The Best I Could (48 page)

A horn honked, Hetty’s van pulling into the
drive behind us. Deena waved from the passenger seat.

Tansy was the only one missing, and I felt
her absence like a gaping hole in my chest. Her first day of
classes had started a day before mine, and she’d been forced to
stay in Atlanta.

I’d gone to see her before I left, spending
most of the day in bed with her, holding her close, remembering
every moment, whispering words, secrets, pains, and joys that we
had no intention of sharing with anyone else.

“Did you see the garden?” Hetty asked,
climbing free of the van. “If you haven’t, I’m supposed to make you
go. Now!”

She ushered everyone to the back of the
house. Pops followed, pushing Mom’s wheelchair.

We froze when we made it to the path, eyes
wide.

“She did it,” Pops whispered.

There before us was a wonderland of memories
and dreams. A trellis arched over the back of the garden, the white
wood covered in roses like the picture my grandfather had of my
grandmother. Stepping stones branched off, leading into separate
flower beds, each one full of dazzling color, but it was the center
bed that drew my eye.

It was an explosion of blue,
the flowers made to look like a body of water, a fountain rising
out of the center, the boat we’d found in the boathouse displayed
on top, soaring through the sea.
Max,
it read.

A sign hung above the
trellis, a small pair of boxing gloves painted on it. An Oscar
Wilde quote rising above it all.
Keep love
in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the
flowers are dead.

Wheels squealed down the drive, and my head
shot up, my lips spreading in a grin when I saw the cars coming.
Ray and my boxing class of misfits.

Life, and my girlfriend’s garden of love, was
good.

No, let me rephrase that. Not good.
Great.

New beginnings …

Death, although tragic, also has a way of
bringing people together.

Death stole from me, but he also gave me a
new future. He gave me Eli.

Here’s the best part. It isn’t just romance
with Eli. He isn’t my crutch. I don’t need him in order to keep
walking and being every day, and I’m not his crutch. We’re sounding
boards. These people who understand and love each other, who want
the best for the other and yet still understands who we are, what
our experiences have made us. Me, especially.

I’d learned something huge. Everyone, and I
mean everyone, says to someone at least once in their lives, “I’m
doing the best I can.”

I used to believe that was wrong. That doing
the best a person could was a cop out, was this way of saying I’m
trying but just enough to make it look like I am.

Now, I understand that it means something
deeper. That sometimes we have issues which limit us, but not
enough to keep us from loving the people in our lives.

In those moments, we truly are doing the best
we can, and that’s okay.

Because, in the end, it’s doing our best that
matters.

From the moment I walked into my first class
at the college in Atlanta, I began living my life doing the best I
could.

Did I keep cutting?
Sometimes, but
most
of the time I conquered it. I think learning I can control
more than just my pain is going to be a life challenge for me.
Therapy has helped. Moving forward and taking my future into my own
hands is healing me.

Even though Eli and I are no longer in the
same place, we keep our relationship strong. It’s weird, I think
it’s what we know about each other, the things that we shared that
keep us held together. Distance can’t erase what we are.

To be honest, I think we grow stronger every
day. Like a garden sprinkled with fertilizer and water. By
strengthening myself, by growing as a person on my own, I am making
myself something more for me and for him.

Eli and I talk on the phone, and we see each
other on long weekends and holidays. Our family has grown closer.
With Ivy’s paralysis, Pops has needed more help than he cares to
admit. Lincoln has taken over most of the casino operations. Mandy
went off the pain meds and gave birth to a healthy baby girl. Pops
has the child more than they do.

Jonathan doesn’t come around much.
Occasionally, he visits on holidays. The last time I saw him, he’d
gotten taller and broader, his face less boyish and more rugged.
The red hair works in his favor, like he’s a sculpted statue lit up
by fire.

Deena is conquering school and boxing. Ray
says she’s going to be great one day, truly great, and I believe
him. Her anger issues are an uphill battle, but she’s better with
the boxing in her life. She’s better with the strange group of
friends she’s made.

