At my mother’s words, I felt sick. Because I knew that Tillie didn’t have anyone there for her. Mr. and Mrs. Fisher had moved several hours away a few years ago, so Tillie didn’t even have her parents nearby to comfort her the same way I had mine.
“That look tells us that you might have made a mistake with how you treated her throughout this,” my dad remarked.
I shook my head, feeling disappointed and angry at myself. “I’m such an ass,” I muttered.
“Yeah,” my dad agreed. “But I know Tillie Fisher. She’ll forgive you.”
I held his gaze for a moment before I looked away and announced, “I don’t mean to eat and run, but I think I need to go.”
“Go, Zev,” my mom urged me. “Make yourself happy. And make Tillie happy. You both deserve it.”
With that, I said goodbye to my parents and left.
When I got outside, I sat in my truck for all of five seconds before I backed out of the driveway and drove to Tillie’s house.
Just over ten minutes later, I pulled up in front of her place. Suddenly, I didn’t feel so confident. It had been two months since I last saw her, and that last time did not end well. With all the time that had passed, I didn’t know how she would react to seeing me again. Of course, my father believed that Tillie would forgive me, but I wasn’t convinced I even deserved her forgiveness for treating her the way that I did.
Even still, I had to try.
In fact, I’d try every day for the rest of my life to prove to her just how important she was to me and how sorry I was for hurting her.
With a renewed sense of determination, I hopped out of my truck and walked up to her front door. When she didn’t answer after more than a minute, I decided to use the key Tillie had given me years ago. Maybe when she saw me standing in her house she’d ask for it back, but for now, I was going to use it.
After unlocking the door, I pushed it open and my stomach sank.
Other than a few pieces of Tillie’s furniture, there was nothing left.
She was gone.
Tillie was gone.
My chest tightened, my heart felt like it was in my throat.
My best friend left. I knew I was responsible for that.
Guilt and regret consumed me all over again. She suffered for more than two months without having the two people she believed she could always depend on there for her.
I pulled out my phone and brought her name up on the display, but something stopped me from pressing my finger to it.
If I was going to hear her voice for the first time in all these weeks, I wanted to do it in person.
So, I dropped my phone back into my pocket and looked around Tillie’s empty house.
What had I done to her? What had I done to us?
Reality smacked me right in the face, and I couldn’t control the twisting in my stomach. Knowing what was going to happen next and unable to stop it, I ran to the bathroom, bent over the toilet, and emptied my stomach.
I had to find Tillie.
I had to bring her home.
Tillie
Exhausted would have been too tame of a word to describe how I felt. Drained, empty, and hollow didn’t seem to do the trick either. It was likely because I was a combination of all of those things, and one wouldn’t suffice.
On the professional front, everything had been going great for me. My store had a steady flow of traffic throughout the week, and the weekends brought in even more traffic.
I’d been using my time off when Meli was watching the store for me to try and get ahead on actually making my ceramics and painting them more than I already was. Since the weekdays were a little slower, it usually gave me a bit of free time to get even more painting done.
It seemed to me that everything was taking off for me all at once. The sales at the store were at an all-time high and the online sales from my website had skyrocketed. Since moving to Sedona, I’d started working on new pieces that captured the beauty of Arizona. While the typical notion was that it was the desert, I don’t think many people realized just how breathtaking so many parts of the state were.
I’d created an entire line that focused on the cactus. Whether I painted a bunch of cacti on a piece or actually made a cactus itself as a decorative piece, there was something for everyone.
I also created pieces that were representative of my new home in Sedona. The red rock structures inspired me one day when I’d gone to the vortexes in search of some peace of mind. I couldn’t say that I found all the peace I was looking for, but I did find the inspiration. So, I considered it a win.
On a personal level, though, I was still struggling. To that end, I wasn’t exactly as down in the dumps as I had been feeling. The truth was, I missed Zev and Liam more than I ever thought possible. They’d been in my life for so long that suddenly not having either of them at all was a huge adjustment to make.
Even though I didn’t think I’d ever get over losing both of them, I believed I was at least starting to cope better. I no longer broke down into tears randomly throughout the day and managed to save that for the times I was curled up in my bed struggling to fall asleep. I found that crying myself to sleep worked best. Of course, I didn’t do that every night, but it happened a couple times a week.
Most of all, I had come to the conclusion that making the move to Sedona was the best thing for me. While I hadn’t worked out all the kinks with running my business here with a storefront, I knew I’d eventually get there.
Most of all, the workload kept me distracted from my personal frustrations. And for the last week or so, I was doing better. Emotionally speaking, I was nowhere near where I was before Liam died—I knew I never would be—but I was feeling the best I had in months. Maybe that wasn’t saying much, but I thought it said something.
So, though my progress was slow, it was at least happening. Unfortunately, it all went out the window last night.
Following an incredible day yesterday at my store, I went back to my house. Everything was business as usual for a Saturday. The store was busy, and that was exacerbated by the fact that Meli wasn’t able to come in and help yesterday. By the time I got home, I was already feeling pretty wiped out.
I took a shower, had a late dinner, and finally curled up on my couch with the next box in my stack I needed to unpack. That had been a slow process for me because it was easier to just tell myself I’d do it later. The problem is that later rolled around, and I’d find myself doing something else. So, I made it a rule that I wasn’t allowed to go to bed until I unpacked at least one box each night until they were all finished. I wasn’t planning to stay up late because Sunday would roll around soon enough, and I’d need to be back at work. So, I picked up one of the smaller, lighter boxes.
And that was my mistake because I opened a box I wasn’t prepared to handle at that point.
A box filled with years of photos and memories. Most of those photos containing either Liam and me or Zev and me. There were still hundreds with all three of us. And the reality of it all hit me hard.
Because I looked at my face in every one of those photos. I was happy. Beyond happy. No matter that I could see it with my own eyes now, happiness felt foreign to me these days.
It had been more than two months since I saw either one of them. Now, I had both of them right in front of me. Not in the way I would have liked, but still there all the same. What I would have given to have them both back.