Chapter 2

Steve

My phone alarm goes off beside me, and I quickly roll over to turn it off before it can wake Tiffy. But the second my hand hits the button on my phone, I remember.

And it's almost as bad as being told again for the first time.

I can't wake Tiffy with my alarm because Tiffy is gone.

She's gone and I can't stop being mad that I changed the sheets before leaving for the tournament. She spent the night with her best friend, and I thought it would be nice for us both to come back to clean sheets because she loved that shit. It's all she talked about, and now the pillow doesn't have the indentation from her head and my sheets don't smell like her. I even washed the silk scarf she usually wears to bed too.

I roll in the direction of where she would sleep between me and the wall. She always said it was because she preferred the coziness. I think it was just because if she had to get up in the middle of the night she would climb over me, her thighs straddling my hips, grinding against me until I was awake and up.

Somehow, whenever she did this she never had pants on, so all it would take would be moving my boxers aside before she was sinking down on me and we would sleepily make love until we were both panting and moaning into the silence of the room. Then we would curl together, sticky and sweaty, when she got back.

It was my favorite way to wake up.

Because of my girlfriend's penchant for midnight fucks, I always hit the snooze button until I was wake enough to wake us both with another round that would inevitably have us scrambling in the shower to make it to class on time.

But I washed my sheets.

And now when I wake up, there is only an empty bed beside me, cold to the touch.

It's been 47 days since I last held her in my arms. 1,052 hours since we last kissed. 663,123 minutes since I said goodbye without knowing it was goodbye. 39,787,374 seconds.

Maybe I need to give myself more time to grieve, but something about losing her doesn't feel right, and no one is listening to me about it. No one believes me when I say that she shouldn't be gone.

Tiffany is my soulmate. When I saw her at that first frat party, I knew I was looking at my future. I was looking at the woman I was meant to share my life with. I was meant to fight for her; there was no doubt in my mind. But she made it easy because she fell just as fast and hard as I did.

There was an immediate connection between us. It took one look into her deep brown eyes to know that I was a fucking goner for her. There was no sword I wouldn't fall on for her. My parents hoped that it was a fling, that I would find a nice Korean girl who I would settle down with, but I didn't care. I wanted her. I wanted Tiffany and I was going to have her.

Fuck. I was going to marry her.

That sentiment crushes me under the weight of it. Any energy I had to get out of bed is killed by the thought of the box that's sitting in my nightstand. It was stupid. I saw the ring while my buddy was pawning his laptop for fast cash for a weekend in Tijuana six months ago. It was stunning, and I had to listen to the pawn dealer's wife wax poetic about the art deco style of the long sapphire stone.

I didn't care. I looked at that ring and I saw my future with Tiffany wearing it by my side.

A future that's never going to come to pass. I moved it from an old shoe box in my closet to my nightstand after I got back from that stupid tourney because she was never going to find it and ruin the surprise.

I was never going to be good. I talked a big game about wanting to play in the Olympics, but the game cost me the woman I love. If I hadn't been playing the stupid game, she never would have been on that bus. She never would have died.

I would still be trying to figure out the perfect way to ask her to marry me.

It's been 47 days and already the check-ins are stopping. The sympathy has reached its end. No one wants to call me to see if I'm doing okay. No one wants to know if I'm still surviving, because I refuse to sugarcoat it. I refuse to tell them I'm holding up and doing okay when they ask me.

Grief isn't a passing emotion. It's something that becomes a part of you and you learn to live around it, but some days, I don't want to live around it. I only want her back.

I look at my phone and the only thing that gets me up is the notification telling me that I have one saved voicemail. The voicemail I received after the bus crashed. After the love of my life died.

I have to really commit to listening to it when I wake up because it's a double-edged sword. I never know if the voicemail is a hallucination. Sometimes, I think it is. I tried to play it once for my best friend, but all he heard was static, and the look on his face is one that I don't think I'll ever forget: a mix of pity and embarrassment.

Taking a deep breath in, I hit play.

