You are enough.
You are loved.
You are unstoppable.
I believe in you.
Your potential is unlimited.
I picked them off one by one and cradled them in my hands. Will’s handwriting. Reminders.
He’d been here. He remembered.
“Stace?”
She popped her head around the door, tomato sauce smeared on her cheek. “Yeah.”
“Has Will been staying here while I’ve been gone?”
She took a deep breath. “Yep. For some of the time anyway.”
“Where is he now?”
“He’s gone back to his parents,” she replied, unable to give me eye contact.
“Why?”
“He wondered if you…needed space.”
I laughed. “Haven’t I had enough?”
She came behind me, took the notes out of my hand, smiling as she read them. “I told him to call you.”
“He left notes instead.”
“When is this going to stop?” she asked as she put her arms around me, resting her chin on my shoulder. “Remember how we talked about Matt being the right man at the wrong time?” I nodded. “Doesn’t that apply to you and Will? You needed time to work on yourself and now…it’s right.”
“I’ll call him.” She looked surprised but nodded. “Can you leave me for a while?” She blew me a kiss as she closed the door.
I picked up my phone and held it, wondering what my first words to him would be when my last words had been a flimsy goodbye.
Love had always been complicated for me. It was a wonderful addition to my life when it was there. Platonic love from my grandmother and Elliott. Quick and crazy love with men that were never quite the right fit. The love wrapped in friendship with Stace…and then Will. I was always terrified that it would leave me like the other versions of love I’d experienced. When Will told me he loved me, it became too much to bear. The heaviness of wondering when he’d leave after he saw the real me.
But that was it.
The secret.
The clue.
He’d already seen the real me.
The scary sides, the good, the weak and vulnerable. The funny, loud sides. Every single piece of me was unfolded for him. Slowly, over years, but so fucking true. It was the equivalent of peeling the skin off my bones and showing him what lay underneath.
In Amsterdam, I talked. I let myself listen to my truths rather than hushing them quiet. Through group counselling sessions I heard other people’s stories and walked with them a while. I saw people at their worst, through their lowest moments and was fortunate to be part of their highest highs. I shed the selfish side of me and looked through different eyes until I realised that I was tired of fighting. I had a good heart. I deserved to feel that good heart working, stretching and breathing and full of life. My counsellor said I owed it to myself to create a life I wouldn’t look back on with regret. To think of the moment I would take a final breath and ask myself what I’d like that last thought to be. I wanted that thought to be the certainty that I’d loved and been loved. That Elliott’s death shouldn’t be the marker of my life.
I told her that someone used to say my veins were full of rainbow syrup and she smiled and said I know exactly what they mean.
My hands shook as I found his name in my contacts. The ringing seemed to last days…long months, a year.
“Hello?”
“Hey.”
“How are you?” he asked.
“I’m good.”
One word here, a few words there.
In other words, torture.
“Are you home?”
“Yeah. Just got back and found your messages.”
“Reminders,” he corrected.
I nodded against the phone. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure,” he replied.
“So…”
“How’s the film going?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah, great. It’s all finished,” I replied. “I erm, wanted to ask if you’d like an invitation to the premiere?”
“Is that why you’re calling?” he asked.
I bit my lip. No. I love you. I want to see you. “Yeah.”
“Oh,” he replied, disappointment in one word.
“And…it would be good to see you.”
“Would it?” he asked.
“Of course,” I whispered. I didn’t want to get upset over the phone, but I couldn’t read him. He felt like a book written in another language, a crossword I didn’t have the letters for.
“I don’t know what to say, Skye…what you want to hear from me.”
“Anything,” I replied, squeezing my eyes shut as I tried to stop the tears.
He went silent for a second, I could only hear his breaths. “I…I want to say…”
“Yes?”
Another breath.
“I couldn’t help seeing the spark in you that you felt no one else tried to look for.”
I dropped the phone. The sobs taking over. His words finding their way to my vulnerabilities and holding them all safely in his hands. He said everything I needed to hear and for once I didn’t question if I deserved it, I knew without doubt that I did.
29
Skye
The night of the premiere had taken a lifetime to arrive. Not only Elliott’s lifetime but what felt like mine, too.
Robson had taken over the arrangements and Margot had finalised the film, slicing it together, editing pieces I wasn’t sure about. I’d noticed they had some weird vibe going on. She giggled in his presence and he blushed down the line of his throat. They were getting it on, and I was happy the film had brought them together. I felt like it had a habit of doing that. Finding love in many different ways.
I tapped my pocket, feeling my notes of the speech that I’d slaved over for steady days and long nights. I knew they contained everything I wanted to say. They were together with Elliott’s note. The one I found on the bed beside him. Two keynote speeches with very different ends.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please
