Letting Go by Molly McAdams Read Free Book Online Page B

the hood of my car, and just listened to her voice as I did every time I got her voice mail. That same happy, nothing-can-touch-me voice that had always been distinctly Grey before Ben died.
    Without leaving a message, I got into my car and drove to her parents’ house, but didn’t stop when I didn’t see her car out front. If she wasn’t answering her phone and wasn’t there, there were only two places I could think of where she would be.
    I was just hoping it wasn’t the cemetery.
    Driving through town, I tried her cell one more time, and after getting her voice mail, I turned off onto an old, familiar path. I took what felt like my first real breath since Charlie had left my place, when I found Grey’s car parked out near the lake and pulled up next to it. Turning off my car, I looked over at the short dock for a few minutes before stepping out and making my way down to the place we’d spent so many days and nights when we were growing up.
    “I had a feeling you would show up here,” she said on a teasing sigh, her voice reaching me from where she was lying down at the end of the dock.
    I leaned over her and smiled when I found her smiling up at me. “How long have you been here?”
    “About thirty minutes or so. How’d you know?”
    I looked away and stood up, keeping my gaze on the dark water. “You didn’t answer your phone.”
    “Ah.” She laughed softly, letting the sound hang in the air for a minute before saying, “My ‘Jagger 911’: not answering my phone.”
    My lips pulled up in a smile as I moved to lie down next to her. “I never knew why you thought I had ESP or something, it always would’ve been so much easier to know you needed me if you would’ve just called.”
    “But I didn’t because you did have the ‘or something.’ You think I didn’t figure out after all those years how you just knew to show up? I knew Ben would call you.”
    I took a deep breath in and out, and finally said, “Let’s go back to thinking I had ESP.”
    Grey laughed and elbowed me, and as we had done so many times before, we fell into a comfortable silence just staring up at the sky. This dock had thousands of memories, and it never failed, every time I came here I was hit with them all. Every one of them included Grey, and most of them included Ben. We’d spent all our summers out here, and had bonfires near the dock when it became too cold in the winter.
    I’d taught Grey how to throw a punch on this dock, and had ended up with a black eye that she’d apologized for at least a thousand times. This had been the spot where I’d caught Ben kissing her for the first time, and realized that he had snatched her up from under me. It had been the spot where Grey lost her bikini top diving off the dock during a party, which led to a night of skinny-dipping that ended up with more than a dozen of us getting busted. Ben would call me after they’d gotten into a fight, and I’d always find her here. We would spend hours here with her crying and ranting about whatever they’d fought about until I had her laughing and driving back to make up with Ben. The entire summer after Ben died, I found her here every night and would stay with her until she fell asleep from exhaustion before putting her in my car and taking her back to her parents’.
    Good or bad, I would always think of this as our dock.
    “Why are we here tonight?” I finally asked, and listened to her soft exhale.
    “I just wanted it. I wanted the memories.”
    “There are memories all over this town, Grey . . .” I trailed off, the question still there.
    She was quiet for a while before she whispered, “Maybe because I knew you would come. I knew you would face the memories of this place with me, and even though some are hard, they are some of my favorites of the three of us.”
    I turned my head toward her, waiting for her to look back at me, and noticed the wetness gathering in her eyes even through her smile.
    “Some of my favorites,”