"Hey baby. I know, I know you hate voicemails and they're the devil and I could just text you, but I actually can't right now. I have just had the wildest morning, and I would wait to tell you all this until we were together again, but I'm probably going to miss the matches today. That bus that I found? Yeah, well, we got into an accident. Don't worry, it's really not as bad as it sounds. We got lucky that it was just a flat tire. I mean, I was terrified for a moment and thought we were going to die, but luckily, the driver managed to save the day, and better yet, some rich guy offered to let us hang out at his house while we wait for the replacement bus. That is the much less awesome part because who knows when that second bus will get here. This brings me back to that original point: I'll be missing the matches and my phone broke in the crash so I can't text you. You're going to kill it today. I totally believe in you. I love you so, so much and I can't wait until we're together aga—"

The phone always goes dead then.

I lie there with my phone on my chest as new tears leak from my eyes, a regular part of my routine when I wake up now. My mom understood for a few weeks. She gave me comfort in the form of my favorite soon tofu and doenjang-jjigae when they forced me home and away from the apartment I rented alone but shared with Tiffy.

It was the right call. Being surrounded by her things hurt.

It's something they don't tell you about grieving. How stupid things like seeing her favorite mug in the dishwasher can drive you to your knees. I wanted to put my lips on the places where hers had been to see if I could still taste her, still feel her, but it was clean and there was nothing in Tiffany left on the mug except for the knowledge that she loved it.

I glance at her chapstick where it sits on my dresser, waiting for the day I wear it just to feel her. I haven't let myself do it yet because I know it's the last thing that her lips will have touched, and I want to save that feeling. I would say it's for the day I want to say goodbye to her, but I'll never be ready for that. Not when that voicemail exists, a voicemail that talks about a flat tire, and not their deaths. Listening to the voicemail every day hurts, but it also tastes like hope, even if it's just my brain playing tricks on me.

My friends have tried to suggest I see someone, pointing out that I'm probably depressed. And they're probably right. I mean, fuck. Of course, I am. The love of my life is gone, but I don't know where the line between grief and depression exists. Maybe it's in my head that a line like that exists. For now, I hold on to that idea because if I'm still grieving for Tiffany, it means I'm still feeling for her, even if it's just sadness.

I manage to drag myself into the shower because I'm a few days past ripe. My hands linger on the beach volleyball shirt that Tiffany always stole to wear when she stayed over. Another reminder I've been too afraid to linger on, but today it feels right to slide it over my head before grabbing my keys and walking out of my apartment.

I'm slapped by the hot California air. It's July, and the Pacific Coast Highway is going to be packed today, but I'll make the drive the same way I do every day.

My phone rings and I glance at it, seeing my mom's picture pop up before I silence the call. My van roars to life and I put it in drive. In the passenger seat sits my guitar, where it's rested since before my trip to San Diego. Tiffy would laugh at me. I was so used to her sitting beside me that any drive I was taking alone, I had to put my second most valuable possession there.

"FUCK!" I scream, slamming my hands on the steering wheel over and over and over again until the burst of rage passes. I keep slipping between anger and depression. There was never denial because Tiffy wouldn't be separated from me unless she had to be.

With a deep breath in, I shift the van into drive.

I'm sitting on the guardrail, staring over the edge down at the water when I hear footsteps approach me.

"Steven," the stern voice scolds.

I don't even turn to look up. I just thrust the small paper bag that's sitting on top of the cooler beside me at him.

"Hey Officer Stick-Up-His-Ass," I say then take another bite of my egg salad sandwich. I hate egg salad sandwiches. I don't understand why they're a thing or why people order them, but one of the first few times when I made this drive, I had to stop at a deli for something to eat. This deli didn't sell egg salad sandwiches, but I saw the giant bowl of egg salad sitting there waiting to be purchased and I started to cry.

The man behind the counter looked so uncomfortable as the tears tracked down my face and I put my hand against the glass. When his wife came out to scold him for upsetting me, I managed to get the story out.

My girlfriend was dead.

Dead.

And she fucking loves—loved—egg salad sandwiches. She could get them so few places that whenever she saw them, she would jump and clap like she had won the lotto, and if we were close enough to our destination or had a cooler, she would get two, one for now and one for later.

It was the first time I had seen an egg salad since she died.

She fucking died.

Since then, Mary and Glenn will sell me an egg salad sandwich and give me one for free. It's wasteful, but I always throw the second one off the edge of the cliff like some offering, as if that's enough to appease the god that took her from me.

"That's Office Murray to you," he says before sitting next to me and taking the bag holding the donut from me.

That's how often I do this. I now have a routine with the people in this small town. The small town that Tiffany took her last breath in.

