Meet Me Where the Oak Tree Grows novel Chapter 50

After sorting out my mom’s final arrangements, I came back home. Everything looked the same, yet felt completely different.

By the window, books were neatly stacked on the desk against the wall. A gentle breeze slipped through the half-open window, rustling the pages of a well-loved copy of One Hundred Years of Solitude. The edges were worn from frequent reading, and the wind whispered through them with a soft hum.

The unfinished chapters would never be read by her again. The book was still here, but she wasn’t.

I sat in the kitchen, eating the cookies my mom had made, one after another, until my eyes ached from being so dry. I had always loved sweets, and she’d promised these were extra sweet, but all I could taste was the saltiness of my tears.

No flavors came through, just the sharp bite of sorrow. I kept stuffing more into my mouth, until my empty stomach twisted in pain, waves of nausea crashing over me.

“Stop, please,” Jonah's voice was thick with unshed tears.

I couldn't hear him. I just kept shoving cookies into my mouth.

Finally, when he couldn't watch any longer, he took the cookies away and pulled me to the bathroom, forcing me to spit them out.

I resisted, crying, “Let me go! If I finish the cookies, she'll come back. She promised she would come back and bake new ones for me. She promised we’d go to the beach together.”

If only I hadn’t said I loved her. If I’d saved those words to tell her slowly, maybe she wouldn't have left so suddenly.

“Lana! She's not coming back! Mom is really gone.”

His grip on my shoulders tightened, his voice strained as he spoke the painful truth.

I stared at him, seeing Jonah’s tightly pressed lips, his pale face, and eyes filled with as much pain as mine.

Of course, she was Jonah’s mom first, and then mine. How could he not be hurting? He just didn’t show it.

I lowered my head and whispered, “I'm sorry. I get it now.”