Page 31 of Came the Closest
“What, being your fake fiancée?”
Faint smile lines crinkle his eyes. “I meant facing the lake house, but sure.”
Honesty is the best policy, so I say, “Not really. You?”
“Not by a long shot.”
“Good.” I nod once, then twice. A smile wobbles on my lips. “Two negatives equal a positive, right?”
Colton laughs, and the easy rumble is the shot of confidence I need. I step around him, the cement cracked under my Birkenstocks, and dig for the key in my tote bag. The striped decorative mailbox still hangs by the front door. I wonder if Colton remembers leaving letters there for one another. Meaningless ones, mostly; rarely more than meet me on the dock at 3 or do you want cheese on your burger tonight?
Not meaningless to me, though. I still have his letters, tucked on the shelf in my closet here, just paces away from the window nook. I wonder if he has mine somewhere.
The house smells stale when I step over the threshold, like it always used to at the start of spring. Even still, I smell peony and freshness hovering underneath that. Mom almost always had a candle burning somewhere in the house—in the living room on the coffee table or in the kitchen on the island. I used to become so mesmerized by the flames reflecting on the white slatwall in my parents’ bedroom at night that I’d fall asleep nestled into their covers.
I register Colton stepping inside behind me and quietly closing the door, but I stand still to take everything in. It feels like I’ve never been here but also like I never left. Like when my family closed up the lake house last summer, they didn’t fully close it; they left it suspended in a fragment of time.
The keys for Dad’s 1985 Bronco sit on the wicker entryway table next to an empty clay vase, probably because Justin forgot to hang them back in the kitchen. A laundry basket is propped against the scratched banister of the staircase to my right with one stray sock lingering in its corner. Dust lingers on white baseboards and drawn curtains keep daylight out.
I move forward and then I pause to look at the pictures on the wall. Most of them are crooked.
My brothers, cousins, Colton, and I jumping off the dock. Justin, sitting at the kitchen island in nothing but swim trunks, studying for the Bar exam with a half-eaten Nutty Bar in hand. High school graduations. Beau and Kaia nestled into the bow of the boat with an infant Tate cradled to my brother’s bare chest. Dad, his brother Ty, and Grandpa standing by the grill on the deck. Colton, age 10, shirtless, next to Dad on the dock with his three-pound walleye. A fiery sunset over a glass like lake. Me, age 14, beaming over my shoulder, paintbrush in hand, a canvas on an easel in the sunroom. Weddings—Grandpa and Grandma, Mom and Dad, Ty and Rosie, Beau and Kaia.
Mine and Stephen’s.
I pull the frame from the wall. I want to drop it in the lake, never to be seen again, but I like the environment too much to litter. It would also waste a perfectly good frame. I settle for placing it facedown on the entry table and continue down the hall.
We updated the house over the years. Stainless steel appliances in the kitchen one summer, faucets that didn’t leak in the bathrooms the next. Bigger windows to overlook the lake from the living room. Fresh paint in most of the rooms, if only for a rainy day project. Enclosing the sunroom to accommodate chilly spring mornings and crisp fall afternoons. New throw pillows when we got the new sofa, because naturally.
All of them are still on the sofas, but like the laundry basket and the keys, they’re a little rumpled. Like maybe Justin rested his head on one for an afternoon nap, or Dad’s elbow creased a different one when he read the morning newspaper.
Choose Happy, one of them reads. Orange-ish pink all caps letters ironed onto a sunny yellow background.
I lose it.
Of course, it would be the throw pillow that does me in. Not the coffee mug tree in the kitchen corner or the artwork from my childhood on the fridge or the pictures in the hallway.
The throw pillow.
For the first time in months, I cry. Real, salty tears that roll down my cheeks to drip off my chin onto my crewneck sweatshirt. I don’t even try to wipe them away. I just stand there and stare at it through blurry eyes until Colton blocks my view by folding me into his arms.
He doesn’t ask me what’s wrong and he doesn’t tell me to stop crying. He tucks my head under his bristled chin and massages the nape of my neck with unwittingly tender fingers. His other palm drifts up and down my spine between my sweatshirt and tank top, chills chasing his touch.
My fingers curl into the soft material of his Falls Lake tee—the kind of soft that means he’s worn it at least three times post wash. “I haven’t—” I choke on a sob “—I haven’t been doing that.”
Colton doesn’t miss a beat. “Doing what, sweetheart?”
“That.” I point around him, hopefully in the general vicinity of the pillow, and the tears fall harder because of his endearment. “The throw pillow. I haven’t been—” another sob “—I haven’t been choosing happy.”
In my current state—eyes squeezed closed, fingers fisted in his shirt, shoulders curling in on themselves—I feel more than see understanding sink in for Colton. It’s how he squeezes my lower back and in the soft kiss he probably shouldn’t press to the top of my head. Because despite all odds, we’re here. Together, at the lake house, if only for one last summer.
Maybe… I don’t know.
Maybe souls can be mates without their people being soulmates. Maybe that’s what Colton meant when he said we came the closest—souls, bound together; persons, not compatible.
“Cheyenne, look at me.” Colton shifts enough to make me miss his warmth, but his fingertips find my jaw. “Life has dealt you a crappy hand recently, and I don’t blame you for not choosing happy. But the thing is that you do have to; you have to choose it. Happiness doesn’t come searching for us, but it is always around us. We just have to—well, to quote a throw pillow, choose happy.”
I find a watery smile. “It should say choose happy because happy doesn’t choose you.”