. I wasn't going. Kensington and I decided to escape all the madness and go to Toronto again for the second week in a row. My first year of college was out of the way, so Kensington and I could take longer trips. And that meant packing more bags.

I hadn't touched the suitcase I brought from my break-up with Niall. I didn't want all those memories surging back. So instead of cleaning it out, I bought a whole new suitcase and replacement clothes and toiletries. But this time, because it was a longer trip and I didn't feel like being a wuss anymore, I decided to clean it out and throw away all the clothes inside because they must have been rank.

Kensington started blaring some music from her room, and I couldn't make out the words, so I shut my door and plugged in my iPhone to the speakers. It started playing Maroon 5's "She Will Be Loved", so I turned it up loud.

I looked at the suitcase. Already, memories of the pain I caused Niall that day played on repeat through my head. I was awful. I couldn't believe I had hurt him so bad. And then the day of Owen’s funeral. I shouldn’t have lied to him. I yearned to be with him, to feel his arms around me, to hear his laugh.

I let the song finish before I worked up the nerve to unzip the suitcase. Gary Allan's "Best I Ever Had" started playing.

I was right. It smelled horrible. The toiletries leaked all over my clothes, and the combination of scents did not bode well. I opened the trash bag I had brought from the kitchen and tossed everything in there.

It got to my favorite part of the song when he said, "And it might take some time to patch me up inside. But I can't take it so I, I run away and hide. And I might find in time that you were always right. You were always right."

And I saw it. It sparkled in the bottom of my bag, catching the light from the sun shining through my window, completely unscathed from my suitcase-toiletry-explosion.

His ring.

It had a thin band inlaid with small diamonds, and a beautiful radiant cut stone surrounded on the perimeter with more small diamonds. This was the first time I really paid attention to what it looked like; after he gave it to me, and I said yes, he took it off my finger so that paparazzi wouldn't get suspicious and would leave us alone.