The place practically sparkled in comparison to the start of the summer.
I’d never seen it in such good shape. I’d never seen it so clean.
Even with all the old, sagging furniture, it held a shiny appeal.
I hated it. It was wrong, all wrong.
Like the life and soul had been stripped right out of the place.
The sale was closing in three days. Today we would move out. Tomorrow, someone would come and take away the furniture. Then June and Matthew would be handing over the keys.
The soft, muted sound of footsteps creeping down the hallway pulled me out of my head. I looked up to see Rachel, already dressed, hair curling softly around her shoulders. She gave me a small wave and mumbled, “Hi.”
“Hey.”
I stepped out of her way as she got herself a drink.
“You’re not having breakfast?”
Rachel shook her head. “No. I think I’m going to just head back home. Honestly, I don’t have much of an appetite. I packed all my things yesterday and I’m taking some of these boxes back with me. There are so many of them.”
I looked at her in surprise. “You’re not going to stay and help pack the last of the stuff? Not that you should or we’d expect you to. I mean, it’s not like this place is really your responsibility, and you’ve already been a huge help, and—”
She gave a quiet laugh, grinning at me, and shrugged one shoulder as she gestured out at all the boxes. “Everything is pretty much packed anyway. Besides, you’re right. This place doesn’t really have anything to do with me. You guys should have the chance to say a proper goodbye. I don’t want to get in your way.”
There had been times when “in the way” was exactly what Rachel was, as far as I’d been concerned. I’d wanted to spend time with Lee, but no, he was with Rachel. I’d thought we were hanging out, just me and the guys, but no, there was Rachel, and some of the girls along with her.
But over the last year and a bit that she’d been dating Lee, she’d really become a part of my life, too.
“You wouldn’t be in the way.”
She smiled, with so much emotion in her eyes that I wondered if she knew I wasn’t just talking about today. “Thanks, Elle. But I think this is something you guys should really do by yourselves.”
“Hear, hear.”
We both jumped, startled, and found Amanda smiling at us. Her hair was frizzy on one side, flat on the other, where she’d slept with it wet after skinny-dipping. Her eyes were a little bloodshot. It was the closest to looking less than perfect I’d ever seen her.
Although how she managed to look cute in ratty old Harry Potter pajamas, the logo almost faded off completely, was beyond me.
“I’m with Rachel,” she said. She began to clatter about the kitchen, examining the leftover food and then searching for utensils. “We were talking about this yesterday. Oh bugger, where’s the icing sugar?”
“The what?”
“The…oh, you know…What do you call it? The powdered sugar!”
“I think we packed it in that bag.”
“Everything to make French toast except the bloody icing sugar. Honestly.” Amanda pottered over to the bag I’d just pointed to and rooted through it. “Anyway. Me and Rachel were talking about it yesterday. We think we should get out of your hair, let the three of you have some time to say goodbye to this place. We’re not the ones who’ve been coming here every summer for our whole lives. Besides, my dad’s flying back today. I said I’d go see him off before he goes to the airport. Oh, where’s my phone?”
Dumping the powdered sugar, Amanda left to go collect her cell phone and Rachel turned to me again.
“I know we haven’t had much chance to talk about the whole…you and Noah thing, but…are you okay?”
I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t weird, being around him but not snuggling up to him, not kissing him. No casual touches, no lingering smiles. Both of us fighting hard not to fall into the easy way we bickered and flirted. I’d caught him looking at me a few times when he thought I wouldn’t notice, but then, I was sure he’d caught me looking at him just the same.
Thinking about it now, though, I told Rachel honestly, “I’ve been worse.”
“I’m sorry it didn’t work out, Elle.”
I gave a half-hearted shrug instead of an answer. I was sorry, too.
Rachel gave me a fierce hug, so suddenly and so forcefully it made me stumble backward. Laughing, I hugged her back. “What was that for? It’s not like summer’s over just yet. You’ll still see me.”
“I know,” she said, and I was shocked to find tears in her eyes as she drew away. “It’s just…I know I’ve only been here for this summer, but leaving this place, it really feels like it’s all ending. Don’t you think?”
My throat tightened. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess it does.”
“I’ll see you around, Elle.”
I heard her pass Amanda in the hallway and the two of them said a brief goodbye.
“I’m heading back home the day after tomorrow,” Amanda told me. “I fly back with my mum. Dad decided he couldn’t so much as be in the same airport as her for a few hours, so…” She sighed, eyes watering. She blinked rapidly to clear the tears away. “It’s fine. It really is. They’ll get over themselves once they get this whole thing sorted out. The divorce, I mean. Is it bad that I’m glad I’ll be at Harvard again next year and far away from all of it?”
“Sounds like exactly what you need,” I told her. “I’m…I’m sorry it’s so rough for you with them right now.”
“It is what it is. It’ll be fine. Eventually.”
She set to making herself some cereal, the French toast apparently all forgotten. Maybe she’d lost her appetite, too.
“It looks so weird, don’t you think? Without all your stuff in it.”
I nodded. “I barely recognize the place.”
We stood in silence. I rinsed my empty bowl and repacked the pots and whisk that Amanda had gotten out to make her French toast. She gave up on her cereal halfway through the bowl, too.
“I heard Rachel talking to you about you and Noah. Elle, I know it’s really not my place to say and I don’t know if this will help or not, but…I know how much he loved you. I know how hard that was for him, to let you go like that.”
Let me go. Like he’d done some great, big, noble act. Like I’d needed him to do that for me.