Since You Happened by Holly Hall

Chapter 24

Landon

It’s Christmas, and instead of spending it with my family, I’m lying on my back across my rumpled sheets with a handful of photos clutched in my fingers. I’ve been looking at them for hours, trying desperately to recall the sound of her voice. It’s fading, though, along with all the other sensory memories; the way she smelled, the way she tasted. They all fade into nothing. Or maybe they’ve been gone for years and I just haven’t accepted it.

That’s why I never brought any girls back to my apartment. I always went to theirs, entering tipsy and laughing, my arm around their waist, slipping out hours later in the quiet of the night. That way, my apartment remained untarnished by their efforts to replace her. Some of them showed up here after weaseling my address out of my so-called friends, but I never let any of them in.

Until her.

The thing about experiencing tragedy is that it leaves an invisible mark that some people can recognize in others. I saw it in her. I never intended for things to go this far, but she made me want to find out how she got the way she was. Weeks later, I somehow believed what we were doing was okay, that she and I were both alright with her being an accessory in my life instead of the main attraction. She didn’t try to replace my memories, or rifle through the thoughts I kept behind a mask of forced indifference. I never would’ve assumed it was because she hid a bigger secret behind those enticing green eyes.

The months that followed the night of November 14th were the worst of my life. Everyone around me tried to be understanding and helpful to the point of being suffocating, though none of them could possibly know the hell I went through. Once the numbness subsides after experiencing a tragedy like that, every emotion you can imagine comes snowballing after you, gaining momentum, until all of a sudden you feel them all at once; sadness, depression, anxiety, loneliness, anger.

God, the anger.

I think I punched more people in those months than I ever had in all the years leading up to that time. I would go out looking for a fight, picking the first asshole I saw hitting on a resistant girl and just cold clocking him in the face. Sometimes they’d hit me back, but that didn’t put me off. At least I would feel something other than my own fucking emotions. I’m lucky I never got charged with anything. Usually, the girl would back up my story with embellished claims that the guy was harassing them. I know it’s fucked up, but hey, there are worse things to go through. I would know.

My family tried desperately to understand what I was going through. They invited me to come back home and live with them, for God’s sake. But I knew returning to that loveless house would be worse than committing myself to an institution. I didn’t want my parents to try to analyze my grief and tiptoe around me, still pretending they loved each other. My mother even quit whatever she had going on with that banker guy she worked with to “focus on her family.” Like her returning to my father to play house would help me get over the death of the only person who seemed to take my hollow life and give it meaning.

They’re still together to this day, my parents, and “better than ever,” as my father would say. I wonder, sometimes, how he lives with the knowledge that my mother was screwing someone else. How he can still manage to love her and keep a roof over her head after she betrayed him.

That thought disturbs the dust on an old memory in the back of my mind. I look back down at the photo I’m holding, recalling something Grace said about forgiveness when I revealed to her what my mother had done. “It’s the greatest gift we are given, and we have the power to give it freely, yet we don’t. Why do you think that is?” she’d asked, sitting on the porch of our apartment in only my t-shirt. Her words were like music, accented just slightly, influenced by her Argentinian roots. “Pride,” she answered when I didn’t. “If the world just had less pride, there would be more happiness. Your father loves your mother unconditionally. To forgive her is the greatest gift he could give her, and himself.”

That was Grace, always saying momentous things as casually as she made observations about the weather. She was an old soul, forever making me feel like I was years behind her, though she never did it on purpose. It was in those moments, when she said something wise beyond her years, that I teasingly called her by her first name, Valentina. Because in those times, she was most like her mother, for whom she was named after. She was her mother’s daughter in almost every way.

I shoot bolt upright, my head swimming from the abrupt change in position. I drop my feet to the floor and pick up the box of photos from where I left it on the carpet. Grabbing the photos by the handful, I scatter them across my bedspread. I could never bring myself to get rid of them.

I organize them by approximate date, then by setting—whether it be the beach, at home, at an event—then I just mix them all up, because to her parents the order won’t matter. I pull a shirt over my head and put a beanie on, grab my keys and wallet and head out the door. I didn’t even stop to get my coat, and I regret it as soon as I’m greeted by the icy, December air. Too late now. One thing that’s never changed is my mind when it’s set on something.

I return to my apartment with a bag of supplies I’ve procured from a twenty-four-hour drugstore and get to work. Hours later, in the middle of the night, I sit back to appraise my handiwork. I’ve created an album of Grace. I haven’t spoken to her parents in maybe six months, but I know they will cherish what I’ve made. After all, only a few people in the world have seen these photos.

The only ones I haven’t included are the ones I’ve deemed “for my eyes only.” Grace’s naked form on the beach is the focus of one, where she’s lying on her side in the sand and the only thing in frame is the dip of her waist and the curve of her hip, with the waves in the background. I have several like this; ones that I wouldn’t feel right about giving to her parents, but that I can’t just throw away. This is my work. It represents a more sensual genre of photography I haven’t even attempted since Grace. So I file those away with some of my old work that I have catalogued in boxes. That way, she will remain forever as the beautiful form of art she was, instead of stowed away at the top of my closet in a cardboard grave of secrets.

I grab a permanent marker from the small desk by the window and lift the front cover to reveal the gray paper that lines the inside of the leather album. Across that paper, I mark in indelible writing: “Forever Grace.”