I didn’t want anything to change. I wanted things to go back to exactly the way they had been. My dad alive and my life back to normal.
Blake pulled out his phone and pointed to the date, shoving the phone into my line of sight. “It’s January, man. You missed Christmas and New Year’s. You left your widowed mom to spend Christmas alone.”
“Oh my God.” I broke out in a sweat and felt like I might puke.
“Not to mention, you pushed away one of the best women in the world. You’re lucky she loves you enough to make sure someone is around to cover your ass.”
Love. The word vibrated in my head until my ears rang.
“I love you, Griffin Davis. I love you more than just a best friend. I’m in love with you.”
“Oh, fuck. I think I’m going to be sick.”
Blake quickly dragged me off my bed and hauled me into the bathroom before I emptied the contents of my stomach into the toilet. After I was doing nothing but dry-heaving, Blake turned on the water in my shower and shoved me inside.
He handed me a toothbrush and toothpaste on the side of the curtain. “Scrub up and brush your teeth. We have somewhere to be.”
“You’re taking me to church? On a…” Shit. I didn’t even know what day of the week it was.
“It’s Thursday,” Blake said.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s Sunday; you are the last person I thought would bring me to church.”
“Just get out of the car.”
I sighed and pushed open the door to get out.
I followed Blake through the back door of the church and down a flight of stairs into a room full of people sitting in a circle.
A middle-aged woman smiled and stood. “Good to see you, Blake. And I see you’ve brought a friend.” She pointed to the wall. “Please, grab a chair and take a seat.”
“Dude,” I hissed in Blake’s ear. It looked like an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, but I was not an alcoholic. And I had seen Blake drink plenty of times. He was a hypocrite, bringing me to AA. “Why did you bring me here?”
He ignored me.
The leader of the group waved her hands out. “Group, can we make room for Blake and…” She looked at me.
“Griffin,” I admitted.
“Hello, Griffin. I’m Lennon.”
The group scooted their chairs around while Blake and I grabbed our own.
After we were all seated, Lennon said, “Would anyone like to start today?”
Blake put his hand up. “I’ll go first.”
I sat back in surprise and with some judgment. If he gave the group some spiel about being on the wagon, I was going to call bullshit. He was the one who had given me the flask at my father’s funeral reception.
He stood and cleared his throat. “I’m Blake.”
“Hi, Blake,” the group said.
“It’s been eleven years, three months, and twenty-one days since my mother died, and I still think about her every day.”
My jaw dropped open.
“Just four years earlier, we had lost my grandma—my mom’s mom—to breast cancer. They hadn’t caught it until it was stage four.” He smiled sadly. “Grandma was one of those women who refused to go to the doctor for anything, and so by the time my mom and my uncle could convince her, it was too late.”
I’d known that his grandmother and mother had passed away years ago, but I’d had no idea it still affected him. I had been in college at the time. I had come home for his mother’s funeral, but Blake and I never talked about it. Not once. I suddenly felt like a piece-of-shit friend for never asking.
He sighed. “So, two years later, when my mom was diagnosed, I didn’t worry because they’d caught it early. But I was wrong. And this might sound bad, but to this day, I can’t figure out if it was better to go fast like my grandma or slow like my mom.” He looked down at his hands. “I guess it doesn’t matter when you die from the same thing, huh?”
He looked over at me, and despite my guilt, I met his eyes.
“Anyway”—Blake turned his attention back to the group—“I did some stupid things, pushed some people away because I didn’t want to get hurt again, and made a mess of my life for a while. I know everyone has to go through their own journey, but if I can help anyone who feels like I did eleven years ago, I have to try. Because you might regret throwing everything away. While I still miss my mom and would do just about anything to have her back, I know she wouldn’t want me throwing away my future.” He smiled one more time and sat.
Neither of us said anything to each other as we listened to others speak. There were people who had lost spouses and some who had lost children. There was even a couple who had lost close friends.
Not everyone talked. Some just listened. I liked that it felt like it was a safe space to connect with people who understood what I was going through.
When we circled the complete group and it got around to me, Lennon asked, “Would you like to share, Griffin?”
I shook my head, but then I stopped myself and stood up. “Hi, I’m Griffin.”
“Hi, Griffin.”
Even though I had known everyone was going to say hi back, it still kind of startled me, and I jumped a bit.
“I lost my dad a month ago. Heart attack. We hadn’t even known he was sick.” I was getting choked up, and I really didn’t want to cry, so I paused and took a breath. “I miss him. I miss him a lot. But since this is all new to me, I’m still taking things one day at a time.” I looked at Blake. “And I hope that it’s not too late to keep some of the people that I pushed away.”
He smiled at me and nodded once.
I didn’t know what else to say, so I put my hand up awkwardly and said, “Thanks,” before sitting down.
Blake slapped me on the shoulder, and I knew that was his guy way of giving me a hug.
Thirty-Six
Madeline
I pulled up to the church for Christina and Troy’s wedding rehearsal, grabbed my dress and toiletries, and quickly ran inside. I’d been told to bring all of my stuff because, tomorrow, we were going to get dressed and do our hair and our makeup together as a group.
And while I was looking forward to Christina’s big day, I hoped all the busywork and excitement would help keep me from worrying about Griffin. Of course, it would be hard to forget that he was the person I was supposed to be walking down the aisle with. Troy’s cousin was Griffin’s replacement. I could only hope that Troy’s cousin was handsome and rich and would make me forget all about falling in love with my best friend.
The first person I saw when I got in the building was Hope.
“Remind me to never get married in the middle of winter,” I said to her. “Brr. It’s so cold.”
“Tell me about it.” She waved her hand. “Come on. I’ll show you where you can put your stuff.”
I followed her down the hall to a room with tables and mirrors lined up against the wall and a rack with other bridesmaid dresses hanging on it.
“You can put your things wherever. The pastor promised me that the room and the church will be locked tonight.”