A smile spread across my face as I reached behind me for the tape sitting on top of another box. “Let me guess, no coffee this morning?”

“I packed that yesterday too!” Her horrified tone let me know she’d been kicking herself all morning over that. She fell back until she was lying on the floor, and groaned. “This is why I don’t do anything until the last minute.”

“We’re going to pass a ton of coffee shops, we’ll get you something on the way out. And you don’t do anything until the last minute because you wouldn’t know what to do with yourself if you were actually on time for something. Your world might implode or something.”

Raising one arm to flip me off, she let it flop back to the floor before sitting up. “Okay, let’s finish this.”

“How much do you have left?” I asked when I slowly tilted the box, waiting for her to put her hands on the bottom so the flaps wouldn’t open again.

“Just packing up the truck, this was the last box.”

“Truck is full, these will have to go in your car. And look at you trying to be on time,” I mumbled, and she laughed.

“You would’ve been so proud of me. I was running around here like mad packing up everything I saw left out.”

Glancing up at her, I smirked. “And you still failed.”

She made a face, but didn’t say anything else.

I taped the box shut and stood up, extending an arm to help her up as well. “All right, well, let’s get started and get on the road before you go into severe caffeine withdrawal.”

I grabbed that box and stacked it on top of another. Lifting them both up, I walked into her living room and looked at the counter. A frown tugged at my lips, and I turned in a slow circle, seeing only boxes. “Grey, where are your keys?”

“In my purse,” she called out from down the hall.

“Yeah. Where’s your purse?”

“On the counter where it always—” She cut off when she turned the corner into the living room, her eyebrows pinching together as she looked at the bare counter. I watched as her mouth slowly dropped open and her eyes widened as she looked at the boxes in the living room she’d packed this morning. “Son of a bitch.”

AFTER CUTTING OPEN two boxes to find her purse and keys, I finished loading up all the boxes while she went to turn in everything to the leasing office, and we were finally on our way back to Thatch. Well, after we stopped to fill up her car with gas since she’d forgotten to, and gotten her coffee. The drive only took a little over three hours, and then we were pulling into the town we’d grown up in. Small in size and population, but full of memories that hit me hard the second we’d rounded the massive lake that hid our town, and I wondered how Grey was doing now that we were here.

She’d only been able to handle being here for a little over a month last summer, and hadn’t come back at all during the winter break a handful of months ago. Even though she’d already been getting so much better before that, to the point where she had been the one to bring up moving back here right after the school year had started, I couldn’t help but remember how she’d said she was scared to come back here just last week. I knew if I could see her right now, she’d be gripping Ben’s ring that hung on the chain around her neck. What I didn’t know was if she was happy to be remembering times with him here, or if the memories were all too much.

And a few minutes later I had my answer.

At the last second, she took the exit toward the cemetery, and I cursed and hit the brakes so I could follow her. By the time I’d parked and gotten out of the rented truck, she’d already found his headstone. She stood there for a few minutes, her body swaying as she clutched at the necklace before she suddenly fell to her knees. I took a couple steps toward her before stopping myself, and ran my hands over my head as I forced myself back to lean up against the truck.

She hadn’t been back here since the funeral, so I knew she needed this, and she needed to do it alone. But for her, and for me, I needed to be here for when she was ready to leave.

My throat tightened when her cries reached me, and I dropped my head to look at the ground as I fought with my own tears, her grief added to mine. I hated that he was gone. I hated that she was in pain. I hated that it felt like there was nothing I could do to help her.

My head snapped up seconds before Grey slumped against my chest, and my arms automatically went around her. I don’t know how long we’d been there, but her face was red and wet with tears. Her eyes looked vacant as she took in where we were standing, and even though her breaths were shallow, they were even.

“How is he?” I asked a few minutes later, and her eyes slowly moved to look up at me.

She stared for countless moments before her lips opened enough for her to say, “He’s good.”

I nodded and lowered my voice to a whisper. “And how are you?”

“Broken,” she answered immediately. “Broken, but moving.”

“Sounds like you’re right where you should be.”

A faint smile played on her lips for a second before falling. “How are you?”

I’m broken too, I thought. I break a little more every time you do. I’m torn. I’ve never hated myself more for wanting you than I have since Ben died. I want to make your pain go away. I want my best friend back. I would give f**king anything to take his place just so you could be whole again. Looking into her honey-gold eyes, I shrugged. “I’m moving.”