Needing dry clothes, I call the only person I can. She answers immediately and forsakes the niceties. “Where the hell are you and what’s going on?” she yells into the phone. In a much calmer tone she quickly adds, “Are you okay, Dahlia?”

She obviously already knows Ben is back, and I take one deep breath and contemplate what to say. “Aerie, I need some help. I’m at my house here in Laguna. Can you please bring me some dry clothes?”

I’m surprised when all she says is, “Sure, I can. I can be there in less than twenty minutes. Will you be okay until I get there? Grace called me this morning and told me everything. Dahlia, she told me Ben’s alive.”

“Aerie, let’s talk when you get here, okay?”

“Okay Dahlia, I’ll be there as soon as I can. I love you.”

I hang up the phone without another word and toss it into the console, open my door, and walk up the path to the house. A house I lived in with Ben, a house I mourned him in, and a house where I was close to giving up when life was breathed back into me by River. Now everything seems distorted, confused. When you trust someone and they break that trust—what does it mean? That’s what I have to figure out, that’s why I’m here—so I can think.

As I unlock the front door I hear the wind chimes that used to welcome me home and enter the almost-empty house. I see the few pieces of furniture left—our oversize sofa where it always has been, the coffee table, and the two chairs. The rug is gone, the lamps were broken during the break-in that destroyed nearly everything, and anything left was moved into Grace’s attic or to River’s house.

Shivering, I pull my knees up on one of the chairs and just sit there, trying not to think about Ben, but that’s all I can focus on. Remembering my life with him.

Before I know it, I hear pounding on the front door and Aerie is yelling, “Dahlia, are you okay? Why is the door locked?”

I hop off the chair, not even remembering locking the door. As I walk I glance at the old key-shaped holder Caleb rehung after the break-in and Ben’s keys are still hanging there. For some reason they make me feel uneasy. As soon as I unlock the door, Aerie swings it open, hurrying past the threshold with coffees and a bag in one hand. She looks almost as disheveled as me, in sweatpants, a T-shirt, her hair in a ponytail, and yoga shoes. I’m surprised because she never goes out looking so un-put together.

Grabbing the coffee tray from her hand I blurt, “What the hell happened to you?”

“Me?” She eyes me up and down once before continuing. “What happened to me?” She drops the bag to the ground and seems unable to talk for a few seconds. “What happened to you? Where have you been? Why are you soaking wet and covered in sand?” Her questions continue but I tune them out, really wanting to sip the hot coffee and strip off these wet clothes. Realizing I don’t want to talk about any of it, I almost wish I didn’t call her. She takes the tray from my hand and sets it on the floor, then immediately pulls me to her and hugs me as hard as she can. We both stand there, me almost a head taller than her, and I can’t help but cry.

She pulls back and looks at me. “I have been worried sick about you. Grace called me at six this morning assuming you were headed to my house. Then as the hours ticked by and you didn’t show up we all started to worry.” She wipes the tears from my face before wiping her own. When she brushes the sand from her clothes, I can’t help but laugh.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to get you dirty.”

We both laugh and the Aerie I know is back, the take-charge Aerie. “Where have you . . . you know what, let’s get you changed first, you’re shivering, and we can talk after.”

She starts leading me down the hall to my bathroom, like I don’t know where I’m going, and I follow her like I need to be led. Once we reach the bathroom she pulls out some sweatpants and a sweatshirt from the bag and lays them on the counter as she starts to unbutton the shirt I have on—River’s shirt.

Gently placing my hands over hers, I tell her, “I can do it. I don’t need help.”

Pushing my hands away she says, “Just let me do it, let me help you.” I move my hands and she continues to unbutton the wet shirt. A moment of comfortable silence passes. Then she says in a soft, concerned tone, “I’m sorry, Dahlia. I really am.” I know she isn’t apologizing for helping me get undressed.

Suddenly it hits me, the last time she did this was when she came to see me the night Ben was killed. I remember now, she removed my black cocktail dress that night because I couldn’t. Then she tossed it on the corner chair, where it stayed for a long time. “Aerie, this isn’t like then,” I pause and motion to where the chair in my bedroom used to sit. “I’m not going to fall apart like I did before. Sure I’m confused, but I know the situation is completely different.”

Pulling my arms out of the shirt, I point to the two items on the counter and ask, “Is that all you brought? No underwear?”

Staring at me a little too long she says, “Dahlia, I had no idea why I was bringing you clothes. I didn’t think to grab a bra or a pair of panties. Why are you soaking wet anyway?”

“I needed to escape all the chaos so I decided to go for a swim. You know swimming always clears my mind.”

“In your clothes, Dahlia? Really?”

“Yes, in my clothes.”

“You know that is not normal? Right?”

I shrug.

She shakes her head and takes the shirt from me that I just stripped off. I unhook my bra and throw it in the sink. She stares wide-eyed at the huge purple bruise that seems to have morphed from my side to the front and back of my torso.

“I’m okay, Aerie—really I am. I’m not going to fall off the deep end.”

I slip my arms into her USC sweatshirt and pull it over my head. She grabs the hem and pulls it down for me and I let her. Then she pulls my hair out of the hood.

“I think we need to get those tangles out, I’m going to grab a brush out of my purse. I left it in the car. I’ll be right back. Will you be okay?”

“Yeah, of course.” And then as she leaves the room I call after her, “Hey, you don’t have any toilet paper in your car, do you?”

She laughs a little and says, “No, but I have Starbucks napkins. I’ll bring you some.” And with that she leaves me in the bathroom to change out of my now partially dried and stiffened jeans. Her sweatpants are way too short on me and soon I’m just staring at myself in the mirror. Memories of the girl who lost her fiancé are reflected back to me. I clutch the counter and close my eyes—I am not that same girl. I am much stronger. I will not fall back into a depressed state. What happened this morning cannot happen again—this I know. Jumping into the ocean to escape all the madness was simply a momentary lapse in judgment. Right?

Opening my eyes I take a deep breath and exit the bathroom. I glance over at the bed in the room I never wanted to be in after Ben died and try not to think of the pain and suffering his death caused me—and for what?

Back in the entryway, I grab the drinks, and go sit in one of the chairs, blocking out all thoughts of Ben. Aerie comes in a few minutes later.

“Thank you so much for this.” I raise my large paper cup in the air.

“Yeah, well I thought you might need some and I grabbed myself a tea while I was at it.”

When she says the word tea, I think about River and the first morning we spent together . . . when I wasn’t sure if he was a coffee or tea drinker. How relieved I was that he drank coffee.

She comes over to me and the memory dissipates as she tries to brush the knots out of my hair but can’t, so just ends up twirling it into a messy bun and securing it with the elastic she removed from her wrist.

“Always prepared.”

“I try to be,” she says, grabbing her cup and sitting in the chair next to me. She looks me up and down. “You know, we can go to my place and you can take a shower.”