Sometimes Moments (42 page)

I watched and felt the love of my life die.

P
eyton stood by and watched his loved ones gather around his grave. No matter how much she tried, she couldn’t convince herself to witness his wake. She had experienced his death in her hands. She had watched him die. No amount of happy pictures of Callum Reid could ever make her forget the last moments of his life.

The pain inside her was unbearable. She wasn’t sure how she had made it through the last three days, but she had. Her aunt and uncle had returned to Daylesford, having ignored Peyton’s objections. June’s album release had been cancelled and moved to the Docklands in the city. Life and the hotel had stalled.

She couldn’t will herself out of bed. Callum’s funeral was what had gotten her up. Jenny had driven her and attended the service while Peyton had stood outside, crying. Callum’s mother had been the one to contact Peyton to ask if she wanted to speak, but Peyton had refused. She couldn’t speak of their love. No one had understood when he was alive, so they wouldn’t now that he was dead.

Brain tumour.

That’s what Graham had told her moments after the ambulance had taken Callum to the hospital to await an autopsy. The first thing Peyton had done was slap Graham in the face for keeping it from her. Never had she believed that Callum was dying. If only she had seen the signs: his headaches, and his recent dizziness, and tiredness. She could have done something. After some struggle, Graham had held her and told her the truth. Peyton had cried and called her best friend a liar. It had taken Madilynne and Jenny talking to her before Peyton settled down.

The front door was always knocked on. But Aunt Brenda would answer and ask them to give Peyton some time. Jay had knocked on the door, too, but he was the last person she wanted to see. Callum dying had made Peyton hate Jay with more ferociousness than necessary.

Now, three days after his death, Peyton stood at a distance. Those who grieved him stood in her way of saying goodbye. She didn’t want to say goodbye. She still held hope that he’d be outside her window or at the pier or at their spot in the forest, but he wasn’t. Not a day went by where she didn’t cry.

“Cherry blossoms,” Graham said as he stood next to her.

She noticed the flowers in his hand and laughed. She actually laughed. “Lavender?” she asked.

He shrugged with a grin. “There’s that smile. He always did call me lavender boy. Why not get the last laugh?”

That smile he’d noticed faded as she looked down at the cherry blossoms in her hands. “I miss him. I can feel him with me, but I turn around and I’m alone.”

“I’m sorry he didn’t get the chance to tell you, Peyton.”

She picked up a loose cherry blossom and threw it with the wind, watching it fly. “He tried to tell me,” she said. “He also left me, thinking it was going to be better.”

“I know it sounds kind of cliché to say this, but I know he’ll always be with you, Peyton. He loved you more than you realise,” Graham said.

She only nodded in agreement.

Peyton gazed at the sight of people starting to make their way to the car park to head off to the lunch Mrs Reid had planned. Peyton wouldn’t attend, and the Reids knew that. She had seen them when she’d first arrived at the funeral house. The look on Mrs Reid’s face had broken Peyton’s heart. It hadn’t just been the look of a mother who had lost her only child. It had been the look of knowing that someone who had loved her son had lost him, too. His parents had arrived in Daylesford in a matter of hours the day he’d died, but they’d never crossed paths. They had been quick to take their son back home to the city.

“It’s time you left Daylesford, Graham,” Peyton finally said.

“What?”

“It’s time. One of us has to make it out of this town. Callum was right. There is something beautiful outside of our town, and for you, it’s Mads. You have to leave that farm and be with her. Your dad will be okay. I will visit him daily if I have to.”

This time, Peyton saw understanding flash in his eyes, and then he nodded.

“Give me some time to find someone who can mind the farm while I’m in the city. I can work from home, but I need someone to do the manual work. This goes two ways, Peyton. It’s time you left Daylesford, too,” Graham said.

It was her turn to nod. “Once the hotel is built and I get things on track, I’m going to see the world.”

A proud smile developed on her best friend’s face. “Where first?”

Peyton glanced at Callum’s grave before she looked back at Graham. “Austria. I’m going for the both of us.”

“That’s beautiful, Peyton.” Graham looped his arm around hers. “Ready to say goodbye?”

Peyton shook her head. “Never, but I’ll try.”