We sit in silence, both of us eating in peace. When his chocolate glazed donut is finished, he flicks the crumbs off his potbelly and turns to look at me. He's threatened to arrest me I don't know how many times, but the third time he came, I was sitting in front of the makeshift memorial, trying to light the candles set out for each of the girls who died.

It was raining, but that didn't stop me from trying to light Tiffy's candle.

"You can't keep coming here, son."

My head snaps in his direction. "I'm not your son," I tell him tiredly.

"Well, someone has to step in for your old man. Have your parents said anything more about trying to get you out of town?"

"Yes, they think I should spend the rest of the summer with my family in South Korea, but I'm not. I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't leave the last place she was. I can't leave her behind."

Murray's hand rests on my shoulder and he squeezes. "Everything you have told me about your girl tells me she wouldn't want this for you."

"What she wants doesn't matter anymore because she's gone. She's gone and I can't be with her. You know, my mom told me that there will be other girls. Like Tiffany dying was just a bad break up. She thinks that I should move on. She even tried to set me up with one of her friends' daughters. She told me that I belonged with a nice Korean girl who was studying to be a lawyer or something and not a Black girl who was a fashion major. I accused my mom of being racist and hung up on her. The worst part is, she told me she loved Tiffany when she was alive. I always got the impression that she didn't want us to get married and hoped we would fizzle out, but I thought she liked her at least."

"Have you talked to your mom since?" I could swear I see Murray's mustache twitch.

"No. She keeps calling. I'm not ready to talk to her. Tiffany was not disposable."

"Steve, Steve," Murray repeats until I turn to look at him. "You're not going to understand because you're still young and you don't have kids yet, but your mom doesn't want to see you hurting. She wants you to be happy, and I know that you're not getting over Tiffany anytime soon. She sounds like she was a wonderful girl, but your mom is worried you're going to decide to stop living your life."

"Sometimes I want to," I whisper, afraid to voice that intrusive thought. I like to think I wouldn't ever act on it, but at my most dire moments, the ones when I'm driving home in the dark and I see the cliffs beside me, I wonder if it would be easier. But then I think of my mom and dad, and I know how upset they would be, and I couldn't do that to them. I may not know if an afterlife exists, but I don't want to risk not being with Tiffy when the time comes.

"I know, son, and that's why I meet you here every day and you give me a donut that I have to hide all evidence of or my husband will tan my hide. Something about cholesterol."

"How do you think I feel eating all these egg salad sandwiches?"

"Is that what that is? A cry for help?" We both laugh. "But seriously, kid, I'm not going to tell you stupid platitudes about life being worth living. I believe you when you say Tiffany was your soulmate, but maybe we get more than one in our life, or maybe you're destined to live the rest of your life pining for her. I do know based on what you've told me about her, she would kill you herself if you ever did something drastic. So, I need to know if you're seriously considering hurting yourself."

"No," I say immediately. "Even if I'm pissed at them, I love my parents."

"Have you talked to the school counselor yet?"

"Yeah, I have and they have the same stupid shit to say as everyone else. Blah blah, Tiffany was a beautiful soul, blah blah, she would want you to move on, blah blah, you're still young, you have so much life ahead of you. I just want people to let me grieve. You know it took Henry the Eighth three years before he married his next wife after the one he truly loved died? That was his longest gap between wives. He loved Jane so deeply that he grieved for months, for years. Is it too much to ask that I want longer than two months to grieve the woman I thought I was going to marry? We're twenty-one. I should have had another eighty years with her. There was no time for anything."

"I think you should remember that you're not just grieving for her, you're also grieving for the future you were supposed to have. But I gotta say, coming here every day is not healthy."

"I'm not allowed to grieve how I want to?"

"Fuck, yes, you are, but you also need to start looking to the future. I'm just saying not every day. The answers you want aren't here."

Murray leaves me to ponder this for the rest of the day. Before I pack up my stuff, I throw the sandwich for Tiff over the edge of the cliff.

Maybe he's right. Maybe I should start to consider taking a break from showing up here. Nothing good is coming from it, and while I like to think I'm feeling closer to her, I know I'm just as far away as I am at home.

I climb into my van, putting it into gear once I'm ready. I take one last look at the water, knowing I'll be back tomorrow despite what I might think, and then I see it. A flash just at the horizon.

There isn't a conscious thought to do it.

I take my foot off the break and slam it onto the gas, driving right into the light.