Crash Into Me | ✓

thirty-four

The month of August had gone by in a blur. Days between Sunday and Thursday came and went, much as they had been before that day I ran into Brooklyn at the hospital. It was almost like hitting a reset button. I went to painting classes that Aunt Mel taught. We took Nikki to chemotherapy on Friday's, and on the weekends, I sat on the beach and worked on my book.

"So, you know my friend Raquel, right?" Nikki asked as she bit into a carrot. A gust of wind blew by us, sending sand swirling in every direction, including onto our paisley beach blanket.

"Is she the one that has like four pet snakes?" I replied with an eyebrow raise.

Nikki pressed her lips together. "I'm pretty sure she's down to three. I think one of them escaped."

I felt my skin crawl as I imagined lifting up the toilet seat and seeing a thick, spotted snake curled up in the water, like in those videos people post online about finding wild animals in their house.

"Anyway, that's not the point," Nikki continued and waved her hand like she was shooing away a fly. "The point is, Raquel invited us to Oakridge farms for some Rosé festival thing, and you're coming."

I bit at my cuticles. Nikki had taken me for a gel manicure a few weeks ago, and I had been good about keeping my longstanding nervous habit to a minimum, but the purple nail polish was starting to chip around the edges.

"I don't know Nikki." I replied with a shrug. "They're your friends, not my friends."

Nikki rolled her eyes. "They can be your friends. You just need to give them a chance."

"Okay, okay, I get it." I interjected. I started drawing circles in the sand with a twig that had been laying beside our blanket. "But It's fine. Really, I'm fine."

Nikki slung her arm around me. "I know you're fine. But I want you to be happy. There's a difference, you know."

I glanced out at the ocean in front of us, calm and glistening with rays of the afternoon sun. The salty air filled my lungs, and I felt a strange relief wash over me. I couldn't help but smile faintly to myself, because as much as I hated to admit it, everyone was right about one thing: salt water truly was the cure to everything. I had done enough crying, letting all my sadness and anger and frustration melt away with my tears, and now the spray of the ocean cleared my head. It was as if I was being rejuvenated here.

"Speaking of being fine..." I quickly pivoted before my emotions took over. "You aren't nervous about your doctor's appointment Thursday? It's not a normal chemo treatment."

"Nice subject change," Nikki said with a grin. "But no, I'm not. Over the past few months I've learned to just let go of what I can't control, and I just have to accept that whatever happens, happens. Right?"

I sighed heavily. Nikki wasn't the only one who had learned a thing or two about letting go. I was definitely trying. But sometimes when it was quiet, and I would close my eyes, I could still hear Brooklyn's laugh in my head, and still smell his warm scent in the air around me.

I had learned how to let go, but there were little things that I kept, just like his sweatshirts in the back of my closet, that I wasn't quite ready to let go of.