For Keeps. For Always. by HALEY JENNER (top novels to read txt) 📕

Just once in this life, grab one thing that can offer you a semblance of peace and keep it. The funeral is next Monday.”

With that, she hangs up, and for a reason I can’t begin to fathom, I burst into tears.

I researched depression a lot in my youth, coming to terms with the fact that my personality would be best categorized as melancholic. My earliest memories are persistent with sadness.

In my early teenage years, I believed I was caught in a constant state of grief. Forever mourning the life and family I’d been given. It’s all very self-absorbed when I reflect on those times now. I grieved because my family wasn’t what I expected them to be.

In truth, I don’t give credence to the belief that I was depressed. Nor was I grieving. On an elementary level, I’m certain it was far more simple. The absence of happiness in my life, in my home, was enough to hold me hostage in my perpetual bleakness.

How does one know how to be happy when they’ve never been shown it?

How does one even know it exists?

My life was monotone, a grayscale painting with no depth. It held dips of lifelessness that only forced me further into myself.

Then I met Brooks.

I met my best friend.

The love of my life.

As Brooks opened my world up, I tasted the buzz of happiness, and it frightened me. More than that, it petrified me.

Happiness was a drug. A potent sedation you could wake from at any moment. A seduction that would have you forever searching for its highs.

Grieving Derrick seemed prosperous when taking a third-eye view. But something inside me broke at the news. As if a valve finally released and the hurt and pain and rejection he painted me with flooded my body.

I was drowning, caught in a wave of emotion I didn’t know how to ride.

They were tears I cursed myself for shedding. They weren’t warranted. The man I had called dad for the better part of my adolescence didn’t deserve them. He stepped away from my life long enough ago that he should be nothing but a distant memory.

But following Jacinta’s phone call, my heart felt heavy. The agony I felt when he rejected me all those years ago, after promising he loved me. . . overtook me. Derrick’s failure was an open wound once again.

33

HENLEY

Voicemail:

“Brooks. Please come back. I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to leave. God. You fucked up, and I wanted to hurt you. Why do I do that? Why am I so set on hurting people the way I hurt? I’m sick. Call me back. Or just come back. Please.”

Voicemail:

*sob* “Brooks. I’m sorry. Please call me back.”

Text Message:

Please. Please. Please come back. I didn’t mean it. I do want you. I do want us. I shouldn’t have said that I didn’t. I was hurt, Brooks. You hurt me. My emotions are a fucking mess. Let me make it right. Let us make this right.

Voicemail:

“I know I’ve always cut you out when shit got hard. I’m starting to understand how wrong that was. I never felt it from your side. It’s awful. I’m sorry, Brooks. Don’t be me. Don’t be hurtful to prove a point. You don’t have to protect your heart against me. I promise. I’m in. All in. My heart has always been all in. My mind just couldn’t accept it. It gets it now. I fucking get it now.”

Text Message:

As awful as my childhood was, I wish I was there right now. With you. I wish I knew from the moment I met you, who you would be to me.

My heart.

The better half of my soul.

Brooks. Please forgive me.

Please.

Text Message:

I love you.

Voicemail:

“Do you remember the Whitsundays? Do you remember when Jada said something about forever not coming by often? You looked so confused. I was so embarrassed. Even though I told you I loved you often. I was scared it would frighten you off. She meant you. She told me you were a ten. I told her you were a forever. My forever.”

Voicemail:

“Where are you, Brooks? Even your mom hasn’t heard from you. I’m so worried.”

Text Message:

I’m now mad. At least tell me you’re alive. Or tell your mom if you can’t stomach the thought of talking to me.

Voicemail:

While you might not have reason to believe me, you were my always, Brooks Riley. You were the one person in this world that I wanted to keep forever. I won’t contact you again. I have to have faith that you’ll reach out when you’re ready. As hard as the waiting will be. I know you love me enough to tell me if our chance for forever is lost. I know that. I trust that. I love you. For keeps. For always.

34

BROOKS

I knew she wouldn’t be at the service. It would’ve been a gross waste of my time to even visit the church.

I know my girl. She would reject her grief, enough she’d feel obligated to mourn in private. She’d let tears course down her cheeks and deny the ache in her heart without anyone to hold her.

It was the way Derrick and Jacinta taught her to cope with her feelings.

The small hike through the bush is exactly like I remember it. Brush having grown thicker than before, forcing me to push my way through, the sound of the river pushing my feet forward.

My heart pounds in my chest, praying like hell I was right in my assumption. Maybe she’s not even in Lake Geneva. Maybe she took off to some far-off place to forget the way Derrick hurt her.

Maybe I don’t know her as well as I think I do.

I did exactly that when she broke my heart this last time. I fled. Ran away and let myself get lost in the world. I cut off all lines of communication to everyone who meant anything to me. Afraid any technology available to me would have me caving and calling her, begging her to reconsider our ending.

I spent