Hetty is thriving with Deena in her house,
and she’s still trying with me. Even though I refuse to admit I
need the extra help, I’ve gone to pay my rent on several occasions
only to discover it had already been paid. I know it’s Hetty
because my landlord has a crush on her, which means I get long,
stuttering speeches about how amazing she is. I happen to agree
with him.

As for Eli, Pops was right about him. He is
going to be great. He’s at the top of his class, his designs
already getting attention from outside businesses. When he’s not in
school, he boxes. He’s training two classes at a local boxing club,
and he’s taken a few matches of his own. I was ringside for two of
them.

I’m looking at Ohio State for graduate
school. It puts me closer to Eli. It also makes us college rivals,
which is ironic because it reminds me how we got here. My parents,
their ill-fated love, and the pain their deaths pushed us
through.

I am stronger for the pain.

I am braver having survived the grief.

I am happier having accepted that love
doesn’t have to weaken me.

Today, I am graduating with a two-year
degree. The crowd around me is loud, the room is stifling, and my
shoulders are cramping. I refuse to drop them. My head remains
high, my shoulders back.

My family—Hetty, Deena, and Jet—are all in
the crowd. Eli is there, too. Probably sitting next to my stoic,
troubled brother. One day, when Jet quits pushing people away and
stops running, he’ll be great, too.

Today is my day.

When the graduating class stands, I brush my
fingers down my arm, rolling the rubber band on my wrist off onto
the floor.

It stares up at me.

My therapist told me I’d know when to let the
pain go, when I’d get to a point where I didn’t need the band on my
wrist.

Today is my day.

No one has to tell me I’ll be great. I know I
will be. I know this because I’ve taken each day a minute at a
time. Like the turtle in the race against the hare. Slow but
true.

The ring of olive leaves peers up at me from
my hand, and I smile.

The future, no matter what happens, will be
mine. It’s full of promise. It’s full of hope. And even though I
know there will still be dark times, today I can let go of the
pain.

PLEASE READ

Author’s Note:

While this story is fiction,
the issues it deals with are very real. Suicide, mental illness,
cutting, and depression are not easy topics to write about, and
they are even harder for those who suffer from them. Not only has
this book been a hard story for me to tell, it was also a very
personal one. I, like the characters in
The
Best I Could
, have been touched by many of
the things this book addresses. To those reading, if you are one of
the people touched by any of these issues, please know you are not
alone. There are places you can reach out to. Know that you are not
weak. That you are strong, you are capable, and you are a warrior.
Each day when you wake up and move forward, no matter how slowly,
you win. My love to you.

Below are some hotlines you can call or sites
you can go to for more information/help:

National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1(800)
273-8255

To Write Love on Her
Arms:
http://www.TWLOHA.com

Self-Injury Foundation Hotline: 1 (800)
334-HELP (4357)

About the Author

R.K. Ryals is the author of
emotional and gripping young adult and new adult paranormal
romance, contemporary romance, and fantasy. With a strong passion
for charity and literacy, she works as a full time writer
encouraging people to “share the love of reading one book at a
time”. An avid animal lover and self-proclaimed coffee-holic, R.K.
Ryals was born in Jackson, Mississippi and makes her home in the
Southern U.S. with her husband, her three daughters, a rescue dog
named Oscar the Grouch, A Bull Mastiff named Luther Von Kiesel, and
a coffee pot she honestly couldn't live without. Should she ever
become the owner of a fire-breathing dragon (tame of course), her
life would be complete.
Visit her at
www.authorrkryals.com
or
subscribe to
R.K. Ryals'
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Other works available:

The Redemption
Series

Redemption

Ransom

Retribution

Revelation

The Acropolis
Series

The Acropolis

The Labyrinth

Deliverance

The Thorne
Trilogy

Cursed

Possessed

Dancing with the Devil

The Scribes of Medeisia
Series

Mark of the Mage

Fist of the Furor

City in Ruins

The Legend Series

The Singing River

Retaliation Bridge (Coming soon)

The Embrace Yourself
Series

The Story of Awkward

An Introvert’s Tale (Coming soon)

In the Land of Tea and
Ravens

Hawthorne & Heathcliff

The Triple A’s
Series

Sex & Such