She took a shaky step towards the freshly covered grave. Then she swallowed hard at the sight of his headstone, his name carved into the stone.

When she reached Callum’s final resting place, Graham set the lavender on a clear spot, the countless flowers proving that he was a man loved by many.

“You loved her right, Callum. I’ll take care of her for you and I’ll keep her out of trouble. You’ll be missed, mate. Thank you for Madilynne. Thank you for making Peyton smile and laugh again. And thank you for coming back for her,” Graham said before he took a few steps back to give her some time with him.

Peyton set the bundle of cherry blossoms on top of his headstone and sat on the wet grass. As she stared at his name, her heart ached to see it mark his grave.

“I miss you. Words can’t express the pain and misery I feel. I love you, and saying it over and over again will never bring you back. I get why you didn’t tell me. I hated and loved that you didn’t. I get why you left the first time. Your mother said you wanted to leave once you found out about your tumour because you didn’t want me to see you suffer. And I also get why you left the second time. Graham’s right—you loved me right, Callum Reid. I promise to live a good and happy life for the both of us. Life is never fair, but you taught me it’s what you do with it because life is purely a cluster of sometimes moments. When they’re grouped together, they are the beautiful forever moments of your life.

“Thank you for our sometimes moments, Callum. They were beautiful and unforgettable. They are my forever moments. I like to believe that we were living the forever the universe was depriving us of. We made it to forever, Callum. And forever had never been so beautiful than when it was you.”

There were no tears. The reflection of their love and time together had her smiling lightly.

“I made it out of Daylesford. I didn’t get far, but I got past the signs thanks to Jenny. She misses you. So does Mads and Graham. But I miss you the most. I’m trying to live a happy life, but it’s been hard since you left. But you left behind reasons for me to keep going and find happiness in what I have. We had a love that most people will never experience. I’ll visit you in my dreams when I’m not in the city. I love you always. This isn’t me saying goodbye forever, not when I can see you and feel you in our sometimes moments,” Peyton said as she stood up.

She stared at the cherry blossoms her uncle had helped pick from her tree. They were beautiful and bright pink, a symbolism of him.

“Goodbye, Callum, my love.”

Peyton spun around to see Madilynne and Jenny talking to Graham. When they looked at her, Peyton smiled. They were her family. People who supported her through every loss and every pain she experienced. What she did from now on was for them and Callum.

“There’s somewhere I want to go before we head back to town if that’s okay?” Peyton asked once she walked to them.

“Wherever you want to go today and any day of your life, we’ll get you there,” Jenny said, a tear running down her cheek.

Looking down at her left hand and then her wrist, she nodded to herself. She glanced up at the clearing sky and breathed out.

God, if you’re listening, thank you for him. Thank you for Callum Reid.

“S
ix days, Callum. That’s how many days it’s been since I felt your last breath.”

Peyton sat at the end of her bed, holding the framed picture of his written love. Some days, she cried, and some days, she didn’t. On the rare occasion that she didn’t cry, she felt guilty that she wasn’t crying. People from the town still stopped by, but Peyton never answered the door. Her aunt still sent them away, asking for more time. Her uncle would stop by for a daily joke that would actually make her laugh, but then Peyton would stay in bed.

The feel of him was starting to disappear. He was becoming just a memory, and she hated it. She wanted to physically feel him breathe and move. She wished she had seen the signs of his failing health sooner; then she wouldn’t have had him work on the hotel. They’d have spent his last days together with no care. But Peyton knew Callum hadn’t wanted her to put her life on hold for him. She believed that was why he’d left town at seventeen, when he was first diagnosed.

Peyton placed the picture on her bed and turned her wrist over, following the letters she’d had tattooed on her skin.

Callum.

In her own handwriting, his name branded her skin just like her heart. The night after the funeral, she’d held her bandaged wrist to her chest, hoping somewhere he’d felt her love for him.

Suddenly, a knock on the front door had Peyton looking up. In the last two days, no one had knocked on the door, finally getting the hint that she wasn’t interested in talking to anyone. Peyton walked out of her room and towards the front door.

If it were Jay again, she’d do what she had done to Graham moments after Callum died and slap him. No amount of apologetic voicemails and text messages could persuade her to forgive him anytime soon. She just needed time.